Emily Dickinson

I Shall Know Why When Time Is Over

poem 193

I Shall Know Why When Time Is Over - context Summary

Published Posthumously, 1924

This short poem imagines a future moment after death when the speaker will understand present suffering. She anticipates Christ explaining each anguish in a heavenly ‘‘schoolroom,’’ revealing the meaning behind biblical promises and human pain. The present ‘‘drop of Anguish’’ will be transmuted into wonder and forgotten once its purpose is disclosed. The tone mixes devotional faith with consolation toward eventual comprehension.

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I shall know why when Time is over And I have ceased to wonder why Christ will explain each separate anguish In the fair schoolroom of the sky He will tell me what Peter promised And I for wonder at his woe I shall forget the drop of Anguish That scalds me now that scalds me now!

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