It Don’t Sound So Terrible Quite as It Did
poem 426
It Don’t Sound So Terrible Quite as It Did - meaning Summary
Facing Death Through Habit
This poem presents Emily Dickinson’s attempt to domesticate the idea of death by naming, reframing, and rehearsing it. The speaker experiments with distancing—putting "Dead" into Latin, viewing the trouble from different angles, and imagining it delayed—so that mortality shrinks from an overwhelming shock to a manageable event. Habit and intellectualization are central: the newness of the tomb initially looms large but diminishes as one becomes accustomed. The closing irony compares premeditated acceptance to a strange habit that makes even violent imagery feel oddly ordinary.
Read Complete AnalysesIt don’t sound so terrible quite as it did I run it over Dead, Brain, Dead. Put it in Latin left of my school Seems it don’t shriek so under rule. Turn it, a little full in the face A Trouble looks bitterest Shift it just Say When Tomorrow comes this way I shall have waded down one Day. I suppose it will interrupt me some Till I get accustomed but then the Tomb Like other new Things shows largest then And smaller, by Habit It’s shrewder then Put the Thought in advance a Year How like a fit then Murder wear!
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