It Feels a Shame to Be Alive
poem 444
It Feels a Shame to Be Alive - meaning Summary
Guilt of Surviving
Dickinson's poem confronts survivor's guilt and the moral unease of living while courageous men have died for liberty. The speaker admires the dead as noble, questioning whether ordinary survivors deserve life that seems bought at such a terrible price. The poem frames death in battle as a sublime, almost sacred sacrifice and wonders if the living can match that worth. Ultimately it elevates the fallen, suggesting their deaths confer a form of renown or divinity that the living feel unworthy to possess or enjoy.
Read Complete AnalysesIt feels a shame to be Alive When Men so brave are dead One envies the Distinguished Dust Permitted such a Head The Stone that tells defending Whom This Spartan put away What little of Him we possessed In Pawn for Liberty The price is great Sublimely paid Do we deserve a Thing That lives like Dollars must be piled Before we may obtain? Are we that wait sufficient worth That such Enormous Pearl As life dissolved be for Us In Battle’s horrid Bowl? It may be a Renown to live I think the Man who die Those unsustained Saviors Present Divinity
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