I’ve Known a Heaven, Like a Tent
poem 243
I’ve Known a Heaven, Like a Tent - meaning Summary
Transience of Ecstatic Experience
The poem compares a moment of rapture or revelation to a tented heaven or a traveling show: bright, staged, and able to vanish without noise. Dickinson emphasizes the sudden erasure of what once dazzled, leaving only faint impressions—a hue, a splash, a memory like a bird’s brief flight. The tone is observational and elegiac, exploring how intense experiences dissolve quickly into ordinary sight and forgetfulness.
Read Complete AnalysesI’ve known a Heaven, like a Tent To wrap its shining Yards Pluck up its stakes, and disappear Without the sound of Boards Or Rip of Nail Or Carpenter But just the miles of Stare That signalize a Show’s Retreat In North America No Trace no Figment of the Thing That dazzled, Yesterday, No Ring no Marvel Men, and Feats Dissolved as utterly As Bird’s far Navigation Discloses just a Hue A plash of Oars, a Gaiety Then swallowed up, of View.
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