The Lonesome for They Know Not What
poem 262
The Lonesome for They Know Not What - meaning Summary
Yearning for an Unknown Home
Dickinson presents a group of restless exiles who feel a vague, persistent longing for something unnamed. They are pictured as having strayed beyond a boundary and repeatedly attempting, like clumsy birds, to regain a lost height. The poem suggests a fleeting, early encounter with the divine or transcendent that made ordinary life feel insufficient, leaving them forever striving to recapture an ineffable, vanished intimacy with the heavens.
Read Complete AnalysesThe lonesome for they know not What The Eastern Exiles be Who strayed beyond the Amber line Some madder Holiday And ever since the purple Moat They strive to climb in vain As Birds that tumble from the clouds Do fumble at the strain The Blessed Ether taught them Some Transatlantic Morn When Heaven was too common to miss Too sure to dote upon!
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