The Tint I Cannot Take Is Best
poem 627
The Tint I Cannot Take Is Best - meaning Summary
Elusive Beauty and Discontent
Dickinson explores an aesthetic and emotional response to subtle, elusive beauty that resists naming or exhibition. The poem describes fleeting colors, moments of inner dominion, and nature’s suggestive restraint—sensations so delicate or overwhelming they produce a pleasurable discontent. Imagery of Cleopatra, chariots, summer and snow emphasizes beauty’s theatrical yet secretive quality. The final lines suggest human vision is cheated or shut off, leaving perception incomplete and inwardly altered.
Read Complete AnalysesThe Tint I cannot take is best The Color too remote That I could show it in Bazaar A Guinea at a sight The fine impalpable Array That swaggers on the eye Like Cleopatra’s Company Repeated in the sky The Moments of Dominion That happen on the Soul And leave it with a Discontent Too exquisite to tell The eager look on Landscapes As if they just repressed Some Secret that was pushing Like Chariots in the Vest The Pleading of the Summer That other Prank of Snow That Cushions Mystery with Tulle, For fear the Squirrels know. Their Graspless manners mock us Until the Cheated Eye Shuts arrogantly in the Grave Another way to see
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