There Is a Languor of the Life
poem 396
There Is a Languor of the Life - context Summary
Published 1890
Written in the later 19th century and first published in Emily Dickinson’s 1890 Poems, this short lyric frames emotional numbness as the aftermath of suffering. Dickinson uses clinical and natural imagery—surgeon, fog, mists—to show that after extreme pain the self can enter a dormant state beyond medical help. The poem reflects Victorian-era tensions between scientific authority and spiritual or existential limits.
Read Complete AnalysesThere is a Languor of the Life More imminent than Pain ‘Tis Pain’s Successor When the Soul Has suffered all it can A Drowsiness diffuses A Dimness like a Fog Envelops Consciousness As Mists obliterate a Crag. The Surgeon does not blanch at pain His Habit is severe But tell him that it ceased to feel The Creature lying there And he will tell you skill is late A Mightier than He Has ministered before Him There’s no Vitality.
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