They Have Not Chosen Me, He Said

They Have Not Chosen Me, He Said - context Summary

Composed 1859, Published 1891

Written in 1859 and first published posthumously in 1891 in Poems by Emily Dickinson, Second Series, this short lyric takes as its occasion a New Testament utterance associated with Bethlehem. Dickinson reframes a Christian moment—Jesus acknowledging that he has chosen the marginalized—through her characteristic compressed lines and paradoxical language. The poem reflects her sustained engagement with biblical material and her tendency to reinterpret doctrine in intimate, sometimes unsettling terms, making a theological statement into a personal, contemplative image rather than a straightforward sermon.