The Past
The Past - meaning Summary
Past Sealed, Immutable
Emerson's "The Past" argues that past events are final and unchangeable. Framed with legal and domestic images—debts settled, verdicts rendered, doors bolted—the poem treats history as closed and immune to emotion, trickery, or supernatural interference. Death is presented as a consoling seal on what has passed. The overall tone affirms closure and the impossibility of altering or rewriting what has already occurred.
Read Complete AnalysesThe debt is paid, The verdict said, The Furies laid, The plague is stayed, All fortunes made; Turn the key and bolt the door, Sweet is death forevermore. Nor haughty hope, nor swart chagrin, Nor murdering hate, can enter in. All is now secure and fast; Not the gods can shake the Past; Flies-to the adamantine door Bolted down forevermore. None can reenter there, - No thief so politic, No Satan with a royal trick Steal in by window, chink or hole, To bind or unbind, add what lacked Insert a leaf, or forge a name, New-face or finish what is packed, Alter or mend eternal Fact.
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