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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Carol Rumens

Poem of the week: After Great Pain … by Emily Dickinson

‘A Quartz contentment, like a stone’ … a Mayan death mask.
‘A Quartz contentment, like a stone’ … a Mayan death mask. Photograph: Yannis Emmanuel Mavromatakis/Alamy

After Great Pain …

After great pain, a formal feeling comes –
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs –
The stiff Heart questions ‘was it He, that bore,’
And ‘Yesterday, or Centuries before’?

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