Emily Dickinson Poetry Analysis

I analyzed this poem for an oral report last year so I'm going to test you guys as I had a lot of trouble finding the meaning to this. I picked the wrong poem! lol Analyze this poem by Emily Dickinson...

Time feels so vast that were it not
For an Eternity-
I fear me this Circumference
Engross my Finity-

To His exclusion, who prepare
By Processes of Size
For the Stupendous Vision
Of His diameters-

This "His" that is mentioned a couple times in the poem is God just so you know. And also (if you didn't know already) when I say analyze I mean what do you think the theme is. What do you think the poem is trying to say?

Emily Dickinson never ceases to amaze me. The central themes regarding this particular poem, to me, seem of time and our perception of it, as opposed to someone infinite ("He"). Immanuel Kant considered time one-dimensional, and, therefore, that we can only perceive it linearly and/or in an analytical fashion. An infinite Being, however, having no limits to perception, and also considering that time was once created, theoretically must conceive time holistically. With the common analogy that time operates in a circle, I feel Dickinson refers to our mere ability to perceive time's "circumference," but in no way otherwise; continuing with the analogy, an infinite Being, in opposition, may see time's "circumference," "diameter," radius, tangents, and in more ways a human consciousness may imagine, being, as Dickinson mentioned, finite.
My analysis of the preceding poem may greatly differ from others', and may not prove Dickinson's intention, but it only seems my interpretation. Thank you for sharing the poem, regardless. Good luck!

I've got a question of my own. It seems in English we have to interpret and present a piece of poetry by Emily Dickinson. We didn't select our poems, but I was informed that mine was one of the teacher's favorites. She said I'd have a good time playing with meanings. So far I'm afraid I've struggled with "Jesus! thy Crucifix" and haven't had much of a good time. I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions on word significance:

Jesus! thy Crucifix
Enable thee to guess
The smaller size!

Jesus! thy second face
Mind thee in Paradise
Of ours!

As of right now, my analysis is limited. What is giving me the most trouble is how the crucifix would "enable thee to guess the smaller size" and of what. Also, what is "thy second face."

I'd appreciate any feed back on the meaning of the poem.

Quote:

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Jesus! thy Crucifix
Enable thee to guess
The smaller size!

Jesus! thy second face
Mind thee in Paradise
Of ours!

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Hello, char_muse. I agree that this seems one of Dickinson's most difficult works to understand. In many of her works, she found herself as a poet of few words, obscuring some of the understanding of readers.
Firstly, Dickinson's family considered themselves very pious Calvinists, having a generally authoritarian belief, finding themselves unworthy and "below" in hierarchy compared to Jesus.
"Jesus! thy Crucifix" primarily addresses Jesus, and "Enable thee to guess / The smaller size," I believe, refers to beings other than Jesus seeming lower in spirituality, wisdom, and typically looked down upon, as compared to him. In essence, Dickinson nearly finds the crucifix as a pedestal that separates Jesus from us, "the smaller size."
The second stanza, I think, seems far more complex in the fewest words possible; one reader's interpretation could prove vastly different from another's, so I do not consider mine necessarily elite. "Jesus!" being addressed again now refers to his "second face," which, when Dickinson wrote the subject of the crucifix in the previous stanza, may symbolize Jesus' existence in heaven. The concluding lines, I think, summarize the thought that, when one dies, and finds paradise, Jesus will greet him/her, hence the idea that we also have a "second face" that will exist in heaven/paradise, and Jesus will "mind" or acknowledge when we die (like many of her poems, Dickinson often refers to death, but, in this particular one, indirectly).
Good luck, and I hope this helps. :)

Thanks Mono for sharing your ideas on Dickinsons' poetry, which takes courage. I am xeroxing it out for future consideration when I get a chance to really re-look at her entire work. She is something special.

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Originally Posted by byquist

Thanks Mono for sharing your ideas on Dickinsons' poetry, which takes courage. I am xeroxing it out for future consideration when I get a chance to really re-look at her entire work. She is something special.

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Indeed, I could read her poems over-and-over again, saturating my thoughts with her creativity.
I can never forget the first poem I read by her, which I still call one of my favorites:

Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.

We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labour, and my leisure too,
For his civility.

We passed the school where children played,
Their lessons scarcely done;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.

We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.

Since then 'tis centuries; but each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses' heads
Were toward eternity.

Waaaaay back in junior highschool, students had to choose any poem from a relatively large textbook of poetry of all genres, and write an additional poem that extends from the poem to analyze. Lo and behold, I chose the preceding, being a rather morbid, mysterious adolescent. Ever since, years ago, I purchased a thick book containing much of her poetry and letters, and have read it multiple times.

Mono,

I've long (at least from college; before college I was fairly ignorant, ignorant but happy! -- "Where ignorance is bliss, tis' folly to be wise") known about EmilyD, but about 5 years ago I read that biography that I mentioned somewhere in a Dickinson post. Really saw some things about her personal life and how it overlapped with her poetry. Also, read where Harold Bloom, while teaching a class on her at Yale would get "headaches" because he says she is just so far ahead of us and we are trying to catch up to her. Very respectful and laudable comment coming from a bright man. Byquist

I believe that the majority of reader carry an enormous mistake that doesn't let them interpret poetry in a way that you don't understand the author, but you understand yourself as the author that is more important.

To understand Dickinson's poetry -that is strongly influenced by it's historical context- we must put ourselves in a puritan family, missunderstood, lonely and with a eccentric poetic frenzy, or poetic grace (as they call it).

The last poem, very brief as Emily has accustomed us to view her words, precise, succint; in Emily's poetry there isn't one superflous word. Every verse is mathematical, with a perfect longetivity to inmortalized it's sentiment. Now, I agree with mono in many aspects; Jesus' crucifix, as a symbol in churches puts him as a divine being, that will be afterwards resurrected. His crucifix refutes his humanity, as christians have tried to teach for centuries, and confirms his divine nature. That is why Dickinson says: thy Crucifix/Enable thee to guess/The smaller size!.

In the second stanza, Emily shows us Jesus' second face, in this case, the true and pure face. Since, when we reach him, in his postresurrection, he will accept us, as mortals we were.

In summary: The first stanza represents the puritan conception of Jesus, and the second, Emily's conception of what truly Jesus is.

It's the first time I read the poem, and I must confess it was perfectly executed. I would've developed it with an extension impossible to capture such emotions in such few words.

No one could have said it better, Prufrock (my compliments on the name, by the way, I love T.S. Eliot).
The empathy in perceiving art, especially poetry, though expressed through words, seems especially difficult to gain without attempting to delve into the poet's mind - "what was Dickinson saying? What was she thinking? And why does she use such often difficult analogies?"
I believe she intended to share none of her poetry, besides the whole four published during her life time, making it all the more intimate, and solely for her to understand. I like to merely consider myself as an admiring witness of a historical beautiful mind. :)

I am not as wise as mono here above me, and the rest of you so all I can say is how much I admire and love Emily D's work. She writes it so plainly and simply but they are so complex. I didn't know that there is a biography but now I will definetly find it and read it. I only have a collection of her work but I keep it by my bed so I can read a few wise wrods before I go to sleep and when I wake up :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mono

Ever since, years ago, I purchased a thick book containing much of her poetry and letters, and have read it multiple times.

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Can you please tell me, which book is that? I'd love nothing more right now than to collapse, and lose myself in a book on good ol Emmy D'!

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Originally Posted by Paula

Can you please tell me, which book is that? I'd love nothing more right now than to collapse, and lose myself in a book on good ol Emmy D'!

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My copy:
Selected Poems & Letters of Emily Dickinson. Edited by Robert N. Linscott. Anchor Books/Doubleday. 1959. 343 pages.

Good luck! :)

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Originally Posted by mono

My copy:
Selected Poems & Letters of Emily Dickinson. Edited by Robert N. Linscott. Anchor Books/Doubleday. 1959. 343 pages.

Good luck! :)

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Ha! A couple of months ago I was in a bookstore. I bought the Odessy, the Illiad, Pilgrims Progress and Selected Poems & Letters of Emily Dickinson. The Odessy and the Illiad, though I know are great classsics, have remained untouched and unread. I only got to about page three of the Pilgim's Progress. However, I have not been able to put Selected Poems & Letters of Emily Dickinson down hardly at all. I'm glad to hear that I chose the right book on her. Do you have any suggestions on where I can look for a good biography on her? I would really love to do a paper or two on her in the future.

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Originally Posted by llamankey

However, I have not been able to put Selected Poems & Letters of Emily Dickinson down hardly at all. I'm glad to hear that I chose the right book on her.

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Hello, llamankey, welcome to the forum.
Indeed, I have found this one of the best selections of Emily Dickinson's poetry and letters. I felt a little hesitant in reading some of her letters, but found some of them nearly as good as her poetry, amazingly (one could say the same about John Keats also, from a selection of works I have of his). I purchased the book years ago, anyway, and still tend to put aside some time, now and then, to flip through some of my favorite poems and letters.

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Originally Posted by llamankey

Do you have any suggestions on where I can look for a good biography on her? I would really love to do a paper or two on her in the future.

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I know of none at the moment, but I intend to make a trip to the public library soon anyway (which usually takes hours), and I will take a look. Check back on the forum during the next few days, and hopefully I will have some suggestions. :)

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Originally Posted by llamankey

Do you have any suggestions on where I can look for a good biography on her? I would really love to do a paper or two on her in the future.

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I apologize for taking so long, llamankey, and hopefully you will still see this message.
I visited a local library and my favorite bookstore (of nearly the same size, if you can imagine), and found the following biography relatively informative, interesting, and significant:

Sewall, Richard B. The Life Of Emily Dickinson. Harvard University Press, 1994. 924 pages.

Happy reading! :)

would like another analysis of "A Narrow Fellow in the Grass"

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Originally Posted by audrey.pettit

would like another analysis of "A Narrow Fellow in the Grass"

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Despite its immense popularity among Emily Dickinson readers, I have always found this poem one of her most difficult. For anyone unfamiliar:

Quote:

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A narrow fellow in the grass
Occasionally rides;
You may have met him,--did you not,
His notice sudden is.

The grass divides as with a comb,
A spotted shaft is seen;
And then it closes at your feet
And opens further on.

He likes a boggy acre,
A floor too cool for corn.
Yet when a child, and barefoot,
I more than once, at morn,

Have passed, I thought, a whip-lash
Unbraiding in the sun,--
When, stooping to secure it,
It wrinkled, and was gone.

Several of nature's people
I know, and they know me;
I feel for them a transport
Of cordiality;

But never met this fellow,
Attended or alone,
Without a tighter breathing,
And zero at the bone.

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I think it essential to mention that many have unofficially titled this poem as "The Snake," though, anyone familiar with Dickinson poetry, she titled none of her thousands of poems. From here, I will break the poem down stanza-to-stanza:

Quote:

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A narrow fellow in the grass
Occasionally rides;
You may have met him,--did you not,
His notice sudden is.

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This reads simply that a narrow fellow (a snake) sometimes slithers through the grass - some have seen it (maybe not), but his presence provokes much attention and alertness (hence: "his notice sudden is.").

Quote:

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The grass divides as with a comb,
A spotted shaft is seen;
And then it closes at your feet
And opens further on.

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This stanza I have wondered about, asking if Dickinson implies following the snake through the grass. Obviously, the grass will divide while a snake passes through it, but I believe she refers to the grass divide closing when one steps on the divide as the snake has traveled elsewhere - the trail "opens further on," because the snake slithers further away.

Quote:

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He likes a boggy acre,
A floor too cool for corn.
Yet when a child, and barefoot,
I more than once, at morn,

Have passed, I thought, a whip-lash
Unbraiding in the sun,--
When, stooping to secure it,
It wrinkled, and was gone.

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These two stanzas deserve analysis together, I think. Existing cold-blooded, the snake will enjoy usually hotter zones, where the shade of cornstalks will not grow (such as a "boggy acre"). The idea of walking barefoot among a snake seems appalling to most people, making themselves further vulnerable to a common fear. Dickinson gives another perspective of curiosity (that frequently persists "when a young child"), wandering over to the snake, "stooping to secure it," but how it wrinkles and disappears, I wonder if Dickinson implies that the snake drifts away into a nearby hole, or whether the fear "wrinkled, and was gone."

Quote:

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Several of nature's people
I know, and they know me;
I feel for them a transport
Of cordiality;

But never met this fellow,
Attended or alone,
Without a tighter breathing,
And zero at the bone

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These concluding stanzas read relatively straight-forward. The majority of people interacting in typical human nature will always feel fearful of the snake - a very common fear. And Dickinson takes that thought further that the trend includes her - that she cannot stumble upon a snake without feeling fear (and its accommodating physiological changes, such as tighter breathing).
I hope I have helped, and wish you luck!

I need help on one of Emily Dickinson's poems. I need help with the meter, poetic diction, and poetic devices used in this poem. I need to locate and discuss any figurative language and symbolism. I will need this preferably before monday.
Thank You.

There is no frigate like a book
To take us lands away,
Nor any coursers like a page
Of prancing poetry.
This traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of toll;
How frugal is the chariot
That bears a human soul!

Hello! It's the first day I here.
I'd love to do a paper on love poems of Emily
But it's seems hard for me to choice the typical poems to show her contradictive standard of love.
I will appreciate everyone who gives me advice!
Thanks a lot

pls can i get a full analysis of emily dickinson's how do i love thee. thank so much. byeeeeee;) can i get it by today pls

Nick...Time feels so vast....I think this poem is about the futility of using your senses to comprehend the vastness of God's design. Matters of the spirit are best experienced with the eyes of the soul. This is why Scientific Analysis fails so miserably when used to explain the realm of God's ways. Although Emily stayed in her room for years...she was experiencing a world of vast dimensions. Just my humble opinion.

char muse I think this short poem about Jesus is talking about what God thinks when looking at a crucifix...that it is too small a concept to capture the vast meaning of God...too one-dimensional. A crucifix is a symbol of sacrifice through torture. God is so much more than that.

PoetryLuvr...this poem compares a book to a boat or a chariot that carries a person away from where they are. The metre has a bobbing feel to it...short, long....short, long......short long.....like one is floating away. "prancing poetry" is alliteration. The poet also stresses how easy it is to lose oneself in a book.......it is basically free..."without oppress of toll".

Hey I was wondering if anyone knew what this poem means. I am starting to come around to understand a little bit of what this poem means but i need a little help. I am suppose to write a 2.5 page paper on this poem but I cannot get that much information with what I know.

Remorse-is Memory-awake-
Her Parties all astir-
A Presence of Departed Acts-
At window-and at Door-

Its Past-set down before the Soul
And lighted with a Match-
Perusal-to facilitate-
And help Belief to stretch-

Remorse is cureless-the Disease
Not even God-can heal-
For tis His institution-and
The Adequate of Hell-.

Oh, three days after... still "good news" I hope
if you like...

Good luck!

-Kim

I put it into Korean... this morning.

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Thank you for the remind...!!!

-Kim

I absolutely love reading everyone's take on Emily's poetry. I am no writer nor am I the sort of person who can decode poetry like you guys can do amazingly. What are your takes on "Wild Nights"?

Wild nights! Wild nights!
Were I with thee,
Wild nights should be
Our luxury!
Futile the winds
To a heart in port,
Done with the compass,
Done with the chart.

Rowing in Eden!
Ah! the sea!
Might I but moor
To-night in thee!

People, help me discuss this poem. It was brought up before, but no one really said anything.
Because I could not stop for Death—
He kindly stopped for me—
The Carriage held but just Ourselves—
And Immortality.

We slowly drove—He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility—

We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess—in the Ring—
We passed the fields of Gazing Grain—
We passed the Setting Sun—

Or rather—He passed Us—
The Dews drew quivering and chill—
For only Gossamer, my Gown—
My Tippet—only Tulle—

We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground—
The Roof was scarcely visible—
The Cornice—in the Ground—

Since then—'tis Centuries—and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses' Heads
Were toward Eternity—

What do you think of her personification of death as a gentleman? I thought it might be to show the appeal of death. But in the end the speaker seems unhappy with her eternal ride (or marriage?) to death. Could be to say that even though one may wish to die at times during life, once one is dead and see that he/she is dead forever, life seems more appealing.

Does she even want to die? Is that why death "kindly" stopped for her? or did she have a choice? Is it about the inevitability of death?

What about the dashes and capitaliztion? I was told that they are random, but I personally don't see how anything could truly be random.

I can see that life passed her by, with the stanza about the phases of life. But what is the purpose of this? Is there regret?

Why couldn't she stop for death? Too busy? Didn't want to? Not in control?hm...

And the gossamer gown? does it have to do with marrige? I also read that that is what people used to be buried in...

If there are any other interesting or significant techniques she uses, just mention it. Thank you for something—anything.

I recently read through this poem in my English class and the interpretation that we got was very different. When the students and I read through Dickinson's poem A narrow Fellow in the Grass we concluded that it was about the Devil and temptation. If your interested in the alternate interpretation let me know and I will post it.

I am a first year literature student at a university in the UK and I have read some useful tips here on Emily Dickinson. I never read any of her stuff before yesterday and she is killing my brain as well as soothing it, which is weird to say the least.

I need to roughly, dissect "I'm wife.." and "For each ecstatic instant..."

We have a 2 part question; the first is to analyze the rhythm and rhyme patterns between both as well as look at language and tone.

The second part is to look at the relationship between Dickinson and the readers, as well as looking at how they reflect upon and / or are looked at by eachother. And also how poems effect us 'physically' and if so, how does dickinson effect me. or you. :)

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I like reading her stuff because she is simply a misunderstood genius with words and poetic form. I am not the most avid poetry reader but she has definitely struck a chord with me.

Thanks in advance.
half_a_dent

did you get any help with this? as am doin it myself now, and would love any help . thanks amy

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Originally Posted by half_a_dent

I am a first year literature student at a university in the UK and I have read some useful tips here on Emily Dickinson. I never read any of her stuff before yesterday and she is killing my brain as well as soothing it, which is weird to say the least.

I need to roughly, dissect "I'm wife.." and "For each ecstatic instant..."

We have a 2 part question; the first is to analyze the rhythm and rhyme patterns between both as well as look at language and tone.

The second part is to look at the relationship between Dickinson and the readers, as well as looking at how they reflect upon and / or are looked at by eachother. And also how poems effect us 'physically' and if so, how does dickinson effect me. or you. :)

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I like reading her stuff because she is simply a misunderstood genius with words and poetic form. I am not the most avid poetry reader but she has definitely struck a chord with me.

Thanks in advance.
half_a_dent

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Welcome to the forum, half_a_dent, and good to hear I do not feel alone in having my brain simultaneously "killed" and "soothed." Indeed, it makes sense, and, though I have read almost all of her poetry, she continues to do the same even upon re-reads. With this, I would love to help, but, FYI, it helps a lot if you post the poems.

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I'm wife; I've finished that,
That other state;
I'm Czar, I'm woman now:
It's safer so.

How odd the girl's life looks
Behind this soft eclipse!
I think that earth seems so
To those in heaven now.

This being comfort, then
That other kind was pain;
But why compare?
I'm wife! stop there!

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In terms of rhythm and rhyme patterns, and all that literary theory nonsense so many professors make such a requirement to learn, a lot of closed quatrains (the most popular structure for Dickinson), full of near-rhymes (which she only sometimes utilizes), and lots of alliteration (which she used a lot in conjunction with assonance). With language and tone, at least to me, Dickinson composed this poem with a surprisingly flustered self-conviction, so surprising because the majority of her poetry seems to have a depressing tone to it; this, on the contrary, contains self-identity, blunt language with few adjectives or adverbs (as opposed to the usual high number of similes and metaphors in her poetry), and frustration.
Now to the good stuff of analysis and reflection. :)
How Dickinson, this poem, or her other poetry affects you, half_a_dent, I have no idea, but this poem, to me, touches unique subjects of development, societal conformation, and powerlessness, the latter-most likely appearing as the only common theme in the poet's works. Whether she wrote this particular poem about a specific person seems debatable, but with the usual introspective nature of Dickinson's poetry, I feel compelled to remain more upon the side the poet writing of her own internal fight of growth from a girl to a woman, but it indeed reads with some feeling as though she wrote from another married woman's perspective, hence somewhat of a satire.
As the saying goes, "hindsight is 20/20," Dickinson envelopes that contemporary phrase in a psychological theme of a girl transitioning to womanhood in the somewhat self-righteous and more sociologically acceptable role of a wife, the "Czar," and, with that term, it makes me wonder if Dickinson intended the pun to a satire, the all-powerful wife. The girl's life, "the finished state" in the first stanza, appears rather absurd and foreign, as if the speaker lives now upon higher ground from what she overcame, hence the metaphor closing the second stanza of seeing earth from heaven, staring from a superior paradise to from where one came. The speaker takes comfort in her position as "Czar," and almost gives the impression that no higher exists, this heavenly seat of womanhood, ascended from an earthly child. "But why compare?" she asks, and that Dickinson ended the questionable satire with "stop there!" makes one ask if this somewhat manic feeling of reaching the "Czar wife" does not appear the highest of heavens it seems according to the speaker; perhaps the ascended girl thought childhood a heaven from earth, just as the woman feels of her present state.
How this makes me feel, to answer your final question? Powerless and living in an ignorant state of self-righteousness, yet simultaneous neverending growth.
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For each ecstatic instant
We must an anguish pay
In keen and quivering ratio
To the ecstasy.

For each beloved hour
Sharp pittances of years,
Bitter contested farthings
And coffers heaped with tears.

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Of rhythm and rhyme patterns, this easily classifies as a ballad, again in quatrains, the most common form of Dickinson's poetry; this poem also reads iambic in nature, an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed, thus "For each ecstatic instant / We must an anguish pay . . . etc. Of language and tone, this reads immensely more like a common Dickinson poem with its themes of hopelessness, joy, inevitable sorrow, and written in the most alluring and tempting-to-the-ear vocabulary and metaphors.
The poem itself, if one can dissect the language, reads with some simplicity, that virtually the sweet cannot exist without the sour, that "ecstasy" and "anguish" thrive hand-in-hand, that "beloved hours" and "sharp pittances of years" persist in a universal "ratio," balancing the opposites of what we interpret as the good and bad in whatever concentrations, so to speak, they present themselves in the medium of uncontrolled time. How can this make the reader feel, you ask? Once again, powerless, hopeless, and bound to suffering to deserve and tempt joy.