Skip to content

Scottish Poetry Library

Register/Sign in
Shopping Bag Shopping Bag
Bringing people and poems together
  • Home
  • Poetry
    • Poets
    • Poems
    • Makar – National Poet
      • Our Waking Breath: A Poem-letter from Scotland to Ukraine
      • A Woman’s A Woman
      • The story of the Makar – National Poet of Scotland
    • Best Scottish Poems
    • Spiorad an Àite
      Spirit of Place
    • The Trysting Thorns
    • Poetry Ambassadors
      Tosgairean na Bàrdachd
      • Poetry Commissions: Walter Scott 250
        Coimiseanan Bàrdachd: Walter Scott 250
      • Poetry Ambassadors 2021
    • Poetry Ambassadors 2020
    • Posters
    • Podcasts
  • Library
    • Become a borrower
    • Catalogue
    • Collections
    • Ask a librarian
    • Copyright enquiries
  • Learning
    • SQA set texts
    • Learning resources
    • Designing sensory poetry activities
    • Children’s poems in Scots
    • National Poetry Day archive
    • New to poetry?
    • Advice for poets
  • Events
    • What’s On
    • Meeting rooms and venue hire
    • Exhibitions
  • Shop
    • Poetry Highlights
    • Entropie Books
    • Stichill Marigold Press
    • Poems for Doctors, Nurses & Teachers
    • Scottish Poetry
    • Poetry Pamphlet Cards
    • Help
  • About us
    • Our story
    • Our people
    • Company Papers & Policies
    • Our projects
    • Our building
    • FAQs
    • Find us
  • Support us
    • Become a Friend
    • Donate
  • Blog
Shopping BagShopping Bag
Ask a librarian
  • Home
  • >
  • Poetry
  • >
  • Emily Dickinson
  • >
  • Parting
Donate Donate icon Ask a Librarian Ask a Librarian icon

Parting

Emily Dickinson

My life closed twice before its close;
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me,
So huge, so hopeless to conceive,
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.


Emily Dickinson

Tags:

19th century poems American poetry Despair & Loneliness dying English Grief & Sorrow

About this poem

Introduced by a variety of writers, artists and other guests, the Scottish Poetry Library’s classic poem selections are a reminder of wonderful poems to rediscover.

Kapka Kassabova on ‘Parting’:

I discovered the ‘lady in white’ and her poetry at the age of 18, at the very beginning of my émigré life in English.

I was then living in that disquieting space between languages and cultures. Her poems had the unmistakably quaint ring of the previous century, but even so, they spoke to me from a timeless, ageless, genderless place. Parting was the one among her poems that struck me, in the words of Kafka, like a blow with an axe to the head, and broke the frozen sea inside me. I already knew something about the heaven and hell of parting: I had left behind my homeland, and gone to the other end of the world, the oceans parting and closing behind me.

Now, a decade and a half and many other partings later, the poem resonates more powerfully than ever. It strikes to the heart of loss – all kinds of loss – as something that is huge and hopeless to conceive. Lost love and lost dreams in particular come to mind, with all their infernal Dantean overtones contained in just the final two lines. Naturally, one is curious to know the biographical events behind the poem, but typically for Emily Dickinson’s secluded life and transcendental work, Parting ultimately inhabits the ‘undiscovered continent’, the ‘landscape of the spirit’ where her best work is to be found.

Read more about Kapka Kassabova

Share this
Facebook
Twitter
Email

Learn more

Emily Dickinson1830 - 1886

Emily Dickinson, born in Amherst, Massachusetts, is recognised as one of the most startling and original poets in the English language, but was regarded as an eccentric in her lifetime and a minor poet for some years afterwards. Only...
More about Emily Dickinson

Newsletter

Sign up for our regular email newsletter.
Subscribe now

Online Shop

Browse our range of poetry books, cards and gifts in our online shop.
Shop now
  • Newsletter signup
  • Accessibility
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
Scottish Poetry Library
5 Crichton's Close, Canongate
Edinburgh EH8 8DT
Tel: +44 (0)131 557 2876
© Scottish Poetry Library 2022.
The Scottish Poetry Library is a registered charity (No. SCO23311).
City of Edinburgh logo Green Arts Initiative logo Creative Scotland logo
Scottish Poetry Library