I measure every Grief I meet by Emily Dickinson - Poem for the First Sunday after Pentecost, Year C

The Englewood Review of Books curates a weekly series of classic and contemporary poems that resonate with the themes of the lectionary readings. Here is one of the poems for this coming Sunday (More poems for the First Sunday after Pentecost, Year C can be found here)

I measure every Grief I meet

Emily Dickinson

to accompany the lectionary reading: Romans 5:1-5

I measure every Grief I meet

With narrow, probing, eyes –

I wonder if It weighs like Mine –

Or has an Easier size.

I wonder if They bore it long –

Or did it just begin –

I could not tell the Date of Mine –

It feels so old a pain –

I wonder if it hurts to live –

And if They have to try –

And whether – could They choose between –

It would not be – to die –

I note that Some – gone patient long –

At length, renew their smile –

An imitation of a Light

That has so little Oil –

I wonder if when Years have piled –

Some Thousands – on the Harm –

That hurt them early – such a lapse

Could give them any Balm –

Or would they go on aching still

Through Centuries of Nerve –

Enlightened to a larger Pain –

In Contrast with the Love –

The Grieved – are many – I am told –

There is the various Cause –

Death – is but one – and comes but once –

And only nails the eyes –

There’s Grief of Want – and grief of Cold –

A sort they call “Despair” –

There’s Banishment from native Eyes –

In sight of Native Air –

And though I may not guess the kind –

Correctly – yet to me

A piercing Comfort it affords

In passing Calvary –

To note the fashions – of the Cross –

And how they’re mostly worn –

Still fascinated to presume

That Some – are like my own –

*** This poem is in the public domain,

and may be read in a live-streamed worship service.

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) was an American poet. Little-known during her life, she has since been regarded as one of the most important figures in American poetry. Her poems were unique for her era. They contain short lines, typically lack titles, and often use slant rhyme as well as unconventional capitalization and punctuation. Many of her poems deal with themes of death and immortality, two recurring topics in letters to her friends, and also explore aesthetics, society, nature and spirituality.(via Wikipedia).