My Life Closed Twice before Its Close

Emily Dickinson · 1890

Catalog grade guidance: 9–12 — Short lyric; Todd/Higginson text of the three early series.

10 content lines · 46 words · Est. recitation about 30 sec (approx.)

Public-domain text for reading and recitation practice. Source: Project Gutenberg eBook #12242, Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series, Complete.Estimated time uses ~120 words/minute plus short pauses—not a contest rule.

XIII.

PARTING.

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.