They shut me up in Prose - (445)
They shut me up in Prose -
As when a little Girl
They put me in the Closet -
Because they liked me “still” -
Still! Could themself have peeped -
And seen my Brain - go round -
They might as wise have lodged a Bird
For Treason - in the Pound -
Himself has but to will
And easy as a Star
Look down opon Captivity -
And laugh - No more have I -
Notes:
The Poetry Foundation often receives questions about Emily Dickinson's poems. Read a note from the digital archive editor about Dickinson's "errors."
Copyright Credit: THE POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON: READING EDITION, edited by Ralph W. Franklin, Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Copyright © 1998, 1999 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Copyright © 1951, 1955 , by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Copyright © 1979, 1983 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Copyright © 1914, 1918, 1924, 1929, 1930, 1932, 1935, 1937, 1942 by Martha Dickinson Bianchi. Copyright © 1952, 1957, 1958, 1963, 1965 by Mary L. Hampson.
Source: The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Reading Edition, ed by Ralph W. Franklin (Harvard University Press, 1999)