Crumbling is not an instant's Act (1010)

By Emily Dickinson
Crumbling is not an instant's Act
A fundamental pause
Dilapidation's processes
Are organized Decays -

'Tis first a Cobweb on the Soul
A Cuticle of Dust
A Borer in the Axis
An Elemental Rust -

Ruin is formal - Devil's work
Consecutive and slow -
Fail in an instant, no man did
Slipping - is Crashe's law -

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 (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1998)