“After great pain, a formal feeling comes – The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs – The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore,And Yesterday, or Centuries before?The Feet, mechanical, go round – Of Ground, or Air, or Ought – A Wooden way Regardless grown, A Quartz contentment, like a stone – This is the Hour of Lead – Remembered, if outlived, As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow – First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go –”

American poet

Emily Dickinson was an American poet. She was largely unpublished and little known during her lifetime, but her work is now regarded as part of the literary canon. The Poetry Foundation describes her writing as creating a distinctively elliptical language for expressing what was possible but not yet realized. Her poems are often read for their compressed style and for the way they open up feeling, thought, and possibility with unusual precision.