I Measure Every Grief
(In Loving Memory Poems)
I measure every grief I meet
With analytic 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
They would not rather die.
I wonder if when years have piled
Some thousands..on the cause ..
Of early hurt, if such a lapse
Could give them any pause.
Or would they go on aching still
Through centuries above ..
Enlightened to a larger pain
By contrast with the love.
The grieved are many, I am told
The reason deeper lies ..
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
Of those that stand alone ..
Still fascinated to presume
That some are like my own.
- Emily Dickinson
