XLV [Before the ice is in the pools]
Before the ice is in the pools,
Before the skaters go,
Or any cheek at nightfall
Is tarnished by the snow,
Before the fields have finished,
Before the Christmas tree,
Wonder upon wonder
Will arrive to me!
What we touch the hems of
On a summer’s day;
What is only walking
Just a bridge away;
That which sings so, speaks so,
When there’s no one here,—
Will the frock I wept in
Answer me to wear?
This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on December 25, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets.
“XLV [Before the ice is in the pools]” was originally published in Poems: Third Series (Boston Roberts Brothers, 1896).
Emily Dickinson
Emily Dickinson was born on December 10, 1830, in Amherst, Massachusetts. While she was extremely prolific as a poet and regularly enclosed poems in letters to friends, she was not publicly recognized during her lifetime. She died in Amherst in 1886, and the first volume of her work was published posthumously in 1890.