19. “Of all the souls that stand create.” Part Three: Love. Dickinson, Emily. 1924. Complete Poems

Verse > Emily Dickinson > Complete Poems > III. Love > 19. “Of all the souls that stand create”

Emily Dickinson (1830–86). Complete Poems. 1924.

Part Three: Love

XIX

OF all the souls that stand create
I have elected one.
When sense from spirit files away,
And subterfuge is done;

When that which is and that which was	5
Apart, intrinsic, stand,
And this brief tragedy of flesh
Is shifted like a sand;

When figures show their royal front
And mists are carved away,—	10
Behold the atom I preferred
To all the lists of clay!