A Cap of Lead
- A CAP of lead across the sky
- Was tight and surly drawn,
- We could not find the mighty Face,
- The Figure was withdrawn.
- A chill came up as from a shaft,
- Our noon became a well.
- A thunderstorm combines the charms
- Of Winter and of Hell.
-
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
Dickinson's poetry is for the most part a psychological autobiography ranging from charming versification as in her
I taste a liquor never brewed to the more sedate
The bustle in a house. Applying well thought out metaphor it can be quite a challenge to arrive at her level of thinking. So it is refreshing to come across a
simple and straightforward moment when she looks out the window on a stormy day and composes a compelling and dramatic epigram first published in
Complete Poems 1924.
In between the clouds and desert floor today it is either raining upwards or downwards with bigly sized and high flying clouds. One can grasp the meaning of what triggered these passages that just keep circling around and around-- and around. A rich source of loudness, there is not much else to do but finally write it down.
Sources:
Public domain text taken from The Poets’ Corner:
http://www.geocities.com/~bblair/edcapoflead.htm
CST Approved.