"I see thee better - in the dark" by Emily Dickinson

"I see thee better - in the dark" by Emily Dickinson

In the poem "I see thee better - in the dark", Emily Dickinson reports her thoughts looking at a dead man in his tomb. She says that she can see him better in the dark because of the love which lights everything with a higher intensity than the extreme color shown by a prism, the violet. Like a miner who needs only his lamp to see in the dark of a mine, also Emily Dickinson uses the power of love to light a tomb, the darkest place for a person. So she doesn't need the day, the light of the sun or a lamp, because she has a more powerful light, which looks shining from the highest point of the sky. Emily Dickinson wants to fight against the death, using the feelings and the passion of the life. So the death becomes another life, where there are only the positive things of the imperfect one.

The poem is composed by four quatrains, and doesn't have a rhyming pattern. Capital letters and dashes are widely used, maybe to give more importance to each word and make pauses, creating a slow rhythm. The language isn't modern: in fact Emily Dickinson reposts ancient words like "thee", used only in the past or in the Bible.

I liked so much this poem: Emily Dickinson's words have a power I haven't met anywhere. She isn't afraid of the death because there I a sun always shining beside her even in the Grave or after life. Perhaps her love has a religious connotation.  I find this way of being very admirable: I personally haven't the same strength of the author, because I'm afraid of the death. I don't know want there's after the life, so the death is a fear for me. But I really admire Emily's religion maybe, her strength which helps her in front of someone's death or, worst, hers.