There's Been a Death in the Opposite House
by Emily Dickinson

American poet. Began writing poetry, according to her own declaration, in the winter of 1861-62. All but a handful of her poems were unpublished in her lifetime. She left over a thousand manuscripts which were gradually collected and published by her sister Lavinia. The three volumes brought out between 1891 and 1896 revealed poems of a deeply personal and spiritual nature and showed startling originality. After this, further collections of her work emerged, as The Single Hound (1914), and Bolts of Melody (1945). Her letters and selected commentaries on her life and work were edited by Thomas H.Johnson and published in 1958.

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There's Been a Death in the Opposite House
by Emily Dickinson

There's been a death in the opposite house
As lately as today.
I know it by the numb look
Such houses have alway.

The neighbours rustle in and out,
The doctor drives away.
A window opens like a pod,
Abrupt, mechanically;

Somebody flings a mattress out, -
The children hurry by;
They wonder if It died on that, -
I used to when a boy.

The minister goes stiffly in
As if the house were his,
And he owned all the mourners now,
And little boys besides;

And then the milliner, and the man
Of the appalling trade,
To take the measure of the house.
There'll be that dark parade

Of tassels and of coaches soon;
It's easy as a sign, -
The intuition of the news
In just a country town.

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There's Been a Death in the Opposite House by Emily Dickinson