Excerpt from Emily Dickinson Poem - What's it mean?

Question

My life closed twice before its close---
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me,

So huge, so hopeless to conceive,
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.


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Answer 1

In the poem, Emily re-examines a failed relationship from the perspective of a new life but the fact of survival does little to mitigate the pain of the earlier experience. In spite of the pain, the tone is not uniformly somber or anguished. Remember "The Belle of Amherst" fell in love but the relationship fizzled out. This poem reflects upon that break-up hence,"my life closed twice before" as in Death.

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