“After great pain, a formal feeling comes.”

— Emily Dickinson, 'After great pain, a formal feeling comes' (poem, c. 1862)

About Emily Dickinson

1830 – 1886

American poet who wrote nearly 1,800 poems, most of them unpublished in her lifetime, on nature, death, faith and the inner life.

“Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul, and sings the tune without the words, and never stops at all.”

“I'm Nobody! Who are you? Are you – Nobody – Too?”

“The Soul selects her own Society – Then – shuts the Door –”

“Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.”

“Oh, well has it been said, that there is no grief like the grief which does not speak!”

“I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless.”

Attribution note: Source disputed or unverified.

“The wound is the place where the light enters you.”

“Don't grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.”

“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.”