I've known a Heaven, like a Tent
To wrap its shining yards,
Pluck up its stakes and disappear
Without the sound of boards
Or rip of nail, or carpenter,
But just the miles of stare
That signalize a show's retreat
In North America.
No trace, no figment of the thing
That dazzled yesterday,
No ring, no marvel;
Men and feats
Dissolved as utterly
As birds' far navigation
Discloses just a hue;
A plash of oars -a gaiety,
Then swallowed up to view.
In this writing, Dickinson talks about
"Heaven" (which could mean simply anything we see as joyous)
"Pluck up its stakes and disappear" and it leaves "No trace, no
figment of the thing". Most likely, she is speaking about either a broken
heart or her loss of her loved ones who died. This poem by Dickinson is written
in only one stanza, but that one stanza contains seventeen lines. The poem does
rhyme in some ways, imperfectly. The second line rhymes with the fourth, the
sixth with the eighth, and fifteenth with seventeenth. There might even be some
other imperfect lines, but they are so imperfect that they are hard to see.