Lyric Poem · Life
A happy lip—breaks sudden
Full-text availability follows the United States display decision recorded below; status can differ elsewhere.
“A happy lip—breaks sudden” by Emily Dickinson — quilloak.com/poems/a-happy-lip-breaks-sudden
Quick facts
- Poem
- A happy lip—breaks sudden
- Poet
- Emily Dickinson
- Length
- 8 lines
- Form
- Lyric Poem, Short Poems
- Themes
- Life, Short
Craft notes
How this poem works
Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.
- Shape
- 8 lines · one 8-line stanza
- Line length
- Lines run 5-8 syllables (median 6), consistent with trimeter. No single length dominates, which is normal once elision and contraction are in play.
Want the rules this form is measured against? Read what makes a lyric poem, or run your own draft through the form checker to see the same measurements on your lines. How we measure · Report a mistake
Text, source & rights
A traceable edition
Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.
- Author record
- Emily Dickinson1830–1886
- Source record
- PoetryDBA happy lip—breaks sudden by emily-dickinson, PoetryDB transcription
- Display decision
- Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
- Publication record
- Not recorded in the imported source
- Text fingerprint
- SHA-256 e6e78fa763651363…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.