Skip to content
QuillOak

Explore QuillOak

Check my draft

Lyric Poem · Life

As the Starved Maelstrom laps the Navies

by Emily Dickinson

1As the Starved Maelstrom laps the Navies

2As the Vulture teased

3Forces the Broods in lonely Valleys

4As the Tiger eased

5By but a Crumb of Blood, fasts Scarlet

6Till he meet a Man

7Dainty adorned with Veins and Tissues

8And partakes — his Tongue

9Cooled by the Morsel for a moment

10Grows a fiercer thing

11Till he esteem his Dates and Cocoa

12A Nutrition mean

13I, of a finer Famine

14Deem my Supper dry

15For but a Berry of Domingo

16And a Torrid Eye.

Full-text availability follows the United States display decision recorded below; status can differ elsewhere.

“As the Starved Maelstrom laps the Navies” by Emily Dickinson — quilloak.com/poems/as-the-starved-maelstrom-laps-the-navies

Quick facts

Poem
As the Starved Maelstrom laps the Navies
Poet
Emily Dickinson
Length
16 lines
Form
Lyric Poem
Themes
Life

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
16 lines · 4 quatrains
The poem’s silhouette — approximate syllables per line, measured from the text above. Even bars mean a measured line; ragged bars mean the poem sets its own widths.

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
PoetryDBAs the Starved Maelstrom laps the Navies 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 ed9c5897b7dae607…
Editorial handling
Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
Jurisdiction-specific, never a worldwide claimRights policyReport a text or rights issue
Lyric PoemLife

Keep reading

She Walks in Beauty

Lord Byron · 1814

She walks in beauty, like the nightOf cloudless climes and starry skies;And all that's best of dark and bright

18 lines · lyric

Love's Philosophy

Percy Bysshe Shelley · 1819

The fountains mingle with the riverAnd the rivers with the ocean,The winds of heaven mix for ever

16 lines · lyric

When You Are Old

W. B. Yeats · 1893

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,And nodding by the fire, take down this book,And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

12 lines · lyric

More poems about life →