Lyric Poem · Childhood

Bliss is the plaything of the child

by Emily Dickinson

Bliss is the plaything of the child —

The secret of the man

The sacred stealth of Boy and Girl

Rebuke it if we can

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“Bliss is the plaything of the child” by Emily Dickinson — quilloak.com/poems/bliss-is-the-plaything-of-the-child

Quick facts

Poem: Bliss is the plaything of the child
Poet: Emily Dickinson
Length: 4 lines
Form: Lyric Poem, Short Poems
Themes: Childhood, 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: 4 lines · one 4-line stanza
End rhyme: ABCB — ballad rhyme — only lines 2 and 4 chime.
Line length: Common metre. Alternating eight- and six-syllable lines — the hymn stanza (8.6.8.6), the most-used quatrain in English verse.

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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: PoetryDBBliss is the plaything of the child 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 362bfd59d88a70f2…
Editorial handling: Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.

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Lyric Poem Short Poems Childhood Short

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