Lyric Poem · Life

Great Streets of silence led away

by Emily Dickinson

Reading room

1Great Streets of silence led away

2To Neighborhoods of Pause —

3Here was no Notice — no Dissent

4No Universe — no laws —

5By Clocks, 'twas Morning, and for Night

6The Bells at Distance called —

7But Epoch had no basis here

8For Period exhaled.

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“Great Streets of silence led away” by Emily Dickinson — quilloak.com/poems/great-streets-of-silence-led-away

Quick facts

Poem: Great Streets of silence led away
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 · 2 quatrains
Line length: Common metre. Alternating eight- and six-syllable lines — the hymn stanza (8.6.8.6), the most-used quatrain in English verse.

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.

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Author record: Emily Dickinson1830–1886
Source record: PoetryDBGreat Streets of silence led away 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 0e4e03d06ca56405…
Editorial handling: Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.

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Lyric Poem Short Poems Life Short

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