Skip to content
QuillOak

Lyric Poem · Nature

Musicians wrestle everywhere

by Emily Dickinson

1Musicians wrestle everywhere —

2All day — among the crowded air

3I hear the silver strife —

4And — walking — long before the morn —

5Such transport breaks upon the town

6I think it that "New Life"!

7If is not Bird — it has no nest —

8Nor "Band" — in brass and scarlet — drest —

9Nor Tamborin — nor Man —

10It is not Hymn from pulpit read —

11The "Morning Stars" the Treble led

12On Time's first Afternoon!

13Some — say — it is "the Spheres" — at play!

14Some say that bright Majority

15Of vanished Dames — and Men!

16Some — think it service in the place

17Where we — with late — celestial face —

18Please God — shall Ascertain!

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

Quick facts

Poem
Musicians wrestle everywhere
Poet
Emily Dickinson
Length
18 lines
Form
Lyric Poem
Themes
Nature, Peace

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
18 lines · 3 sestets
Line length
Mostly 8-syllable lines (tetrameter length).
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
PoetryDBMusicians wrestle everywhere 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 e04d983f107540ad
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

More poems like this

More nature poems