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Lyric Poem · Life

Nature affects to be sedate

by Emily Dickinson

1Nature affects to be sedate

2Upon occasion, grand

3But let our observation shut

4Her practices extend

5To Necromancy and the Trades

6Remote to understand

7Behold our spacious Citizen

8Unto a Juggler turned —

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Quick facts

Poem
Nature affects to be sedate
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
End rhyme
No regular perfect end rhyme. The poem may still be using slant rhyme, assonance, or internal echo, which this check does not score.
Line length
Consistent with 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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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
PoetryDBNature affects to be sedate 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 351c5adc3465e24b
Editorial handling
Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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