Skip to content
QuillOak

Lyric Poem · Love

Now I knew I lost her

by Emily Dickinson

1Now I knew I lost her —

2Not that she was gone —

3But Remoteness travelled

4On her Face and Tongue.

5Alien, though adjoining

6As a Foreign Race —

7Traversed she though pausing

8Latitudeless Place.

9Elements Unaltered —

10Universe the same

11But Love's transmigration —

12Somehow this had come —

13Henceforth to remember

14Nature took the Day

15I had paid so much for —

16His is Penury

17Not who toils for Freedom

18Or for Family

19But the Restitution

20Of Idolatry.

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

Quick facts

Poem
Now I knew I lost her
Poet
Emily Dickinson
Length
20 lines
Form
Lyric Poem
Themes
Love

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
20 lines · 4 stanzas of 4–8 lines
Line length
Lines run 5-7 syllables (median 6), consistent with trimeter. No single length dominates, which is normal once elision and contraction are in play.
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
PoetryDBNow I knew I lost her 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 bb36c8af42954011
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 love poems