Lyric Poem · Nature
The Frost of Death was on the Pane
1The Frost of Death was on the Pane —
2"Secure your Flower" said he.
3Like Sailors fighting with a Leak
4We fought Mortality.
5Our passive Flower we held to Sea —
6To Mountain — To the Sun —
7Yet even on his Scarlet shelf
8To crawl the Frost begun —
9We pried him back
10Ourselves we wedged
11Himself and her between,
12Yet easy as the narrow Snake
13He forked his way along
Full-text availability follows the United States display decision recorded below; status can differ elsewhere.
“The Frost of Death was on the Pane” by Emily Dickinson — quilloak.com/poems/the-frost-of-death-was-on-the-pane
Quick facts
- Poem
- The Frost of Death was on the Pane
- Poet
- Emily Dickinson
- Length
- 21 lines
- Form
- Lyric Poem
- Themes
- Nature, Winter, Death & Loss
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
- 21 lines · 5 stanzas of 4–5 lines
- 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
- Lines run 6-8 syllables (median 7). No single length dominates, which is normal once elision and contraction are in play.
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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
- PoetryDBThe Frost of Death was on the Pane 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 5ceea5469fceac0b…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.