Lyric Poem · Nature
The Frost of Death was on the Pane
The Frost of Death was on the Pane —
"Secure your Flower" said he.
Like Sailors fighting with a Leak
We fought Mortality.
Our passive Flower we held to Sea —
To Mountain — To the Sun —
Yet even on his Scarlet shelf
To crawl the Frost begun —
We pried him back
Ourselves we wedged
Himself and her between,
Yet easy as the narrow Snake
He forked his way along
Till all her helpless beauty bent
And then our wrath begun —
We hunted him to his Ravine
We chased him to his Den —
We hated Death and hated Life
And nowhere was to go —
Than Sea and continent there is
A larger — it is Woe —
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“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.
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
- 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.
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