Lyric Poem · Death & Loss

Those fair—fictitious People

by Emily Dickinson

Reading room

1Those fair — fictitious People —

2The Women — plucked away

3From our familiar Lifetime —

4The Men of Ivory —

5Those Boys and Girls, in Canvas —

6Who stay upon the Wall

7In Everlasting Keepsake —

8Can Anybody tell?

9We trust — in places perfecter —

10Inheriting Delight

11Beyond our faint Conjecture —

12Our dizzy Estimate —

13Remembering ourselves, we trust —

14Yet Blesseder — than We —

15Through Knowing — where We only hope —

16Receiving — where we — pray —

17Of Expectation — also —

18Anticipating us

19With transport, that would be a pain

20Except for Holiness —

21Esteeming us — as Exile —

22Themself — admitted Home —

23Through easy Miracle of Death —

24The Way ourself, must come —

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

Tip: click any line number to copy a ready-made citation for that line.

“Those fair—fictitious People” by Emily Dickinson — quilloak.com/poems/those-fair-fictitious-people

Quick facts

Poem: Those fair—fictitious People
Poet: Emily Dickinson
Length: 24 lines
Form: Lyric Poem
Themes: Death & Loss, Hope, 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: 24 lines · 6 quatrains
Line length: Lines run 6-8 syllables (median 7). 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: PoetryDBThose fair—fictitious People 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 222c0197941baaed…
Editorial handling: Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.

Jurisdiction-specific, never a worldwide claimRights policy Report a text or rights issue

Lyric Poem Death & Loss Hope Peace

Keep reading

She Walks in Beauty

Lord Byron · 1814

She walks in beauty, like the nightOf cloudless climes and starry skies;And all that's best of dark and bright

18 lines · lyric

Love's Philosophy

Percy Bysshe Shelley · 1819

The fountains mingle with the riverAnd the rivers with the ocean,The winds of heaven mix for ever

16 lines · lyric

When You Are Old

W. B. Yeats · 1893

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,And nodding by the fire, take down this book,And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

12 lines · lyric

More poems about death →