There's a certain slant of light
There's a certain slant of light,On winter afternoons,That oppresses, like the weightOf cathedral tunes.
Heavenly hurt it gives us;We can find no scar,But internal differenceWhere the meanings are.
None may teach it anything,'T is the seal, despair, --An imperial afflictionSent us of the air.
When it comes, the landscape listens,Shadows hold their breath;When it goes, 't is like the distanceOn the look of death.
About this text
There's a certain slant of light is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series, Complete, Project Gutenberg ebook #12242; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Emily Dickinson, There's a certain slant of light, in Poems (1890–1896), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #12242, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/dickinson-poems/there-s-a-certain-slant-of-light.html, id L18909.
Form and metre
There's a certain slant of light is 16 lines in 4 stanzas of 4 lines each. The metre is trochaic trimeter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 86%).
See other poems in trochaic trimeter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 -A-A light · afternoonsA · weight · tunesA
- 2 -A-A us · scarA · difference · areA
- 3 -A-A anything · despairA · affliction · airA
- 4 -A-A listens · breathA · distance · deathA
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against trochaic trimeter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| There's a certain slant of light, | 7 | ··/˘··· |
| On winter afternoons, | 6 | ·/˘·˘/ |
| That oppresses, like the weight | 7 | ·˘/˘··· |
| Of cathedral tunes. | 5 | ·˘/˘· |
| Heavenly hurt it gives us; | 7 | /˘˘···· |
| We can find no scar, | 5 | ····· |
| But internal difference | 7 | ·˘/˘/˘˘ |
| Where the meanings are. | 5 | ··/˘· |
| None may teach it anything, | 7 | ····/˘· |
| 'T is the seal, despair, -- | 6 | ····˘/ |
| An imperial affliction | 8 | ·˘/˘˘˘/˘ |
| Sent us of the air. | 5 | ····· |
| When it comes, the landscape listens, | 8 | ····/·/˘ |
| Shadows hold their breath; | 5 | /···· |
| When it goes, 't is like the distance | 9 | ·······/˘ |
| On the look of death. | 5 | ····· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.