Some poems don’t ask to be analysed.
They ask to be wandered through slowly, like the quiet aisle of an old library.

That is exactly the experience I had when first reading In a Library by Emily Dickinson.

IN A LIBRARY.

A precious, mouldering pleasure ‘t is
To meet an antique book,
In just the dress his century wore;
A privilege, I think,

His venerable hand to take,
And warming in our own,
A passage back, or two, to make
To times when he was young.

His quaint opinions to inspect,
His knowledge to unfold
On what concerns our mutual mind,
The literature of old;

What interested scholars most,
What competitions ran
When Plato was a certainty.
And Sophocles a man;

When Sappho was a living girl,
And Beatrice wore
The gown that Dante deified.
Facts, centuries before,

He traverses familiar,
As one should come to town
And tell you all your dreams were true;
He lived where dreams were sown.

His presence is enchantment,
You beg him not to go;
Old volumes shake their vellum heads
And tantalize, just so.
                       —Emily Dickinson

Today this poem felt less like reading
and more like remembering a place I’ve always known.                     I hope you found some comfort and joy in it too.
— Frost ❄️