A Few Words from Emily Dickinson

Some Keep the Sabbath going to Church

I keep it, staying at Home

With a Bobolink for a Chorister

And an Orchard, for a Dome

Some keep the Sabbath in Surplice

I, just wear my Wings

And instead of tolling the Bell, for Church,

Our little Sexton – sings.

And the sermon is never long,

So instead of getting to Heaven, at last

I’m going, all along.

God preaches, a noted Clergyman

— Emily Dickinson, “Some keep the Sabbath going to church,” The Poems of Emily Dickinson Edited by R. W. Franklin(Harvard University Press, 1999

Notes:

chorister, n.
A member of a choir of singers. Of a church choir; now spec. a choirboy. Also: a choir-leader (U.S.).

This post was inspired by Mrs. WC’s collection of this Emily Dickinson poem, one of at least three in which Dickinson praises the bobolink and its song.