The brain is wider than the sky
Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)
first published 1896

Cold Library · Open Stacks · S-004019 · https://coldlibrary.com/s/004019
Rights: First published in 1896 in Poems, Third Series, after the author’s death in 1886; the editor, Mabel Loomis Todd, died in 1932. Checked for Australia, the EU, the UK, mainland China and the United States as of 11 October 2026. Guidance, not legal advice.
Source: Project Gutenberg, https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/12242/pg12242.txt (retrieved 2026-10-11)
Generated 2026-10-14 from https://coldlibrary.com/en/open-stacks/dickinson-the-brain-is-wider-than-the-sky

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The brain is wider than the sky,
  For, put them side by side,
The one the other will include
  With ease, and you beside.

The brain is deeper than the sea,
  For, hold them, blue to blue,
The one the other will absorb,
  As sponges, buckets do.

The brain is just the weight of God,
  For, lift them, pound for pound,
And they will differ, if they do,
  As syllable from sound.