“Upon the gallows hung a wretch,
Too sullied for the hell
To which the law entitled him.
As nature’s curtain fell
The one who bore him tottered in,
For this was woman’s son.
“’T was all I had,” she stricken gasped;
Oh, what a livid boon!”

Source: Collected Poems (1993), p. 56. Life.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Upon the gallows hung a wretch, Too sullied for the hell To which the law entitled him. As nature’s curtain fell T…" by Emily Dickinson?
Emily Dickinson photo
Emily Dickinson 187
American poet 1830–1886

Related quotes

George Eliot photo

“He had a sense that the old man meant to be good-natured and neighbourly; but the kindness fell on him as sunshine falls on the wretched — he had no heart to taste it, and felt that it was very far off him.”

George Eliot (1819–1880) English novelist, journalist and translator

Source: Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe (1861), Chapter 10 (at page 79)

Ron English photo

“It’s not God I fear but the woman who bore him.”

Ron English (1959) American artist

Ron English's Fauxlosophy (2016)

Kunti photo
Wallace Stevens photo

“The President has apples on the table
And barefoot servants round him, who adjust
The curtains to a metaphysical "t"”

Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American poet

Notes Toward a Supreme Fiction (1942), It Must Change

Markiplier photo

“Oh, if that blue bastard, is just stickin' around -" [find a candle stand, which startles him] *gasp* "…That's new!”

Markiplier (1989) American YouTuber and Internet personality

Video game commentary, Ao Oni (August 2013)

Muhammad photo
Oscar Wilde photo
George Orwell photo
Thomas Kyd photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo

“I saw an aged woman turn
To her wretched home again —
All day she had asked charity,
And all day asked in vain....”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

The London Literary Gazette, 1832

Related topics