Poems (Dickinson)/Along the Potomac

For works with similar titles, see Along the Potomac.
For other versions of this work, see When I was small, a Woman died—.
188727Poems — Along the Potomac1890Emily Dickinson

XXXIII.

ALONG THE POTOMAC.

When I was small, a woman died.
To-day her only boy
Went up from the Potomac,
His face all victory,

To look at her;  how slowly
The seasons must have turned
Till bullets clipt an angle,
And he passed quickly round!

If pride shall be in Paradise
I never can decide;
Of their imperial conduct,
No person testified.

But proud in apparition,
That woman and her boy
Pass back and forth before my brain,
As ever in the sky.