The Saddest Noise, The Sweetest Noise by Emily Dickinson

It makes us think of what we had

The Saddest Noise, The Sweetest Noise

by Emily Dickinson

---

The saddest noise, the sweetest noise,
The maddest noise that grows, —
The birds, they make it in the spring,
At night’s delicious close,

Between the March and April line —
That magical frontier
Beyond which summer hesitates,
Almost too heavenly near.

It makes us think of all the dead
That sauntered with us here,
By separation’s sorcery
Made cruelly more dear.

It makes us think of what we had,
And what we now deplore.
We almost wish those siren throats
Would go and sing no more.

An ear can break a human heart
As quickly as a spear.
We wish the ear had not a heart
So dangerously near.

The Poems of Emily Dickinson (2005, Belknap Press)