My wheel is in the dark!
I cannot see a spoke
Yet know its dripping feet
Go round and round.

My foot is on the Tide!
An unfrequented road —
Yet have all roads
A clearing at the end —

Some have resigned the Loom —
Some in the busy tomb
Find quaint employ —

Some with new — stately feet —
Pass royal through the gate —
Flinging the problem back
At you and I!

Analysis, meaning and summary of Emily Dickinson's poem My wheel is in the dark!

10 Comments

  1. Adam Wade DeGraff says:

    I’m seeing this as a riddle poem, and riddle has something to do with a loom, the wheel kind. Foot on tide is the foot on the peddle of the loom that goes back and forth like the tide. But so many mysteries here. Why the strange metrics and rhyme scheme? Why is the tomb busy? (Busy decomposing?) Why the grammatical error at the end? (So I would rhyme with employ?)

    MY wheel is in the dark.

  2. Nicole says:

    I think that the girl feels a loneliness in her life whithout a exit. She feels her life in the deep dark.
    Her mind doesn´t find the correct way that how to leave that darkness and loneliness…
    Great Poem

  3. frumpo says:

    The difficulty of being certain about God. Does the “wheel” have anything to do with the wheels of God’s providence, portrayed in Ezekiel 1:15-21?

  4. Shadow Fang says:

    wow Michael Wood, jus wow tht is weird.

    ps do u have a gaia?

  5. gabse says:

    I think the waggon or whatever carries her, shows that she’s carried by life and doesn’t know where it will lead her because the wheels are ‘in the dark’

  6. John says:

    I inferred that the wheel is her life that is pulling her along, and she does not know were it is taking her.

  7. Michael Wood says:

    Im in love with Emily Dickinson, If she was alive id so marry her, i want her to be my babys mama

  8. ciara says:

    this poem is quiet weird but it is cool

  9. Jaclyn says:

    This is an interesting poem. I believe she feels like her life is in the dark and it is hard for her to see the Light in her situation at the end of this dark road in her life.

  10. Jaclyn says:

    This is an interesting poem. I believe she feels like her life is in the dark and it is hard for her to see the Light in her situation at the end of this dark road in her life.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Do you have any comments, criticism, paraphrasis or analysis of this poem that you feel would assist other visitors in understanding the meaning or the theme of this poem by Emily Dickinson better? If accepted, your analysis will be added to this page of American Poems. Together we can build a wealth of information, but it will take some discipline and determination.