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.

Analysis, meaning and summary of Emily Dickinson's poem The saddest noise, the sweetest noise,

5 Comments

  1. Tommy says:

    The Prarie Home Companion broadcase is actually from 07-03-2004. The vocalist is the wonderful Inga Swearingen, accompanied by Richard Dworsky on piano.

    This particular segment can be found here:

    prairiehome.publicradio.org/programs/2004/07/03/

  2. Jack Troy says:

    The broadcast of “A Prarie Home Companion,” on April 14, 2007 featured this poem sung beautifully. It’s worth looking up and hearing on the Web; at least I found it worth hearing.
    Jack

  3. mandi says:

    I loved this poem! In my opinion she was trying to say that it is easy to break a heart and that a lot of people have a fear of getting a broken heart! So we think of love as hate in a way.

  4. lauryn says:

    i like this poem and i did a research assignment on it but i do not understandit at all so i dont think it is good to do a project on it because it is hard to understand

  5. Mary says:

    This is an awsome poem! I recently did a reserch paper on emily Dickinson , where we had to pick a favorite poem and tell why it was our favorite and i picked this one. Most people think that poetry is wierd, and I was one of them but know I understand that it is abought deep emotion and feeling.

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