Poem 536 by Emily Dickinson (The heart asks pleasure first)

I'm reading poems of Emily Dickinson and really like this one:

The heart asks pleasure first,
And then, excuse from pain;
And then, those little anodynes
That deaden suffering;

And then, to go to sleep;
And then, if it should be
The will of its Inquisitor,
The liberty to die.

There are a lot of way to interpret the poem. Perhaps it's a concise depiction of a human's life cycle from a carefree childhood to waiting for the inevitable end. Perhaps it's a lament of lost love. Perhaps it depicts how a person broke down from seeking pleasure to eternal escape. I really like the contrast of the complexities of meaning in contrast to the simple wordings.


Its title was used by the composer Michael Nyman for his soundtrack to the 1993 film The Piano.

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