"The worthlessness of Earthly things" By Emily Dickinson [Analysis]

The worthlessness of Earthly things[1] The Ditty is that Nature Sings [2] And then enforces their delight[3] Till Synods are inordinate [4]
Poem 1373 [F1400] "The worthlessness of Earthly things" Analysis by David Preest [Poem]

Nature at first may seem to sing of 'the worthlessness of Earthly things,' as all such things die, but then Nature brings home to us 'their delight,' until even those Synods of pious preachers, who have proclaimed that all is vanity, are swept off their feet (or, as a variant reading puts it, until 'rectitude is suffocate'). As Emily later wrote in a letter (L860) to her friend, Maria Whitney, 'To have been made alive is so chief a thing, all else inevitably adds.'
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