There is a Languor of the Life

Emily Dickinson

THERE is a languor of the life
More imminent than pain;
'Tis pain's successor, when the Soul
Has suffered all it can.
A drowsiness diffuses,
A dimness like a fog
Envelops consciousness
As mist obliterates a crag.
The surgeon does not blanch at pain,
His habit is severe,
But tell him that it ceased to feel—
The creature going there,
And he will tell you skill is late,
A mightier than he
Has ministered before him—
There's no vitality.