The brain is wider than the sky
Emily Dickinson
The brain is wider than the sky, For, put them side by side, The one the other will include With ease, and you beside. The brain is deeper than the sea, For, hold them, blue to blue, The one the other will absorb, As sponges, buckets do. The brain is just the weight of God, For, lift them, pound for pound, And they will differ, if they do, As syllable from sound.
Of note
Gerald Edelman shared the 1972 Nobel Prize in medicine for work on antibodies, then turned to studying the brain. He named his 2004 book on consciousness, Wider Than the Sky, after this poem.
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TEXT PROVENANCE · First published 1896 in Poems by Emily Dickinson: Third Series · Text from Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series, Complete, a Project Gutenberg compilation of the 1890, 1891, and 1896 series.
Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series, Complete
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