The Props assist the House (729)

By Emily Dickinson
The Props assist the House
Until the House is built
And then the Props withdraw
And adequate, erect,
The House support itself
And cease to recollect
The Augur and the Carpenter –
Just such a retrospect
Hath the perfected Life –
A Past of Plank and Nail
And slowness – then the scaffolds drop
Affirming it a Soul –

Copyright Credit: Emily Dickinson, “The Props assist the House” from The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited by Thomas H. Johnson. Copyright © 1945, 1951, 1955, 1979, 1983 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Reprinted with the permission of The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Source: The Poems of Emily Dickinson Edited by R.W. Franklin (Harvard University Press, 1999)