Emily Dickinson

Forgotten

FORGOTTEN.
THERE is a word
Which bears a sword
Can pierce an armed man.

barbed syllables

The word itself becomes a weapon with hooks—syllables that catch and tear like barbed wire or a fishing hook. Not just sharp, but designed to stick.

It hurls its barbed syllables,—
At once is mute again.
But where it fell
The saved will tell
On patriotic day,

patriotic day

Memorial Day or similar commemoration. The 'saved' are survivors who remember the dead—but they only tell the story on official occasions, not daily.

Some epauletted brother
Gave his breath away.

breathless sun

The sun doesn't breathe, but the phrase mirrors 'gave his breath away' above—even cosmic forces are breathless in the face of forgetting.

Wherever runs the breathless sun,
Wherever roams the day,
There is its noiseless onset,
There is its victory!
Behold the keenest marksman!
The most accomplished shot!
Time's sublimest target
Is a soul 'forgot'!

soul 'forgot'

The missing verb—'forgotten' from the title—appears only as past participle. Grammar itself enacts the incompleteness of being forgotten.

Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

The Military Metaphor

Dickinson builds an elaborate military conceit where forgetting is warfare. The word (presumably 'forgotten' itself) becomes a weapon that can 'pierce an armed man'—even soldiers prepared for battle have no defense against oblivion. The 'epauletted brother' is a decorated officer, someone whose rank and achievements should guarantee remembrance, yet he too vanishes.

CONTEXT Writing during and after the Civil War, Dickinson would have known about Memorial Day (established 1868) and seen how quickly even recent dead were forgotten between commemorations. The poem's 'patriotic day' is bitterly specific—the fallen are remembered once a year, then forgotten again.

The military language escalates: the word 'hurls' like a spear, has a 'noiseless onset' like a surprise attack, achieves 'victory' everywhere. But notice the paradox—this 'keenest marksman' fires once and goes 'mute'. The silence itself is the weapon. The 'most accomplished shot' is Time, whose 'sublimest target' is not killing but erasing: making someone not dead but 'forgot'.

Grammar of Erasure

The title gives us 'Forgotten' but the poem withholds the full word until the final line, where it appears incomplete: 'forgot'. This isn't dialect or informality—it's grammatical amputation. The past participle needs 'have' or 'is' to complete it ('is forgotten'), but Dickinson leaves it dangling, enacting the incompleteness of being forgotten.

Watch how the poem handles agency. The word 'hurls' itself (line 4), runs and roams by itself (lines 11-12). No person does the forgetting—it just happens, which is more terrifying than deliberate erasure. The 'saved' (survivors) only 'tell' on official days, suggesting they participate in the forgetting the rest of the year.

The final stanza's exclamation marks create frantic emphasis, but they're praising the wrong thing—celebrating the 'marksman' who kills memory. The tone is savage irony: 'Behold!' as if we should admire Time's efficiency at obliteration.