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I never lost as much but twice, And that was in the sod; Twice have I stood a beggar Before the door of God!
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“I never lost as much but twice, And that was in the sod; Twice have I stood a beggar Before the door of God!”

Emily Dickinson

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Source
I Never Lost as Much but Twice — Emily Dickinson
Date
1890
Meaning

Meaning of “I never lost as much but twice, And…”

Two deaths are remembered as losses so severe that the speaker figures herself as spiritually impoverished and dependent before God.

Source context

Where does it come from?

Poem in Poems: First Series (1890), represented by its opening line for source disambiguation; Project Gutenberg #12242. Its theological language belongs to the lyric speaker.

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Themes

Ideas connected with this quotation

DeepGriefSadDeathMemoriesSpiritual
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I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love.
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“I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love.”

Walt Whitman · Song of Myself · 1855
Meaning & context

Death becomes continuity with nature rather than simple disappearance, connecting mortality with renewal, earth, and the lives that follow.

Source details

Leaves of Grass (1855), untitled first-edition poem later known as “Song of Myself,” printed page 56 (Wikisource scan page 62). The line belongs to the poem’s final movement, later numbered section 52; the 1855 record remains tied to the unnumbered first edition rather than inheriting later section structure.

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Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints.
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“Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints.”

Psalms · King James Bible — Psalm 116:15 · 1611
Meaning & context

Death is framed as significant rather than unnoticed, offering a religious language of value and remembrance around the loss of a faithful person.

Source details

Psalm 116:15, King James Version; the statement appears within a psalm of deliverance, gratitude, and devotion.

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My life closed twice before its close; It yet remains to see If Immortality unveil A third event to me.
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“My life closed twice before its close; It yet remains to see If Immortality unveil A third event to me.”

Emily Dickinson · Parting — Emily Dickinson · 1896
Meaning & context

The speaker treats profound separations as deaths within a still-living life, leaving the final meaning of another separation to the poem's religious-metaphysical horizon.

Source details

“Parting,” Poems: Third Series (1896), Project Gutenberg #12242. The poem is lyric and metaphysical; its language of immortality is not presented as empirical evidence about an afterlife.

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One by one they were all becoming shades.
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“One by one they were all becoming shades.”

James Joyce · Dubliners — The Dead · 1914
Meaning & context

Gabriel’s thoughts widen from one dead young man to the mortality of everyone around him, preparing the story’s final meditation on memory and the living and dead.

Source details

“The Dead,” in Dubliners, Project Gutenberg #2814. The line belongs to Gabriel Conroy’s interior reflection after Gretta tells him about Michael Furey; it is fictional free-indirect narration.

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