Read—Sweet—how others—strove—

Read—Sweet—how others—strove—

Till we—are stouter—

What they—renounced—

Till we—are less afraid—

How many times they—bore the faithful witness—

Till we—are helped—

As if a Kingdom—cared!

Read then—of faith—

That shone above the fagot—

Clear strains of Hymn

The River could not drown—

Brave names of Men—

And Celestial Women—

Passed out—of Record

Death of Archbishop Cranmer
Joseph Martin Kronheim, 1887,
Foxe's Book of Martyrs

Into—Renown!

                                                            F322 (1862)  260

Emily Dickinson included Foxe’s Book of Martyrs in her go-to reading (along with Shakespeare and Keats). There is sort of a morbid attraction to all the sufferings and hideous goings-on the woodcuts and verbal descriptions portray. But in this poem, Dickinson exhorts herself and someone she calls “Sweet” to be inspired by the martyred saints examples. “Read—Sweet,” she says, about what trials the saints went through until we ourselves have more courage. Just reading about their experiences is so beneficial that it is as if the Kingdom of the dead martyrs had actually and actively helped them.

            The second stanza is a simple paean to the martyrs. “Read,” she continues, about their amazing and brave faith. They might have died but they earned ‘Renown.’”

            The three repetitions of “Till we” in the first stanza begins the poem with a liturgical feel. “We” will read the martyr stories until we are “stouter,” “less afraid,” and “helped.”  In the second stanza three lines begin with two accented syllables (spondees) to create a magisterial pace and to emphasize the words: “Clear strains,” Brave names,” and “Passed out.”