A Man
Emily Dickinson · 1896
Public domain
From Poems by Emily Dickinson, published in 1896. The text is free of copyright in the United States. This copy is the poem, without the Project Gutenberg header.
Fate slew him, but he did not drop;
She felled -- he did not fall --
Impaled him on her fiercest stakes --
He neutralized them all.
She stung him, sapped his firm advance,
But, when her worst was done,
And he, unmoved, regarded her,
Acknowledged him a man.