Emily Dickinson's Collected Poems

Drowning is not so pitiful

As the attempt to rise.

Three times, 't is said, a sinking man

Comes up to face the skies,

And then declines forever

To that abhorred abode

Where hope and he part company, --

For he is grasped of God.

The Maker's cordial visage,

However good to see,

Is shunned, we must admit it,

Like an adversity.