"That sacred Closet when you sweep --" By Emily Dickinson [Analysis]

That sacred Closet when you sweep -- [1] Entitled "Memory" -- [2] Select a reverential Broom -- [3] And do it silently. [4] 'Twill be a Labor of surprise -- [5] Besides Identity [6] Of other Interlocutors [7] A probability -- [8] August the Dust of that Domain -- [9] Unchallenged -- let it lie -- [10] You cannot supersede itself [11] But it can silence you -- [12]
Poem 1273 [F1385] "That sacred Closet when you sweep" Analysis by David Preest [Poem]

If we want to remember our past, which will contain other people beside ourselves, we should sweep the 'Closet' of memory with 'a reverential Broom.' But it is better to leave our past unvisited and 'unchallenged.' We cannot change it and it 'can silence [us].' Emily had also explored the dangers of memory in poems 1182 and 1242.
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