When all the children sleep She turns as long away As will suffice to…

When all the children sleep She turns as long away As will suffice to light her lamps; Then, bending from the sky With infinite affection And infiniter care, Her golden finger on her lip, Wills silence everywhere.

Emily Dickinson1830–1886 · poet · 1800s USAEmily Dickinson wrote nearly 1,800 poems in Amherst, Massachusetts, in short lines full of dashes that made ordinary words feel startling and new.47 quotes

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How sure this is: 95% sureThese words were traced back to where they first appeared. That source is listed below.
What turned up: Mother Nature, Poems: Second Series (1891); Exact wording and attribution checked. Wording follows the early edited Poems editions (1890–1891), which differ from modern manuscript editions. Final two stanzas form a complete sentence: night is imagined as a mother tending her children.
Work: Mother Nature, Poems: Second Series (1891)
Sources checked: gutenberg.orgChecked using manual, 21 October 2026Mother Nature, Poems: Second Series (1891); Exact wording and attribution checked. Wording follows the early edited Poems editions (1890–1891), which differ from modern manuscript editions. Final two stanzas form a complete sentence: night is imagined as a mother tending her children.