Trauma and World Literature: There is a pain – so utter – by Emily Dickinson – Howard Lipke, PhD

In his highly regarded comprehensive biography of the great New England poet Emily Dickinson, Alfred Habeggger observes that no other American writer of her time explored with equal sensitivity and mastery psychological fragmentation and of the way the mind protects itself.
 
There is a pain – so utter-
It swallows substance up –
Then covers the Abyss with Trance –
So Memory can step
Around – across – upon it –
As one within a Swoon –
Goes safely – where an open eye –
Would drop Him – Bone by Bone –
 
C 1862

References
 
Habegger, A. (2002). My wars are laid away in books. New York: Modern Library
 
Johnson, T. H. (ed.) (1960). The complete poems of Emily Dickenson. New York: Little Brown