"Faith" is a fine invention

The shape of Dickinson’s poem is tiny and compact. Its small form is due in part to its lyric and riddle-like elements. Lyric poems tend to be short, and due to the lack of words—there are only 16 total words—the poem can be somewhat puzzling. The form limits Dickinson, so her speaker can’t expand on the meaning of faith, gentlemen, microscopes, or what qualifies as an emergency.

The clipped form allows for multiple, intricate readings; yet the poem doesn’t sound difficult because Dickinson uses a mellifluous meter. Lines 1 and 3 rhyme, so each line contains seven syllables; and Lines 2 and 4 rhyme, so each line contains six syllables. This type of meter links to syllabics, which is when the poet uses a specific number of syllables in a line but doesn’t worry about the unstressed/stressed pattern made by the syllables.

In a sense, the meter requires a microscope—the reader has to count the number of syllables in each line to notice the pattern. Additionally, the miniature form requires faith since the reader has to trust Dickinson’s speaker and their interpretation to figure out the poem’s deeper meaning or if there is one.