“A Toad Can Die of Light”

I can never tire of Emily Dickinson’s poems. Short though they may be, they resonate far beyond their few lines. I love the last two lines about “the gnat’s supremacy.”

A toad can die of light!
Death is the common right
Of toads and men,--
Of earl and midge
The privilege.
Why swagger then?
The gnat's supremacy
Is large as thine.