"Of God we ask one favor, that we may be forgiven "

1675
[1601]
Of God we ask one favor, that we may be forgiven –
For what, he is presumed to know –
The Crime, from us, is hidden –
Immured the whole of Life
Within a magic Prison
We reprimand the Happiness
That too competes with Heaven –

My Translation

We ask God for one favor, and it is to be forgiven
Although he already knows what we need forgiveness for
The sins that we’ve committed are forgotten and have become hidden to us
Confined throughout our whole life
Which becomes a magic prison during life
We reprove the sins with happiness
That competes with us getting into Heaven

When reading, “Of God we ask one favor, that we may be forgiven”, I can tell that the overall meaning of the poem is judgment day or the day we face God. I believe Dickinson is summing up what people will do when these days arrives because we must ask God to forgive us for all the sins we committed throughout our lifetime, as evident in the first line of the poem, “Of God we ask one favor, that we may be forgiven.” As the poem continues Dickinson states in lines 2 and 3, “for what, he is presumed to know,” meaning that although we may ask for his forgiveness he already knows that we are asking and what the crime we’ve committed is.

When reading the poem, I got the overall message to live a good life with or without sin, but one day you must face God and ask him for forgiveness before you go to Heaven. Another message that I got from lines 6 and 7, “We reprimand the Happiness That too competes with Heaven – “ is that we sin in life to make us happy but in the end it conflicts with facing God and getting into Heaven. I think Dickinson wrote about these conflicts because her family is religious and she may have committed a sin and thought about what her judgment day will be like when it arrives.

**Reference: The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Vol.8, (P.2593)