I died for beauty but was scarce .

Hello ! As ms race mentioned today, its scary putting your work out for everyone to read! :) & sorry in advance if this is wrong/doesn't make sense.

It can be perceived that the poem's major theme is the idea of compromising for belonging. Dickinson at first creates the idea to her reader that belonging is an achievement or success for the individual. This is seen in "He questioned softly why I failed?"; the choice of language in 'failed' suggests to the reader that exclusion is almost the wrong pathway emphasised by the soft tone to create remorse by the persona. However it is later revealed that exclusion is more so a choice of the individual rather than result, and in this choice comes 'belonging'. This resultant belonging is expressed by the change in personal pronouns from "I" to "we" and language such as "kinsmen" which is a word associated with comfort and the company of others.

Another perception is the idea that perhaps Dickinson is conveying to her readers that belonging may exceed the physical barriers of life and death and forever be a metaphysical concept to humanity. This could be suggested from "And covered up our names." 'names' being symbolic of their identities conveys that although they had passed the physical barriers, they were still disregarded by Nature and did not belong to the values of society; even though they 'died for beauty' in hope to be appreciated.