Emily Dickinson's poem "This World is Not Conclusion" is an interesting piece of poetic philosophy that combines elements of faith, certainty and doubt following a simple statement of the what the poet believes is fact: "This World is not Conclusion." The basis of all religious faith is the belief in a certainty for which there is no proof. The poet tells us "A Species stands beyond - Invisible, as Music." We can hear music, but cannot see it; but the poet her belief in life after death is "..positive, as Sound."
The world beyond this world, the poet tells "beckons" and "baffles." As sure as our lives end and we are drawn inexorably to die, we are baffled by the "riddle" of life's end, and even the most sagacious must pass through it. Scholars and martyrs have likewise been unable to gain the true knowledge of life's purpose and destination, and even faith itself "slips - and laughs, and rallies" as even the faithful "Plucks at a twig of Evidence.