How do Emily Dickinson's lyric poems resemble hymns

The meter in Dickinson's poems is usually traditional hymn
meter. Most hymns are written in iambic meter... an unstressed followed by a stressed
syllable. Many of Emily Dickinson's poems follow this same metrical pattern. Perhaps one
of the most famous hymns is "Amazing Grace" - "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound/That
saved a wretch like me/I once was lost, but now am found/was blind, but now I
see"

If you look at some of Dickinson's poetry, you'll
notice that it can easily be sung to the tune of "Amazing Grace" Especially this
poem:

If you
were coming in the Fall
Emily Dickinson

If you
were coming in the fall,
I ’d brush the summer by
With half a
smile and half a spurn,
As housewives do a fly.

If I could
see you in a year,     5
I ’d wind the months in
balls,
And put them each in separate drawers,
Until their time
befalls.

If only centuries delayed,
I ’d count them on my
hand,     10
Subtracting till my fingers dropped

Into Van Diemen’s land.

If certain, when this life was
out,
That yours and mine should be,
I ’d toss it yonder like a
rind,     15
And taste eternity.

But now, all ignorant of the length
Of time’s uncertain
wing,
It goads me, like the goblin bee,    
20
That will not state its
sting.

When you try to sing
Dickinson's poetry to the tune of many popular Protestant hymns, you will find that this
phenomenon holds true.