Like a sponge but not really

In Emily Dickinson's excerpt of The Brain (from Poems: Third Series), it reads:

The brain is deeper than the sea,
For, hold them, blue to blue,
The one the other will absorb.
As sponges, buckets do.

I only wish that were true right now. I just cannot seem to absorb a darn thing as I try to do some late night studying. And just in case you were hypothesizing (as if), the time of day really has nothing to do with it. I found I couldn't absorb anything when I tried to study earlier today or even bright and early yesterday. (Sigh.)