Pain — expands the Time —

Pain — expands the Time —
Ages coil within
The minute Circumference
Of a single Brain —

Pain contracts — the Time —
Occupied with Shot
Gamuts of Eternities
Are as they were not —


   -Fr833, J967, Fascicle 40, 1864


The core of this poem is the seeming paradox that it presents.

On one hand, pain makes the moment seem to last forever. We’ve all experienced this. I’ll never forget sitting in a hospital waiting room with a kidney stone. Every minute waiting seemed to last hours.

On the other hand, the contraction of time is about how pain puts you so absolutely in the moment that the rest of time, the “Gamuts of Eternities,” becomes irrelevant. When I was feeling that kidney stone, there was nothing else but the moment.

At least I think that’s what Dickinson means by contraction of time. The idea of being “Occupied” is hard to pinpoint here. Does Dickinson mean, as I surmise above, that while you are feeling the pain there is nothing else but being occupied with it? Or does she mean that you remain occupied by the pain long after the fact? Both are true, but they are very different things.

Dickinson was a philosophical poet and pain was often her subject. It makes sense that pain would be a starting point for thinking about existence, seeing how it is undeniably felt, and can take over the self. There are several Dickinson poems which are about pain. (See the notes below for a small sample). It was an important subject for Emily Dickinson, as it is, I suspect, for all of us.

Though this poem is about pain, it is still a pleasure to read. The image and sounds are fantastic. “Ages coil within/ The minute Circumference/ Of a single Brain.” One gets the rather fantastic image of pain causing masses of time to coil themselves up inside a tiny little round brain. The brain has the appearance of being coiled, which adds to the weirdness of the image, as if the brain were made up of coils of endless pain.

Dickinson wrote to T.W. Higginson, “My business is circumference.” She also wrote, “The brain is wider than the sky.” You can see both of these ideas echoed here. The minuscule brain’s circumference has expanded, through pain, to encompass the ages.

There is a pun on “minute” here too. The ages are felt in “minute,” meaning both spatially and temporally small.

In the second stanza we see something subtle happen in the placement of the dash.

Pain — expands the Time —
...
Pain contracts — the Time —

The phrase “the Time” appears as a contraction of “expands the Time.”

In the first stanza the reigning letter is "n," which has an expansive quality. It carries the sound of moaning in pain: nnnnnnn. But in the second stanza we are presented with a scattershot of “t”s, which enacts a feeling of curtness, a tautening.

Pain contracts — the Time —
Occupied with Shot
Gamuts of Eternities
Are as they were not —

Gamuts of Eternities is very Dickinson. There can only be one eternity, right? But here there are Gamuts. Likewise, in a different poem, Dickinson uses the word “infiniter,” as if you could get more infinite than infinite. In another she writes “finallest,” as if you could get more final than final. Here we have not just a whole gamut of eternities, but gamuts. It’s an excess of infinite excesses.

Gamut, as Dickinson would have likely known, was originally a musical term for all the notes on a scale. So here we are presented with the idea of scales upon scales of musical notes, each comprising an eternity.

The word “Shot” is a surprising one. “Occupied with Shot.” “Shot” is a compressed way of saying “the shot that killed me.” “Shot” is a single explosive word that contains multiple meanings. It brings to mind the suddenness and violence of gunfire. It suggests pain can strike in an instant, reducing vast swaths of time to a split-second trauma. There is the sense here of a shot piercing the body, cutting deeply into consciousness.

If we return to the musical idea of the gamut, a shot might be a single note in the broader symphony of time, a percussive sound that disrupts the flow.

A “shot” can also be a dose, a concentrated delivery, like a shot of whiskey or medicine. Pain, in this way, is like a compressed eternity injected into one moment, a “shot” of infinite feeling in finite time. The word cracks open the poem.

This poem predicts our post-modern sense of relativity. (Another writer who did this brilliantly is Ambrose Bierce in the amazing short story from 1890, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.”) It undermines our trust in “objective” time. Dickinson shows that our inner lives defy the idea of regular measurable time. Pain bends time to its own will, distorting the normal order of things.

So what is Dickinson trying to get across to the reader with this paradox then? It positions pain not as meaningless agony, but as an existential force, something sublime. Pain is a window into the moment, and simultaneously into the infinite. It’s not seen as a weakness, but as a profound capacity of the human soul.

By recognizing how enormous and pointed our private suffering can be, Dickinson is asking us to pay attention to the unseen pains of others, and to their own, too.


     -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Bullet piercing an apple. Harold Edgerton. 1964

Notes:

Here are some more thoughts on pain from Emily Dickinson:

After great pain, a formal feeling comes--
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs--
The stiff Heart questions ‘was it He, that bore,’
And ‘Yesterday, or Centuries before’?

***

There is a pain—so utter—
It swallows substance up—
Then covers the Abyss with Trance—
So Memory can step
Around—across—upon it—
As one within a Swoon—
Goes safely—where an open eye—
Would drop Him—Bone by Bone.

***

Pain has an element of blank;
It cannot recollect
When it began, or if there were
A day when it was not.

***

To learn the Transport by the Pain
As Blind Men learn the sun!

***

The hallowing of Pain
Like hallowing of Heaven,
Obtains at a corporeal cost—
The Summit is not given

To Him who strives severe
At middle of the Hill—
But He who has achieved the Top—
All—is the price of All—

'Tis Sunrise — Little Maid — Hast Thou

'Tis Sunrise — Little Maid — Hast Thou
No Station in the Day?
'Twas not thy wont, to hinder so —
Retrieve thine industry —

'Tis Noon — My little Maid —
Alas — and art thou sleeping yet?
The Lily — waiting to be Wed —
The Bee — Hast thou forgot?

My little Maid — 'Tis Night — Alas
That Night should be to thee
Instead of Morning — Had'st thou broached
Thy little Plan to Die —
Dissuade thee, if I could not, Sweet,
I might have aided — thee —


     -Fr832, J908, fascicle 40, 1864


This poem begins in morning, with the speaker wondering why the “Little Maid” hasn’t risen. She was never one to sleep in. She had a “station in the day,” something to do. But now she’s still. 

By noon, the poet is more worried. “Alas — and art thou sleeping yet?” We get the feeling this “sleep” is deeper than just a nap. The world continues without her. The lily is waiting “to be Wed,” and the bee is looking for her. These are metaphors for the promise of love. The world is going on without the “Little Maid,” but she hasn’t taken her place in it. 

Then we reach the last stanza, and it’s night. “Alas / That Night should be to thee / Instead of Morning.” This isn’t sleep. The “Little Maid” is gone, maybe dead, and worse, by her own hand. The poet wonders, if she had spoken of her “little Plan to Die,” maybe she could have been talked out of it? Or, if not, at least she wouldn’t have been alone. (I wonder what else Dickinson might have meant by “aiding” the “little maid” with her “little plan” to die?)

The repetition of the word “little” in this poem, used four times, stands out. Calling her "Little" signifies that the maid is young and vulnerable. Repeating the adjective in the last stanza, “Thy little Plan to Die,” gives us a sense of tragic irony. Death is not little. But to the Maid, perhaps it seemed like it, just a small escape. Dickinson’s use of "little" carries a sense of a stunned sadness.

The word also gives the poem the tone of a nursery rhyme, which makes it even more haunting. It sounds at first like something you'd say to a child reluctant to get up, but then becomes something more terrible when we realize the girl is dead, and even more so when we find out it was planned. 

By repeating "little," the poem keeps circling back to her lack of agency. The girl is little against the big world. 

The form of the poem is worth a close look. It is is divided into three stanzas, each corresponding to a different time of day; sunrise’s hopeful beginning, noon's missed opportunity, night's irreversible ending. This mirrors the arc of a life, from childhood, to a delay, then to death. The structure is the story.

Also notice how the stanzas begin to fracture as the poem progresses. By the third stanza the lines are choppier and the punctuation grows heavy with commas and dashes, mimicking the stumbling cadence of sorrow. There is a sense of observation giving way to collapse.

The repeated address “My little Maid” at the start of each stanza is repetitive, like a chant, but each time the tone behind the words shifts. First there is a mild correction, then concern and, finally, grief.

The poem says to the despondent reader, don't don't be afraid to talk to someone, especially if you have Emily Dickinson around. And don't forget the promise of the Lily and the Bee. 

     -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Notes:

1. The poem reminds me of Blake’s “Little Lamb, who made Thee,” with its repetition, and its use of “Thou.”  There is also an echo of "maid" there in the word "made." I’m convinced, by now, that Dickinson read and subsumed Blake. And like many of Blake's poems, this one is about innocence lost. 

2. There is another echo here, the nursery rhyme,

Little maid, little maid,
Whither goest thou?
Down in the meadow
To milk my cow.

It's as if Dickinson took the maid's imperative to "milk my cow," and all of its innuendo, and rebelled against it. That was no life for her. That helps makes sense of "I might have aided — thee —"

3. I've noticed that Dickinson has used the endearment "Sweet" a few times in the poems written in 1864. In at least one of these, the word "Sue" was replaced with "Sweet. This makes me wonder if this poem was possibly for Sue too, though I'm not sure what to make of that. 

 

Till Death—is narrow Loving—

Till Death—is narrow Loving—
The scantest Heart extant
Will hold you till your privilege
Of Finiteness—be spent—

But He whose loss procures you
Such Destitution that
Your Life too abject for itself
Thenceforward imitate—

Until—Resemblance perfect—
Yourself, for His pursuit
Delight of Nature—abdicate—
Exhibit Love—somewhat—


     -Fr831, J907, Fascicle 40, 1864


I showed this poem to the poet Jennifer Moxley and her response was “Ouch! Dickinson is gnarly.” Yes! Gnarly is a good word for her.

Let’s take this poem stanza by stanza.

Till Death—is narrow Loving—
The scantest Heart extant
Will hold you till your privilege
Of Finiteness—be spent—

Loving someone only until death (“Till death do us part”) is shallow. Even the smallest heart can manage that and will hold you (keep you going) until your time as a finite being runs out.

But He whose loss procures you
Such Destitution that
Your Life too abject for itself
Thenceforward imitate—

But He (possibly Christ) whose loss leaves you so completely desolate that your life becomes too empty to sustain itself, you start to imitate,

Until—Resemblance perfect—
Yourself, for His pursuit
Delight of Nature—abdicate—
Exhibit Love—somewhat—

Until you resemble Him perfectly and give up your own self, abandon the joys of life and the natural world, and in doing so, finally show what love truly is.

The “But” of the second stanza marks a sharp contrast between ordinary and extraordinary love. Loving until death is common, but there’s another kind of love that begins after death, and it’s so powerful that it unmakes you. That “But” is the turning hinge of the poem. It shifts from finiteness to something that begins where death ends.

Another aspect worth exploring is the idea that “He” is Christ. A couple points about this. “Destitution” caused by loss of Him mirrors what St. John of the Cross called "the dark night of the soul." The poet's life becomes “too abject for itself,” like the soul without divine purpose, or maybe like one who has become overwhelmed because of the horrors of the world. The words “perfect” and “imitation” are clues too. “Thenceforward imitate—/ Until—Resemblance perfect—” "Imitatio Christi" is the basic idea of becoming more like Christ, imitating His life and even death. “Delight of Nature—abdicate—” Giving up the pleasures of nature sounds a lot like Christian asceticism. Finally, ending with “Exhibit Love—somewhat—” points to the realization that after all the self-erasure and abandoned joy, the poet only somewhat exhibits love. That humility mirrors Christian teachings. No love can fully match Christ’s love.

But all that said, it’s still difficult to get underneath this poem. First of all, it’s ambiguous whether or not the He in this poem is a lover (not necessarily a man) or Christ. But even if it is about Christ, and I suspect it is, one wonders at how devastating the cost of “perfect love” can be. To abdicate the "Delights of Nature" is a tall order for a nature lover like Emily Dickinson.

Let’s turn our focus to that term in the first stanza, “privilege of finiteness.” At first I took this phrase as earnest, as in, it’s a privilege to be alive, to experience the finite. But upon further reflection, I’m not so sure. I think she is being ironic here. The privilege here seems to be your mortality, the fact that you only have to endure until death. You’re spared the burden of forever. So it’s a dark kind of privilege, a relief by limitation.

But true love begins where that privilege ends, when the beloved is gone and you aren’t allowed to stop. That’s what the second stanza leads to, love that transforms in grief, without the escape hatch of death. This irony draws a sharp contrast between an ordinary and easy finite love and a radical love which is all consuming, and therefore not a privilege, but a burden or a calling.

Finally, let’s take a closer look at that “somewhat” at the end of the poem. After all that self-erasure and imitation, what does the poet say she’s done?

Exhibit Love—somewhat—

That “somewhat” undercuts everything that came before. After describing an act of self-abandonment in love, the poet minimizes it. It’s as if she's saying, even after all this, I only barely approach real love. After the poet gives everything, herself, her joy, her identity, she hesitates. It feels like a sigh. Maybe I’ve shown love. A little.

It also leaves the poem open-ended. The “somewhat” leaves the reader in tension. Is Dickinson being humble, or expressing futility?

Mourning can completely overtake a person, not just emotionally, but existentially. The real exhibition of love isn’t found in loyalty during life, but in the transformation of the self after loss.

This poem offers no easy comfort, but it does offer witness. It tells us that our grief isn’t just pain, it’s transformation. It points to the way that grief consumes you until your whole self becomes a sort of love-offering in return. 

       -/)dam Wade l)eGraff 

A gnarly pine reveals the heat of thousands of seasons

The Admirations—and Contempts—of time—

The Admirations—and Contempts—of time—
Show justest—through an Open Tomb—
The Dying—as it were a Height
Reorganizes Estimate
And what We saw not
We distinguish clear—
And mostly—see not
What We saw before—

'Tis Compound Vision—
Light—enabling Light—
The Finite—furnished
With the Infinite—
Convex—and Concave Witness—
Back—toward Time
And forward—
Toward the God of Him—

      -Fr830, J906, fascicle 40, 1864

The reality of death puts things into perspective. There is a raw truth in this poem that most of us can understand. A confrontation with death can change your priorities. This is one reason why a thinker like Emily Dickinson spends time meditating on death. It helps one to see the “Light.”

What are the "Contempts" of time? Well, today I read that there are plans to build a new $200 million gold ballroom in the White house. Perhaps when you hold that idea up to people struggling and starving, this may, upon reflection through the "Open Tomb," be considered one of the “Contempts” of time? (Of course it is pretty easy to point the fingers elsewhere, but much harder to go inward, to go "concave." I have plenty of my own "Contempts" to worry about.)

I like that phrase “Open Tomb” in the second line. The adjective “Open” can be read both literally and figuratively here. If you are looking into an open tomb, you see the body for the last time, life-like but lifeless. It’s an unforgettable sight. But “Open” also has the connotation of truth being “Open.”

We are also reminded of the stone rolled away from Christ’s tomb, leaving it open and... empty. Evoking Christ points us back toward the “Admirations” in the first line, the sense of sacrifice for others, but it also helps us make sense of that odd phrase at the end, “the God of Him,” since “Him” may well be referring to Christ, He of the empty open tomb. 

The Dying—as it were a Height

Dying as the apex of life is something I have seen in Dickinson before, though I can’t recall the specific poem. Can anybody help me here? There is this one, in which it is the wounded deer that leaps highest, which carries a similar idea, but its not the one I'm thinking of. At any rate, death is seen as a height toward which you climb, and from which you can clearly see the life below you. This vantage point “reorganizes estimates” of what we focused on in life.

Reorganizes Estimate
And what We saw not
We distinguish clear—
And mostly—see not
What We saw before—

What we “saw not,” which might be, for example,  the incomparable worth of love and generosity, becomes more clear to us with death at hand. And, likewise, we no longer look at the objects of our own desires, with which we were so obsessed, in the same way, if at all.

'Tis Compound Vision—
Light—enabling Light—

This is a kind of double vision, more than ordinary sight, one kind of illumination (divine?) helps make sense of another, such as the light of eternity casting meaning onto the light of life.

The Finite—furnished
With the Infinite—

Our limited mortal experience is “furnished” with the eternal. The moment of death brings the two together. The idea of the Infinite being a "furnishing" is an interesting way to imagine it. It reminds me of Dickinson’s poem from earlier in this fascicle, in which she is getting bulletins from immortality all day.

Convex—and Concave Witness—
Back—toward Time—
And forward—
Toward the God of Him—

Convex and Concave Witness. What an interesting way to put it. This is another angle on Dickinson’s famous statement, “Circumference is my business.” Reviewing your life may be seen as a concave looking (inwardly round), with your furthest memories forming the furthest edge of the arc. Meanwhile, looking ahead, convexly, bubbles outward toward the “God of Him.” It’s a lens looking both ways at once.

The “Him,” at the end of this poem, could refer to anyone who has died and brought our attention to what really matters, but it could also refer to Christ. The two possibilities are suggestively conflated.

I’ve been to a few open-casket funerals and the experience does wake one up to life. Once, though, I encountered a dead homeless man in a park in San Francisco. The experience helped me realize that I didn't want to end up dying alone, without family or friends. Up until that time in my life I had notions of becoming an independent loner, with Whitman as a kind of model, but after witnessing this lonely death, my ideas changed. 

In a similar manner, by reminding us of the "Open tomb," this poem attempts to help us reorganize our estimations of the worth of things.

     -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Notes: This poem has a strange meter and rhyme scheme. The iambic meter goes 5/4/4/4/3/3/3/3 in the first stanza, with an AABBCDCD rhyme scheme, and then the second stanza is essentially a broken-up iambic pentameter, with regular rhyme at the end of each pentameter. I don’t know what to make of this, but its fascinating to watch what Dickinson does compositionally from poem to poem. 

Also, there is something about the short taught lines of the broken pentameter that enacts compound vision, seeing both sides; human and divine, temporal and eternal, Admiration and contempt, “saw not” and “distinguish clear”, convex and concave, back and forward, like a see-saw. 

Between My Country — and the Others —

Between My Country — and the Others —
There is a Sea —
But Flowers — negotiate between us —
As Ministry.


      -Fr829, J905, fascicle 40, 1864


This poem was most likely written to be presented to a friend and accompanied with a flower. Emily Dickinson often wrote occasional poetry of this kind. I've said it before but it bears repeating: there should be a book of these poems sold in flower shops which present a bouquet of two dozen of Dickinson's flower poems. This poem would be a good one to include in the bunch. 

Look how much this small flower of a poem does in such a little space.

For starters, it opens up vistas by conflating people with countries. This is a poem sent to a single person, or maybe persons. Therefore "my Country," in this poem, means, first, myself. It is understood that this flower is being used to negotiate through ministry to "Others," which is to say to other people. People are compared to Countries, and upon reflection, we can see how large and complex each of us are, like walking Countries. (See Fr687 for one of Dickinson's many poems with this theme)

And, conversely, Countries are like people. This idea opens up this poem to readings along political, racial and religious divides, and suggests a way to negotiate between them through ministry. It is recommended that this ministry be through the gift of flowers.

Flowers in this poem represent beauty. Flowers look and smell undeniably beautiful and the implication here is that beauty unites us. We all share a love for beauty. It brings smiles to our faces. Flowers, though often overlooked in our day to day lives, are revered in every culture, and you could say the same of poetry. The link between flowers and poetry is beauty. If flowers could speak, it would sound like poetry. I mean this in the grounded sense of poetry having pleasing patterns of sound, just as flowers have pleasing patterns of petals. This poem, for instance, pleasingly rhymes "There is a Sea" with "Ministry." 

Granted, you want the thing you give to be beautiful, and the consideration of beauty is essential, but the paramount thing is the gift itself. It is the act of giving that counts. 

If you give someone flowers, you are giving the literal flower of the earth itself. A flower is called a flower because it is beauty flowing from the earth. (That's probably not true, but it sounds good.) What better gift could a diplomat give? What Country could refuse?

But Flowers — negotiate between us —

The word “negotiate” in this poem strikes me as ironic. Countries “negotiate” with each other and so do people, but the idea of flowers negotiating is oxymoronic. Flowers are a gift from the earth, always. They don't negotiate, they just are. So when we give them as a gift it is a reminder of natural bounty.

But Flowers — negotiate between us —
As Ministry.

The word “ministry” is rich with resonance. The word can refer to a government department, like the "Ministry of Education" and therefore fits the "Country" diplomacy motif. It also has a religious connotation. A "ministry" can refer to the work or service, or the body of clergy in a church. Finally, there is a healing connotation, like the idea of a nurse “ministering” to one’s wounds.

The word "minister" itself comes from the Latin "minus," meaning "less," reflecting the idea of service or being subordinate. 

All of this, a flower, which is to say, beauty, will do.

I don't think that Truth and Beauty are the same (like Keats’ Urn tells us) but they do seem to be nearly synonymous. Truth and Beauty summon one another. They cry out for one another.

Truth is in the gift, in the human connection, and Beauty is in the flower. Dickinson gives them both to us in her poetry. This is her "ministry" across the great divide.

      -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

lilies of the valley make good ministers

P.S. I found a good online essay about this poem by Brianne Jacquette that made some terrific connections. Check it out.

Had I not This, or This, I said,

Had I not This, or This, I said,
Appealing to Myself,
In moment of prosperity—
Inadequate—were Life—

“Thou hast not Me, nor Me”—it said,
In Moment of Reverse—
“And yet Thou art industrious—
No need—hadst Thou—of us”?

My need—was all I had—I said—
The need did not reduce—
Because the food—exterminate—
The hunger—does not cease—

But diligence—is sharper—
Proportioned to the Chance—
To feed upon the Retrograde—
Enfeebles—the Advance—

     -Fr828, J904, Fascicle 40, 1864


The logic of this poem, as best as I can make it out, goes like this.

Stanza 1: I’m appealing to myself (talking myself into the idea) that since I am prosperous right now and have this stuff, then life is adequate.

Stanza 2: But the stuff says to me: if your situation was to reverse itself, and you lost everything, it would be okay, because you are industrious.

Stanza 3: The poet answers this by saying “Well, yes, it’s true, I’m industrious because all I’ve got is my need. The hunger doesn’t go away when the stuff is gone.”

Stanza 4: Therefore, the poet concludes, I won't focus on what I've already attained, because to focus on the past weakens the chance for future possibility. I will be diligent, and therefore sharper, focused on that chance. 

This gets down to our basic humanity. "My need was all I had." We are needy. One would hope the things we have would satisfy our needs, but, no, Life is still inadequate. (What's missing?) And even if it did make life adequate, we might lose the stuff, and then life will be even less than inadequate. So all you can do is be industrious to try to fill your need. But whatever you fill your need with better be, like food, of substance to your soul. Forget about the last meal, though, if you can, and focus on the chance to advance to the next one.

Let's look at that "This, or This," for a moment. It's meaningless stuff, empty pronouns, insert any substitute. What the "This, or This" is really a substitute for? It's a substitute for the "Me, or Me," the "us." Dickinson makes that sly move between stanza one and two. 

Have you seen the movie The Jerk? There’s a scene in which the character played by Bernadette Peters leaves the character played by Steve Martin because wealth has changed him and therefore he is no longer the man she married. He walks away and says, “Well I'm gonna to go then! And I don't need any of this. I don't need this stuff, and I don't need *you*. I don't need anything. Except this. [picks up an ashtray] And that's the only thing I need is *this*. I don't need this or this. Just this ashtray. And this paddle game. - The ashtray and the paddle game and that's all I need... And this remote control. - The ashtray, the paddle game, and the remote control, and that's all I need... And these matches. - The ashtray, and these matches, and the remote control, and the paddle ball... And this lamp. - The ashtray, this paddle game, and the remote control, and the lamp, and that's all *I* need. And that's *all* I need too. I don't need one other thing, not one... I need this. - The paddle game and the chair, and the remote control, and the matches for sure. Well what are you looking at? What do you think I'm some kind of a jerk or something! - And this. That's all I need. [walking outside] The ashtray, the remote control, the paddle game, and this magazine, and the chair. [outside now] And I don't need one other thing, except my dog. [dog growls at him] I don't need my dog.”

That’s a deep comedic take into what I think Dickinson is getting at with "This, or This" becoming "Me, or Me." 

In the poem, as well as the scene from the Jerk, there is a thin line between stuff and what you really need, Love. The Dickinson poem is tricky because the “This, or This,” or “it” in the next stanza, is impersonal, and seemingly immaterial. But the idea of “Me, or Me” and “us” makes it seem personal. So which is it? Dickinson is blurring the line between material and spiritual prosperity in this poem, as it so often is in real life.

There is that “Life” in the first stanza to consider. The poet seems to be saying that the Life (of stuff, without Love) is inadequate. She's trying to appeal to herself that this stuff makes up for it. The stuff says no. Dickinson says all I have is need though. The need here seems to be referring to the "stuff," but its really pointing toward the “chance” to make a Life, to ascertain what the poet really needs.

“If I no longer had Life,” the poem is saying, “I could try to appeal to myself that the things I own would make up for the loss of You, my Life.” Life, at the time this poem was written, meant Sue for Emily, just as it means Bernadette Peters for Steve Martin in The Jerk (and for awhile, in real life.) None of that “stuff” will mean anything when the Life of the home is gone.

This kind of "appeal" is the root of the great American Dream tragedy. Think of The Great Gatsby, or Death of a Salesman, or, The Jerk. : (
      

             -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

The "This, or This" scene from The Jerk

All forgot for recollecting

All forgot for recollecting
Just a paltry One—
All forsook, for just a Stranger's
New accompanying—

Grace of Rank, and Grace of Fortune
Less accounted than
An unknown esteem possessing—
Estimate— who can—

Home effaced— her faces dwindled—
Nature— altered small—
Sun— if shone— or storm— if shattered—
Overlooked I all—

Dropped— my fate— a timid Pebble
In thy bolder Sea—
Ask me —Sweet— if I regret it—
Prove myself— of Thee—


     -Fr827, J966, Fascicle 40, 1864


Dickinson continues her string of extreme love poems from fascicle 40.

Since we know that at least one of these poems was given to Sue, we can assume that they all were. (In fact, in Fr816, "Sue" is replaced by "Sweet," and in this poem we see the endearment "Sweet" used again. ) They point to a love which lifts the beloved up to a stature that is beyond everything, even, we are told in this poem, nature itself. Because Dickinson took out referents, and made these love poems general, we are able read ourselves into both the lover's and the beloved's place. In this sense the poems teach us how to love, and, also, how to be loved.

     All forgot for recollecting
     Just a paltry One—

This one starts by saying, I forgot everything so that I could remember only one paltry person. The word paltry suggests that the one person might be insignificant to others but is everything to the poet. We get a sense of "One" being worth more than Everyone. This reminds me of Jesus' parable of the shepherd who leaves the flock unattended to look for the one "paltry" sheep who is missing.

If this poem can be read in a general sense, it is also about the specific.  

This focus on the particular is the essence of love. Loving more than "One" becomes abstract. Philosophically you might even posit that you cannot ever love more than One. You cannot love the general person, only the genuinely unique one. If I say I love my family, I am still speaking in the abstract. If I say I love my wife, it is pointing toward the real. 

The paltry One is, ironically, the least paltry. And each of us, to someone, even if only to our mother, is the least paltry. 

     All forsook, for just a Stranger's
     New accompanying—

What an adventure a romance is. To forsake all that is known in the past for the possibilities inherent in the accompaniment of a stranger. If the first couplet of this poem is about choosing one person over all others, then this one is about choosing an unknown future with this one person over the known past without them. 

     Grace of Rank, and Grace of Fortune
     Less accounted than
     An unknown esteem possessing—

No Rank, or Fortune (nor, in the other existing copy of this poem, "Wealth" and "Station") can account for that rare quality of you for which the poet possesses an "unknown esteem." That "unknown esteem" means priceless. You can't put a price on love. But also "unknown" describes the beloved. It goes along with with paltry, and strange, to describe something low that has become most high.

     Estimate— who can—

Nice one, Emily. As my daughter would say, "You clocked her Tea." Or as Justin Bieber would say, "It's not clocking to you that I'm standing on business." 

Can anyone estimate a person's true worth? And especially a person as amazing as Sue (or you)?

In that line, "Estimate— who can— " Dickinson is throwing the ball in our court. Wealth and Status are not bearers of worth. That which is of worth transcends worth. It possesses an "unknown esteem." It's not quantifiable. "Estimate— who can— " is a sly way of saying to the reader, "Do you agree, or is there something you esteem that is more valuable than me?"

     Home effaced— her faces dwindled—

In some Dickinson poems the beloved is equated to home, and in some, like this one, She represents away from home. Here, She is a stranger, and she is even seen as the effacer of home. We know how powerful home is to Dickinson. To efface a home is a serious charge. The faces from home, this poem says, dwindled, when I met you. That's a heavy statement. It says, essentially, I left my own childhood home behind for you.

     Nature— altered small—

This strikes me as an unnaturally beautiful line. I'm imagining it etched into a tree trunk, as just a fragment by itself. From it, future generations might be able to unravel the entire love affair. (Would somebody please make that happen? Sign it, Emily Dickinson.)

I feel the truth of this line in my marriage. Nature has been altered small because of my wife. In other words, if something were to happen to her, nature would lose its luster.  

Nature, which is the largest thing, is altered to become smaller by the addition of you. This reminds me of my favorite Dickinson poem, Fr1178, which says that the smallest human heart's extent reduces all of Dominion to nothing.

We should mention, for a moment, the beauty in the music in the syllables of this poem, like, for example, the way that little rhyme of "alt" with "small" in this line echoes the two instances of "all" that came in the lines before, and sets up the "all" at the end of the stanza. 

     Sun— if shone— or storm— if shattered—
     Overlooked I all—

The S-SH-ST-SH-T combo of "Sun— if shone— or storm— if shattered—" is gorgeous. Just saying. The beauty of the poem is part of the absolute devotion to the beloved.

Here the poet is saying that she overlooks the stormy days because of her love. "Were I with thee, wild nights would be our luxury" she writes elsewhere. But, we should note, she is also overlooking her good sunshine days too. That might be a problem.

     Dropped— my fate— a timid Pebble
     In thy bolder Sea—

The poet is saying here that whatever her fate is, it is wrapped up in the large ocean that is her lover. Her lover, she admits, is bolder than she is. The poet is a "timid Pebble" in comparison to the bold sea of her lover. There is a pun here with bolder/boulder, which is triggered by the word "Pebble." Once you hear the pun, then the line says, "in my boulder sea," which is to say, I'm a pebble in your rocky ocean.

An uncanny thing about these lines for me is that they could be written to any future reader. Dickinson left the fate of her poems up to posterity, to the bolder sea of the future. She never profited from them. She has dropped her fate, her "timid Pebble," into the ocean of readers yet to come.  

     Ask me —Sweet— if I regret it—
     Prove myself— of Thee—

"Sweet" here has a little bitterness to it, maybe even a little spice, when followed by that word "regret."

The poet will prove to you that she did not regret it. She will prove herself OF Thee. What a move, using that preposition "of" like that. It can mean, I'll prove myself to thee, but also that the poet will prove herself OF Thee. Like the pebble is engulfed in the sea, the self is of Thee. 

Those last lines perhaps intimate an insecurity in the mind of the beloved. "Do you regret it?" the beloved is imagined asking the poet. The poet turns to comfort her and say, I'll help you see why I could never regret it. In this poem, and in poem after poem, she does exactly that. She proves it over and over again in the poetry itself.

In reading these poems there is a (very slow) quickening effect on the reader. These love poems are written, in essence, to you. The "you" that was once, very specifically, Sue, is now you you, because you have assumed the role of the reader.  They are ideal love poems written for an ideal lover: you. 

But you also are reading these poems in the guise of the lover, in the voice of a poet with a capacity to love that is proven, time and again, with a love that seems to be larger than nature herself.

    -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

the incomparable Susan Gilbert Dickinson

P.S. This post feels like a love letter. But who am I even writing it to? There has to be someone specific, right? Otherwise, it's not you.  

Denial—is the only fact

Denial—is the only fact
Perceived by the Denied—
Whose Will—a numb significance—
The Day the Heaven died—

And all the Earth strove common round—
Without Delight, or Beam—
What Comfort was it Wisdom—was—
The spoiler of Our Home?


     -Fr826, J965, Fascicle 40, 1864


Let’s start with the ending of this poem and work backward. “The spoiler of Our Home” is a stomach-churning phrase. If Home has infinite power, as Dickinson has written elsewhere, then there is a real horror in spoiling it. Most of us can feel this at some level, though some of us may relate more than others. There are few things worse than having your home spoiled. It feels like "Heaven died."

And all the Earth strove common round
Without Delight, or Beam—

The home has been spoiled. There is no more delight, nor heavenly beam of light. There is only a common earthly striving.

The stakes in this poem are high then. So naturally, we want to know, what is it that happened that “spoiled” the poet’s home? So we go back to the beginning of the poem and find out that the only “fact perceived" is the beloved’s denial of the narrator. 

What is the Beloved's reason for the denial? Maybe there’s a very good reason? But, since this reason isn't given to us, the sense that I get here is that those other facts are irrelevant. There is no reason good enough to spoil a home. The only one that matters is what leads to -what Dickinson called in an earlier poem in this fascicle- “the finallest occasion.” It has spoiled the home. Whatever other “facts” there may be pale in comparison to this one.

The poet doesn’t give us the beloved’s purported reason for the denial because it is not pertinent to the overriding fact of the denial itself.

What Comfort was it Wisdom—was—

The spoiler of Our Home?

Whatever "Comfort” there may be in the reason for the denial couldn't possibly make up for the ultimate comfort of the home before it was spoiled. And it would be even more asinine to call reasons for denial “wise,” because what wisdom could there possibly be behind the spoiling of a home?

Think about the spoiled homes you know about and how the spoiler always has some “justification” for their actions. This poem is asking, how can you ever justify breaking up a home? The poem is asking the reader to stop and really think about those possible justifications for ending a relationship.

I think it might be useful to read this poem in light of the homeless problem, and the immigrant problem too. What does it mean to deny someone a home? What possible reason could be good enough?

     -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

P.S. Can this poem be read against itself? I wonder about that word "Will" in the first stanza,

Whose Will—a numb significance—
The Day the Heaven died—

I can’t help but think of the phrase, "Not my will, but Thy will be done." Is it the “will” that got in the way in the first place and caused the beloved's denial? In Fr818, Dickinson writes,

Other Betrothal shall dissolve —
Wedlock of Will, decay —

A Wedlock that we have willed our self decays. The Will can be a problem.

But I also think that Dickinson may merely mean here that since the break up of the home, she lacks the will to even get out of bed.

P.P.S.

What about those other "facts," the unperceived ones? Maybe they do matter? If this is a poem to Sue, and I suspect it is, then Sue's reason for denying Emily may have seemed quite reasonable. After all, Sue was married to Emily's brother. It was a very complicated relationship.