If you were coming in the Fall

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,

I'd wind the months in balls—

And put them each in separate Drawers,

For fear the numbers fuse—

If only Centuries, delayed,

I'd count them on my Hand,

Subtracting, till my fingers dropped

Into Van Dieman's Land.

If certain, when this life was out—

That yours and mine, should be—

I'd toss it yonder, like a Rind,

And take Eternity—

But, now, uncertain of the length

Of this, that is between,

It goads me, like the Goblin Bee—

That will not state—its sting.

                                                                  F356 (1862) 511

Absence makes the heart grow fonder, but if we don’t’ know when our friend or lover is coming back, then it can also make us very anxious. That’s what the poet describes here: the speaker wants nothing more than to be reunited with her loved one and would be willing to wait however long it took. Instead, she is “uncertain of the length” of time she’ll need to wait and the uncertainty “goads” her unmercifully, as if a “Goblin Bee” were always hovering over her with a giant stinger.

                  Dickinson organizes the poem from the shortest period to the longest. If the beloved were to come in autumn, then summer would drag by, but she could deal with it as easily as a housewife does a fly. Just brush that summer off. Next, the lover might not come for a year. Still, the speaker would just compartmentalize each month as if it were a ball of wool. Each would go in its own drawer to be unwound separately, and that would be better than lumping them all in one giant ball. That would be overwhelming.

                  What if it took “Centuries”? Well, the now seemingly-immortal poet would simply tick the centuries off her fingers until she’d counted so many her poor fingers dropped off and fell to the other side of the world (Van Dieman’s Land was an early name for Tasmania—which really is the opposite side of the world from Massachussetts).

                  But if the lover was never going to make it back and the speaker had to wait until heaven, why she’d just “toss” her life “yonder, like a Rind” of a watermelon or orange that is no longer of interest, and head for Yonder.

                  But life is never that simple. We all have to live with ambiguity, uncertainty, and the always great possibility of disappointment. I very much like thinking of this negative potential as a Goblin Bee that buzzes around without ever indicating just when it is that it will sting. Perhaps never!