I envy Seas, whereon He rides—

I envy Seas, whereon He rides—

I envy Spokes of Wheels

Of Chariots, that Him convey—

I envy Crooked Hills

That gaze upon His journey—

How easy All can see

What is forbidden utterly

As Heaven—unto me!

I envy Nests of Sparrows—

That dot His distant Eaves—

The wealthy Fly, upon His Pane—

The happy—happy Leaves—

That just abroad His Window

Have Summer's leave to play—

The Ear Rings of Pizarro

Could not obtain for me—

I envy Light—that wakes Him—

And Bells—that boldly ring

To tell Him it is Noon, abroad—

Myself—be Noon to Him—

Yet interdict—my Blossom—

And abrogate—my Bee—

Lest Noon in Everlasting Night—

Drop Gabriel—and Me –

                                                                                          F368 (1862)  498

It's not very clear if Pizarro is wearing
an earring here or not

My favourite part of this love poem is where the speaker complains that even “The Ear Rings of Pizarro” couldn’t buy her the access to her lover that the “happy—happy Leaves” have. Double points for the leaves/leaves wordplay as the leaves have “leave to play.” No doubt “Pizarro” was chosen with an eye to rhyming with “Window”—and that is just grandly bizarro!

            The entire poem is brimming with love. The poet envies everything that her lover touches or that even is near him. Even a common fly on his window pane is “wealthy” because of its proximity to the beloved. The poet would like to be the sea beneath his boat, the wheels beneath his carriage, and the sparrows under his eaves. At first she says she’d like to be the noon bells that he hears but then says she wants to be “Noon to Him.” That’s a tall order among all the other tall orders for noon represents the fullness of day when the mighty sun is at the apex of his daily journey.

Atahualpa, the Incan ruler Pizarro
defeated in 1532. This is the guy 
with major ear bling.

            In the last stanza the poet seems to have second thoughts about claiming the privileges of noon. She pairs the familiar lovers, blossom and bee (“Come slowly—Eden”), with “Gabriel—and Me.” Gabriel is the messenger angel and Dickinson has called on him before as the deliverer of urgent truth (“For this—accepted Breath”). “Forbid my blossom, deny it all privilege,” she says. “Do away with my Bee. I can’t afford to indulge my passion for you, my desire to envelope you like sunlight and bear you up like the sea, or else I’ll be dropped from this glorious noon into ‘Everlasting Night.’” Gabriel here, the messenger, would be this very poem—her message of love and passion. Far better she lock the poem up than let it out and risk an eternal darkness.

The ballad rhythm and meter are more regular than Dickinson poems often are, lending the poem a simple storied quality. The ballad form is modified by use of catalexis (where, for example, a iambic tetrameter line is shortened by one syllable such as in “I envy Nests of Sparrows”). These catalectic feet mostly involve a feminine ending (unaccented) as in journey / Sparrows / Window / Pizarro / Blossom (vs. “convey” and “abroad”). The dropped accent at the end of the line suggests loss and sadness and it is indeed a sense of poignant sadness that we are left with after all the girlish and impulsive love.