The World — feels Dusty

The World — feels Dusty
When We stop to Die —
We want the Dew — then —
Honors — taste dry —

Flags — vex a Dying face —
But the least Fan
Stirred by a friend's Hand —
Cools — like the Rain —

Mine be the Ministry
When thy Thirst comes —
Dews of Thessaly, to fetch —
And Hybla Balms —
                                                              F491 (1862)  J715

"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust" – so goes the familiar phrase from the Anglican burial service. It is based on the biblical account in Genesis of how God created humanity out of the dust of the earth. It is no wonder, then, that the world "feels Dusty" as we die – although the wonderful phrase is all Dickinson. Dickinson goes on to note that we "stop to Die" as if death is a way station on the soul's passage. Honors are not what is wanted at this juncture: they "taste dry" as if they, too, are dust. It is the ministry of a friend that satisfies the soul's thirst and eases the way.

       The flags in the second stanza represent war. Soldiers die under them and for them, but they ultimately bring no comfort, no sense of glory. Instead, they "vex" the dying. Dickinson was writing in the midst of the Civil War, and this one line succinctly – and with great understatement – de-glorifies war. It is a direct rejection of the famous lines from Horace that Dickinson no doubt read: "It is sweet and right to die for your country."
        These lines were often quoted at the beginning of World War I, but poet Wilfred Owen demolishes them in his powerful 1918 " Dulce et Decorum Est " which concludes:  

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest 
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Thessaly's Vale of Tempe

   Owens is much more explicit than Dickinson. Yet her poem also suggests that it is a bitter thing to die under a flag. Neither it nor even the honors he may have achieved bring him any peace in the end. That requires the soothing hand of a loving friend.
    In the concluding stanza, the poet addresses either a generalized "you" or a particular person. She wants to minister to the dying – to ease the thirst and apply a soothing balm. It is a hymn and a call: If you care for the dying, be there for them. There was a poet, equally great, writing at the same time, who did just that: Walt Whitman who volunteered to work as a nurse on the battlefield and at hospitals.

Notes:
  - Hybla is a town in Sicily famed since antiquity for its bees and honey. Romantic author Leigh Hunt's 1883 booklet, "A Jar of Honey from Mount Hybla," draws from myth and Greek poet Theocritus in discussing the restorative properties of this honey.
 
  - The "Dews of Thessaly" are probably a reference to the lovely pools and waters of the Vale of Tempe – located in the north of Thessaly (a region of modern Greece).   John Lemprière in his Classical Dictionary gives this description of Tempe:

… The poets have described it as the most delightful spot on the earth, with continual cooling shades, and verdant walks, which the warbling of birds rendered more pleasant and romantic, and which the gods often honored with their presence.

  - Aaron Copland uses this poem in his 1950 composition "Eight poems of Emily Dickinson." This is a performance of the poem with soprano Dawn Upshaw and the Saint-Paul Chamber Orchestra conductred by Hugh Wolff (note that Copland changes "Thessaly" to "thyself" and "Hybla" to "Holy").