And like a Host — "Come in"
I boldly answered — entered then
My Residence within
A Rapid — footless Guest —
To offer whom a Chair
Were as impossible as hand
A Sofa to the Air —
No Bone had He to bind Him —
His Speech was like the Push
Of numerous Humming Birds at once
From a superior Bush —
His Countenance — a Billow —
His Fingers, as He passed
Let go a music — as of tunes
Blown tremulous in Glass —
He visited — still flitting —
Then like a timid Man
Again, He tapped — 'twas flurriedly —
And I became alone —
F621 (1863) J436
This poem always delights me. We see the poet open the door to the wind. No doubt she had been listening to the hums and knocks and tappings outside her door. Once she'd opened it, however, the "footless Guest" came in for a brief visit. And what a guest! Of course he couldn't sit in the company chair any more than air could enjoy settling into the sofa. What was he like, then?
After flitting about for a while he tapped again at the door, all in a flutter, and left.
I don't think the poem can be mined for deeper significance. It captures an experience common to many in a way meant to delight.
Just for your delight, here are some more
wind poems:
"The Wind didn't come
from the Orchard — today —" (F494)
"Of all the Sounds despatched
abroad" (F334)
"Of Brussels – it was not –" (F510)
"An awful Tempest mashed the air –"
(F224)
This is wonderful as I love her poems and was looking around the web and found your blog... This is great...Michelle
ReplyDeleteSuch wonderful persistence on such a wonderfully ambitious project! Kudos to you Ms. Kornfeld!
ReplyDeleteThis poem's deeply resonant notes continue to ring within that numinous space where Ms. Dickinson leaves us suspended, as it were -- in mid-air -- with her final line:
And I became alone --
May I suggest that Dickinson's personification of the wind in this poem, though without doubt -- delightful(!) and certainly familiar to many, carries much deeper undercurrents lying beneath that familiar surface, perhaps even touching upon the esoteric, and thus worthy of deeper reflection?
The key to such esoteric meaning: Below the elementary "poetic device", "figure of speech" surface lies the "The Wind As Allegory."
"OK... An allegory for what?"
...Given Emily's background (numerous sources will support this), there can be little doubt that not only was she well-acquainted with the following words, but more likely these words had been deeply planted within her:
"The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit." John 3:8
In this sense, this small gem of a poem finds a much deeper resonance reflecting the Gnostic sense of the Fourth Gospel.
-- Just a suggestion...
I love it -- thank you! Clearly my St. John chops are lacking. While there is rich potential in reading the whirling visit of the wind as that of life-giving Spirit, I'd be interested in your thoughts on how the wind is both like a 'tired Man' and a 'timid Man'. It's interesting to think of Dickinson playing with these ideas, though. How easy it might be to think of the brushing breeziness of Spirit as timid tapping, of a billowing presence and a music as of glass.
DeleteI like this poem even if it refers to just a dalliance with actual wind. But I like it even more as a kind of dance with "spirit" (holy or otherwise) or "muse" or even "lover". What I like about "lover" is that the poet is "bold" to let him in, and more compelling evidence to me of the lover reading is that the chair is superfluous. This "billowing" (read: blustery, proud) wind is no stable long-term lover. (Compare both "sofa" and the "wind" in this poem to the "sofa" and "wind" a few poems ago, F617.) Perhaps this is why the wind is "tired"? He's a tired lover. But he can't stop. He wants to rest, but can't. Perhaps this is why he is so insistent at the end when he tries to come back. You see that insistence in that amazing word, "flurriedly". I love the idea of a Don Juan type flitting flurriedly. But why is he so timid? Perhaps because he is so tired? He can't stop himself from trying to get in, but knows what it means, ultimately, to lack a chair to rest in. He also may be just a little afraid, now, of the poet herself.
ReplyDeleteBut, oh the tremulous glass blown music! What a metaphor, both visual, picturing blown glass, and aural, music blown through glass.I couldn't figure out what that meant but I like your idea of blowing in the top of a glass bottle. I'm picturing a glass flute of sorts too. "Tremulous" is such a perfect adjective here to describe the whole ecstatic affair. She really has the best adjectives.
The "I became alone" at the end takes on more resonance with this reading too. It may be hard to hear that siren music of the passing lover and then just have to let it go. You suddenly find that by comparison that you feel alone. "Became alone".
Another note, I've noticed in some recent poems that ED inverts metaphors and makes it seem as if the actual subject were the metaphor. So in this poem what perhaps would be "The tired man tapped at the window like the wind" is reversed. Another example of this is the recent poem, F610 "From Cocoon forth a Butterfly/ As Lady from her Door." This is sly because you think it's about the wind, or a butterfly, but it's really, in both cases, perhaps, about men and women that love "freely". It's sly for a reason.
Let’s chase the “lover” rainbow with a few excerpted lines:
ReplyDelete“The Wind — tapped like a tired Man — / "Come in" / I boldly answered — //
His Speech was like the Push / Of numerous Humming Birds at once - //
His Fingers, as He passed / Let go a music —//
Then like a timid Man / 'twas flurriedly — / And I became alone —"
Quite a raunchy love poem, no? Just takes a sex-starved 32-year-old poetess with a hyperactive subliminal imagination and some context-free editing.
On a more serious note, the “gnostic sense” of John 3:8 sure sounds agnostic to me:
"The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit."
And reminds me of St. Bede’s homily of the sparrow:
Another of the king's chief men . . . presently added : "The present life of man, O king , seems to me, [is] like to the swift flight of a sparrow through the room wherein you sit at supper in winter, with your commanders and ministers, and a good fire in the midst, whilst the storms of rain and snow prevail abroad; the sparrow, I say, flying in at one door, and immediately out at another, whilst he is within, is safe from the wintry storm ; but after a short space of fair weather, he immediately vanishes out of your sight , into the dark winter from which he had emerged. So this life of man appears for a short space , but of what went before , or what is to follow, we are utterly ignorant”
(Bede. 731 AD. The Ecclesiastical History of the English People)
Anonymous, July 31, 2020, asked a tough question:
ReplyDelete“May I suggest that Dickinson's personification of the wind in this poem . . . carries much deeper undercurrents lying beneath that familiar surface, perhaps even touching upon the esoteric, and thus worthy of deeper reflection?
“The key to such esoteric meaning: Below the elementary "poetic device", "figure of speech" surface lies the "The Wind As Allegory."
"OK... An allegory for what?":
and answered with a cryptic Biblical quote, ambiguous at best:
"The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit. (John 3:8) ".
Some other contenders for answers:
1. For nothing: The wind is simply the wind.
2. For a Ruby-throated Hummingbird
that tapped her window one fine summer day, entered her bedroom, declined her chair, twittered fast hummingbird songs, brushed her with humming wings, and, like a timid man, flurriedly tapped her window to bid goodbye, “And I became alone —”
3. For physical existence:
“So this life of man appears for a short space, but of what went before, or what is to follow, we are utterly ignorant” (Bede, 731 AD)
4.For spiritual existence:
“Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more.” (Macbeth, 1606)
5. For Charles Wadsworth:
Wadsworth blew into her life in March 1855 and out in May 1862, “And I became alone —”
6. And the winner is,
All of the above.