They put Us far apart—

They put Us far apart—
As separate as Sea
And Her unsown Peninsula—
We signified “These see”—

They took away our Eyes—
They thwarted Us with Guns—
“I see Thee” each responded straight
Through Telegraphic Signs—

With Dungeons—They devised—
But through their thickest skill—
And their opaquest Adamant—
Our Souls saw—just as well—

They summoned Us to die—
With sweet alacrity
We stood upon our stapled feet—
Condemned—but just—to see—

Permission to recant—
Permission to forget—
We turned our backs upon the Sun
For perjury of that—

Not Either—noticed Death—
Of Paradise—aware—
Each other’s Face—was all the Disc
Each other’s setting—saw—


     -F708, J474, Fascicle 33, 1863


This is one of those poems where you just have to throw your hands up and try to “see without seeing.” Seeing with your eyes closed (your eyes, in fact, taken) is what this poem seems to be about. So it’s appropriate that the poem, itself, is difficult to “see.” More on that idea later.

Let’s start with that opening stanza. “They put Us far apart—” Who are They? Immediately you are put in mind of lovers kept apart for a reason. For the past few dozen poems or so I’ve been inclined to think that the beloved “You” that these poems are addressed to was the reverend Charles Wadsworth. But there are a few clues in this poem that make me think this poem might be for Susan Gilbert. And, if it is, then maybe all the poems I was becoming convinced were addressed to Wadsworth were really addressed to Sue. I took those poems’ religious imagery as a clue leading to reverend Wadsworth, but maybe Sue was religious too? When Dickinson says in F707, “You served heaven/ or sought to,” I thought for sure it must be the good reverend Wadsworth that Dickinson was speaking to. But it could have also been Sue, right? Maybe Sue, who was married to Dickinson’s brother Austin, was attempting to keep her sacred wedding vows and therefore seeking to serve Heaven?

So while “They put us far apart” could refer to Wadsworth, since it would certainly have been socially inappropriate for Dickinson to be with a married Minister, I think it might more likely to refer to a lesbian relationship. The next lines give us another possible clue pointing toward Sue.

“They put Us far apart—/ as separate as Sea
And Her unsown Peninsula—/ We signified “These see”—”

I wondered what “unsown peninsula”might mean and so I reached out to Susan Kornfeld for her thoughts. I love her response: “Another look at 'unsown' and I find it interesting to note that Dickinson casts the Sea as feminine - which is traditional and typical for her; yet the peninsula is 'unsown' -- which would suggest a female, in fact a virgin -- or at least a woman who would not be pregnant -- which suggests a relationship with someone like ... Sue!”

Yes, this was my thought too, though Susan Kornfeld put it better than I could have. Susan also pointed out  that “it's hard to think about Sea and Her Peninsula being 'separate'. One envelops the other.” That’s insightful. The poem at first seems to be saying that the two were separated, but it's purposefully misleading. The poem is saying, rather, that in the poet’s reality “They” didn’t separate the two at all. Saying "As separate as Sea/ And Her unsown Peninsula—" is like saying "as separate as a hand in a glove." It's not separate at all. This tracks with the end of the poem too, in which even dungeons and death can’t keep the lovers apart, let alone "They". It also calls to mind poem F706 when the poet writes of the distance from her lover: “With just the Door ajar/ That Oceans are – “

“We signified “These see”—. What does "These" signify here? Does this line refer back to the sea and the peninsula? What Dickinson might be signifying is that what sees is not so much the eye as the sea and the peninsula. The peninsula is jutting into Her sea while the sea is enveloping Her peninsula. They are “seeing” each other in a deeper way. The sea sees.

“We signified “These see”—” sets up the next line, after the dramatic pause of the stanza break, “They took away our Eyes—” Because we signified that our bodies see one another, they are going to take away our ability to see one another in this way. And, just in case you don’t think this is serious, watch out. They are going to use guns to thwart us. Why are “They” going to use guns? Is Dickinson being metaphorical here, or is there a real threat of being shot and killed? And if so, for what? What would be a firing squad offense? Being lesbian might be one possibility, though I don’t think in Dickinson’s time it was against to the law to be so. 

Another possibility; those guns could be a reference to war. We saw something like this in F704, when Dickinson compared her defeat in love to losing a battle in war. Maybe the sea is meant here to signify the breadth of the U.S. That would make sense of the telegraph wires used for communication in the next lines. If this is the case, then Wadsworth comes back into the picture, as he was in San Francisco at the time. Questions abound. But let's get back to the point:

“I see Thee” each responded straight/ Through Telegraphic Signs—” This is a beautiful idea. Somehow, through electricity, through the air, through this very poem which Dickinson is telegraphing to us through time, we feel seen. The poet “Sees Thee.” Sees Thou.

And how about the fierce rebellion in the next lines?

With Dungeons—They devised—
But through their thickest skill—
And their opaquest Adamant—
Our Souls saw—just as well—

Our souls, even from dungeons on separate shores, using their thickest skill, and their opaquest adamant (determined will) will find a way to see, to be with, their beloved. What kind of telegraph message is that then, if not the one expressed by this poem?

Let’s look at those words “thickest” and “opaquest” for a moment. How “thick” is this poem? It’s the thickest. It shows Dickinson’s “skill” at its thickest. It’s dense, thick with meaning. And how opaque is it? Can you see through this poem? Hardly. Normally you see through things that are transparent. But here we are seeing, paradoxically, through the opaque. It reminds me of what William Blake must've meant when he wrote: “This life's dim windows of the soul/ Distorts the heavens from pole to pole/ And leads you to believe a lie/ When you see with, not through, the eye.”

Dickinson's poetry, her telegraph signal, is skillfully thick and willfully opaque, and this...allows us to see. The finer (most refined) sense gets through the tightest mesh.

They summoned Us to die—
With sweet alacrity
We stood upon our stapled feet—
Condemned—but just—to see—

Bearing witness to Dickinson’s declaration of a love so true that it would grant one happiness, “sweet alacrity”, even when being thwarted with guns, or left to die in a dungeon, or stapled to a cross, is such strong encouragement. Speaking of stapled to a cross, this poem isn’t the first time Dickinson has referred to herself in Christ-like terms. It’s well worth taking a look at F670 for one great example (out of dozens) pertaining to this idea. (F670 also mentions the peninsula motif too.)

Following this comes a whopper of a line. “Condemned—but just—to see—” Here you have a “thickening” of the plot, in which being condemned is somehow a part of the “seeing”. I don’t know if that’s right. I don’t know why being condemned would at all be necessary for seeing. But it’s an intriguing idea, and one worth thinking about. When you are condemned (damned), wouldn't you start to see more clearly?

And to go further with that idea, in the next stanza the plot thickens again as there seems to be a kind of willful self-condemnation happening:

Permission to recant—
Permission to forget—
We turned our backs upon the Sun
For perjury of that—

Maybe "They" isn't referring to the church condemning sexuality, or the congregation condemning love with a minister after all, but rather, "They" are Dickinson and the lover themselves, turning their own backs willfully against the Sun/Son. “We turned our backs upon the Sun” the poem says, for “perjury” of recanting. They would not recant their faith. This is invoking the martyr, one whom, at the point of torture and the threat of death, will not perjure his/herself and lie about his/her love for Jesus. Dickinson though, as she is wont to do, takes this Christian idea and brings it toward the Romantic realm.

Emily will go to the darkest place, turn away from the sun, toward what she calls the “White Sustenance / Despair –” for her love. Her bravery astounds, and her love is adamantly realized. She will die on the cross, happily, for her lover. And since this poem was left for us to find, then at some level we can can count our self as the one she is dying for. But there’s a catch. In this poem the "You" is up on a cross too. This dying for another isn't a one way sacrifice, as in Christian theology, it's mutual. There are two dying on the cross together, for each other, in sweet alacrity.

The last stanza, after all that passionate build-up, is just stunning:

Not Either—noticed Death—
Of Paradise—aware—
Each other’s Face—was all the Disc
Each other’s setting—saw—

Love doesn't notice death. This bears repeating. Love doesn't notice death. (Here we remember, and make deeper sense of, the poem that preceded this one in the fascicle, with its Giant which ignores flies. The Giant of Love does not notice the Flies of death.)

When you behold the face of your lover in your mind, then there is no Sun needed. All the disc that is needed is the beloved's face, the one which, in a previous poem, put out Jesus’ face. The beloved’s face replaces the Sun/Son. And each of you are seeing the other in splendor, as you set for each other. You are each other’s setting suns, dying for love.

Deep sigh.


-/)dam Wade I)eGraff

Size circumscribes—it has no room

Size circumscribes—it has no room
For petty furniture—
The Giant tolerates no Gnat
For Ease of Gianture—

Repudiates it, all the more—
Because intrinsic size
Ignores the possibility
Of Calumnies—or Flies.

   -F707, J641, Fascicle 33, 1863



"Size circumscribes." To circumscribe means to limit, or to define. So the size of something, say a room, defines what you can fit in that room. But Dickinson is getting at something more than just size here. "Size...has no room for petty furniture." Since there is only so much room in your room, you will want to maximize the space. You will want everything in that room to be worthy of being in that room. If you are an interior decorator, say, then you want every piece of furniture to be just right. Get rid of the petty furniture.

"Size circumscribes" is a very pithy and memorable way of saying that the form should fit content. If you have something to say, for instance, then say it in the best and most efficient way you can. Just as every piece of furniture should count in a room, so should every word count in a poem. And if possible, try to make each word count twice, or even thrice. Likewise, every note in a song or brush stroke in a painting should be perfectly placed.

But lest you think this about making the most of a small space, the next lines tell you that even within a giant space you still must be careful about keeping the gnats out. I take this as encouragement from Dickinson to go big if that's what your content requires.

And speaking of going big, it's ironic that Dickinson wrote this poem directly after F706, her longest poem ever. If you read the poems in order, as they are presented in the fascicle, this poem reads as an arch apologia for the previous poem. The poem I just wrote, she seems to be saying, is a behemoth, but I assure you every word is necessary. There is no wasted space.

"The Giant tolerates no Gnat/ For Ease of Gianture—" There are a couple alternatives for the latter line: "For simple Gianture" and "Because of Gianture". How about that word “Gianture." Did Dickinson make that up? Looks like it. And it’s a perfect word to describe her too. 

In the second stanza the idea of calumnies enter the poem. Calumnies are lies and slander. What should you do if your words evince slander? This poem is suggesting that you ignore it. And more than just ignore it, you should repudiate it!

That’s what I think this poem is saying. It's not warning you to beware of scandal so much as telling you to reject it out of hand. The first few times I read this poem I misread it. I took it as a warning not to get too big for your britches. I read it as saying keep to your own size. Don’t try to be such a giant, because if you get too big you won't be able to ignore the flies and lies. The bigger you get, the more you are susceptible. If you get too large, you lose track of your ability to keep track.

But eventually it clicked, as Dickinson poems eventually will, and I read it differently. I see it now as saying that INTRINSIC size, which is to say, the right size, a size which fits the content, is what you should be going for. You want a good fit, like Frank O’hara says in his great essay on Personism, "If you're going to buy a pair of pants you want them to be tight enough so everyone will want to go to bed with you."

This is a poem which tells us to go big if we are feeling big, but just make sure all the details count. Then ignore all the little annoyances and repudiate the inevitable malice and lies that come with the territory.

   -  /)dam Wade l)eGraff

                          
                          This is Emily's handwritten "possibility" from the
                          MS of this poem. That "ty" is a thing of beauty.
                          Where is the missing dot on that second "i"?

***

I’m really enjoying the diversity of this fascicle so far. We've had a poem about the joy of receiving a letter and reading it in private. Another taking on the persona of a bride anticipating her wedding night. We’ve had the tragic horrors of war writ large. We’ve had a long excuse to a lover for why they may not live together. And now we have this little brain teaser. After fascicle 32, with its intense focus on heaven and judgment, it feels like Dickinson is getting loose and experimenting with subject matter more in this one. Let's see where she goes from here! It's always an adventure with Emily. 

I cannot live with You –

I cannot live with You –
It would be Life –
And Life is over there –
Behind the Shelf

The Sexton keeps the Key to –
Putting up
Our Life – His Porcelain –
Like a Cup –

Discarded of the Housewife –
Quaint – or Broke –
A newer Sevres pleases –
Old Ones crack –

I could not die – with You –
For One must wait
To shut the Other’s Gaze down –
You – could not –

And I – could I stand by
And see You – freeze –
Without my Right of Frost –
Death's privilege?

They’d judge Us – How –
For You – served Heaven – You know,
Or sought to –
I could not –

Because You saturated Sight –
And I had no more Eyes
For sordid excellence
As Paradise

And were You lost, I would be –
Though My Name
Rang loudest
On the Heavenly fame –

And were You – saved –
And I – condemned to be
Where You were not –
That self – were Hell to Me –

So We must meet apart –
You there – I – here –
With just the Door ajar
That Oceans are – and Prayer –
And that White Sustenance –       (White) Exercise, Privilege
Despair –

      -F706, J640, Fascicle 33, 1863



This poem is unusually long for Dickinson and it got me curious as to what her longest poem might be. I looked it up and it turns out this IS her longest poem. Since Dickinson is a master of brevity, the length of this poem is, itself, worth considering.

The dozens of poems before this one, all seemingly addressed to one person, make it seem as if the absence of her beloved was something that was thrust upon her. But the first three stanzas of this poem leads one to reconsider and see that this despair was more likely, rather, chosen by Dickinson.

Why would someone choose despair? The poem goes to some -length- to explain why. The revelation for me though, the main takeaway, is that it is something chosen. Dickinson appears to choose despair, and, moreover, she takes sustenance from it.

What does Dickinson mean by her cryptic statement “I cannot live with You –/ It would be Life – " Why doesn’t the poet choose “Life”? One way to think about this question is to ask what she is choosing INSTEAD of life? She says that she rejects “life” because it is what the sexton keeps locked in the shelf like a cracked porcelain cup discarded by a housewife. There is a lot to unpack in that idea. A sexton is someone that looks after a church, and, often, a graveyard. Life is, paradoxically, like something dead, something precious like porcelain perhaps, but also something that gets old and cracks. Dickinson is looking for something that doesn’t get old, that won’t crack, something that can’t be replaced by a newer and more beautiful model. She conceives that this can be found in a kind of eternal love that is beyond life. (“Fleshless lovers” is the way she puts it in F691). It can also be found, you might say, in poetry itself. One may take the “You” in this poem for one’s self, and read it as an invitation to join the poet in this mystic place beyond decay.

 

It is worth noting the housewife in the analogy here. It is the housewife that is discarding the cup/life, but the implication is, conversely, that Dickinson is discarding the life of being a housewife. Also worth noting is the metaphor of the Sexton, because if “Life” is put away by the Sexton, it reminds us that living life is inextricable from death. You can’t have life without death. Dickinson is aiming for something more.

But the poet also says “I could not die – with You –”, for one must wait to shut the other’s eyes, and, for one thing, the “You” this poem is addressed to apparently couldn’t wait around to do this. “I could not die – with You – / For One must wait/ To shut the Other’s Gaze down – / You – could not – “. This speaks to the fact that no one can really die with someone else. Death, as Dickinson has pointed out in other poems, is a solitary thing. In F698 Dickinson calls this “Death’s single privacy”. 

In the lines that follow you see the depth of the poet’s love, “And I – could I stand by/ And see You – freeze – /Without my Right of Frost – /Death's privilege?” She is saying here, I believe, that she couldn’t watch her beloved freeze into rigamortis without doing so herself. It would be a “privilege” to freeze into death for the poet if she had to watch her beloved die. The stuttering beginning of this stanza (“And I – could I stand by”) is rare for Dickinson and brings the poem closer to spoken language than usual. In that moment’s pause you feel the anguish at the mere thought of the beloved’s death.

So both Life and Death with the beloved is off limits, but, then, so is resurrection. "Nor could I rise – with You – /Because Your Face/ Would put out Jesus’ – /That New Grace/ Glow plain – and foreign/ On my homesick Eye – /Except that You than He/ Shone closer by – “  These lines speak for themselves. Dickinson’s love for her beloved outshines Jesus. This is yet another example of Dickinson choosing a felt earthly love over an unknown heavenly one. This new Grace would be foreign to her and only make her feel homesick. (But what home we might ask? She has already told us she can’t Live with the beloved either.)

These lines may be seen as blasphemous, and most especially would have been so to the intended, who, we find out in the following lines, “served heaven”. “For You – served Heaven – You know,/ Or sought to – “ These lines indicate to me that Charles Wadsworth is very likely the “You” to whom this poem is addressed. See the gloss by Larry B (AKA Lawrence Barden) on the post for F686 for more on this: “At age 24, in 1855, ED attended a sermon delivered by Reverend Charles Wadsworth, a superstar, charismatic minister at Arch Street Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia. He was 16 years her senior and married with two children, but ED had found her soul mate. In the words of her niece, Martha Dickinson Bianci (1866-1943): 'Emily was overtaken – doomed once and forever by her own heart. It was instantaneous, overwhelming, impossible.'" 

Some conjecture this poem, indeed this series of poems, is addressed to Susan Gilbert, but I think Dickinson tips her hand when she says the addressee sought to serve heaven rather than be with her. And then she tips it again when she adds “Or sought to”. I take this pointed addition to indicate that either Wadsworth wasn’t convincing her in his service, or Dickinson wasn’t convinced there was such a thing as heaven to serve in the first place.

At any rate, the beloved chooses to serve heaven rather than be with Dickinson, and, as for Dickinson’s part, she says she would choose her beloved over a “sordid Paradise.” Sordid paradise is a very Dickinsonian oxymoron. As to why Dickinson might think paradise is “sordid,” see my comments on F695.

She opens this section with, “They’d judge Us – How – ." How could they judge Wadsworth? Afterall, he served heaven. And how could they judge Dickinson, for she values Wadsworth over heaven. It’s hard to judge someone who doesn't believe in the machinations of this sort of judgment. This fixation on judgment and heaven, though, is explored thoroughly in fascicle 32 and 33, as I point out in my comments on F699.

The next two stanzas go on to say that the poet would rather not be in heaven if her beloved was not there, even if she was the most famous citizen there. On the other hand, if he was in heaven and she was not, it would be as good as being in hell.

The poem ends with another oxymoron, the idea of the two lovers meeting apart. The door is open, but there might as well be an ocean between them. On the flip side, you might read this as saying that the breadth of the oceans between them is merely a door to walk through. This is how you "meet apart."

So We must meet apart –
You there – I – here –
With just the Door ajar
That Oceans are – and Prayer –
And that White Sustenance –
Despair –

I’m not sure what Dickinson means by the sustenance being the color white here. I think it likely means white hot, the way she uses it in “Dare you see a Soul at the "White Heat"? It’s worth noting that the two alternative words Dickinson provides for “Sustenance” are “Exercise” and “Privilege.” Both words add something important to the meaning. To think of despair as an exercise is instructive, and to think of it as a privilege even more so.

  

   -/)dam Wade l)eGraff  

I appreciate the poet Steven Cramer’s take on the last stanza of this poem. This is from an article on the poem in The Atlantic: “The final stanza seems to me one of the most overwhelmingly pained and resigned protests in verse. For Dickinson—the recluse who, paradoxically, valued personal attachments more highly than almost any other life experience—separation from a loved one amounts to Hell. The last six lines forsake the symmetry of the previous eleven quatrains, and desolation inheres in each syllable and juncture: in the choked finality of the heavy stresses and strong caesuras (“You there—I—here”); in the emotional abyss that opens with an enjambment (“With just the Door ajar/ That Oceans are”); in the oxymoronic precision of “meet apart” and “White Sustenance—/ Despair.” In this stanza and in hundreds of others, Dickinson resembles Shakespeare, one of the few other poets in English to achieve such a level of volcanic energy. To my mind and ear, no other American poet comes close.”

I am ashamed—I hide—

I am ashamed—I hide—
What right have I—to be a Bride—
So late a Dowerless Girl—
Nowhere to hide my dazzled Face—
No one to teach me that new Grace—
Nor introduce—my Soul—

Me to adorn—How—tell—
Trinket—to make Me beautiful—
Fabrics of Cashmere—
Never a Gown of Dun—more—
Raiment instead—of Pompadour—
For Me—My soul—to wear—

Fingers—to frame my Round Hair
Oval—as Feudal Ladies wore—
Far Fashions—Fair—
Skill to hold my Brow like an Earl—
Plead—like a Whippoorwill—
Prove—like a Pearl—

Then, for Character—

Fashion My Spirit quaint—white—
Quick—like a Liquor—
Gay—like Light—
Bring Me my best Pride—
No more ashamed—
No more to hide—
Meek—let it be—too proud—for Pride—
Baptized—this Day—a Bride—

    -F705, J473, fascicle 33, 1863 


One helpful way to read a poem is by shutting out sense, as much as possible, and just paying attention to rhythm and sound as you read it out loud. If you emphasize the iambic beat as you read, and keep it going in your head like a metronome, and listen to the way Dickinson plays off of the beat, the way she weaves words around it, you get a good foundation for the poem. Try giving voice to this one, making every dash a rest in the beat. Dickinson on percussion is like Buddy Rich. This one is a stellar example of Dickinson's musicality. In my opinion it is as good a composition of sound and sense as I have yet encountered.

In this poem, for starters, notice the emphatic beat on the hard D sound throughout. The poem begins and ends with it. How she works that D into the iambic meter is part of what makes the poem so satisfying to say. 

Rhyme is also turned up in this poem, even further than normal. Look at this wild run of triplet rhymes: “of Cashmere/ of Dun more/ Pompadour/ soul—to wear/ my Round Hair/ Ladies wore/ Fashions—Fair/ like an Earl/ Whippoorwill/ like a Pearl/ Character/ a Liquor." That’s just fun.

Amidst all of this sound, meaning sneaks in. The sense of the words, and the subsequent extrasensory sense of the words, begins to speak through this string of sounds. Through form comes content. That “D” sound comprises a feeling.  Before it has an assigned meaning the central word here, “bride”, has a sound. Dickinson makes the feeling of the word heard.

Whole words can give you a feeling. You can’t say the word pompadour, for instance, without feeling a little pompadour yourself, just as you can't say "whippoorwill" without intoning the song of the bird.

There was also, behind this poem, I suspect, a melody. I imagine this one was written to a tune going through Dickinson’s head, or maybe even while she was playing the piano. She reportedly played beautifully.

I tried playing a lilting Em/ G pattern on the guitar as I sang this poem, with a turn around at the end of each stanza, where I flipped the chords to G/ Em. It’s remarkable how much fun it is to sing. It sounds like a wedding jig.

***

It is a bit difficult to speak of ascribed meaning as it plays out in this poem because there are multiple ways of reading it. The first and foremost reading of this poem, for me, is as an innocent expression of the intense complex of feelings of a bride on her first night of being married; the crazy mix of fear, sadness, joy, excitement, embarrassment, self-admiration, happiness, inebriation and then finally, resolve.

One thing notable about a poem such as this one is how absolutely personal it is, and yet, at the same time, how universal. This poem could be spoken by ANY bride in love. Likewise the reader is transformed into a bride as he or she reads the poem out loud, and perhaps into a husband as well. It could hardly be a more intimate poem, nor a more public one.

Read this way, this is among Dickinson’s happiest poems. There is only the barest hint of sadness, and only a modicum of fear. Mostly there is deep character. That’s what this poem seems to be about, in the end. The poet chooses, by the close of the poem, to have too much pride to have pride, and covers up in bridal white. But, astonishingly, before she does, she let’s us see, in the intimate revelations of this poem, behind the bridal veil. We are, in this way, like the groom.

I swoon when I read this poem. It is so romantic. And yet, sometimes when I read it, it is the antithesis of romance. It is about autonomy. This is simultaneously a marriage poem and a poem about independence. This is yet another way this poem is both public and private. It reminds me of a line from the great Bill Callahan song "Pigeons": "When you get married, you marry the whole world."

***

There is much more to say about this poem. Each line could engender discussion. Just the idea of being too proud to be proud is thought-provoking enough to make this poem a keeper. Another line I find worth noting is "Prove—like a Pearl—", which could stand by itself as an epigram. It sums up Dickinson's entire oeuvre. Enclosed in her oyster shell of a life, Dickinson certainly did prove like a Pearl. 

-/)dam Wade l)eGraff

-

"As you wish."

My Portion is Defeat – today –

My Portion is Defeat – today –
A paler luck than Victory –
Less Paeans – fewer Bells –
The Drums dont follow Me –
with tunes –
Defeat – a +somewhat slower –
means –
More +Arduous than Balls –

Tis populous with Bone
and stain –
And Men too straight to
+ stoop again –
And Piles of solid Moan –
And Chips of Blank – in
Boyish Eyes –
And + scraps of Prayer –
And Death’s surprise,
Stamped visible – in stone –

There’s +somewhat prouder,
Over there –
The Trumpets tell it to
the Air –
How different Victory
To Him who has it – and
the One
Who to have had it,
would have been
Contenteder – to die –

+something dumber + difficult –

+bend +shreds + something

    -F704, J639, Fascicle 33, 1863

This poem takes a surprising turn. Nearly every poem in the last few fascicles seems to be dealing with the aftermath of a lover’s absence, full of an anguished passion which is wrung out in metaphor after metaphor. So when this one starts out by claiming “My Portion is Defeat – today –”, you think it is one more poem bemoaning the absence of He who brings the fire, He who is full of grace, He with eyes like heaven. And perhaps it is.

In the next line the pivotal word “Victory” leads us to see war as the metaphor for whatever defeat is in question for the poet. This defeat feels, to the poet, as brutal and terrible as war: pure hell. Is this an exaggeration? Perhaps, but it makes its point. 

This is problematic. On one hand it elevates the emotional impact of whatever defeat the poet is feeling. On the other hand doesn't it belittle the fate of the soldiers by comparing it to a personal defeat?

But something strange happens. The problem works itself out. In the course of this poem, as Dickinson goes on to describe the horrors of war, like the “solid pile of moan” and “chips of blank in boyish eyes”, it swerves to become more about the poor soldiers than the poet. It’s as if the poet, who is admitting that she is so miserable she’d rather be dead, is now, because of her plight, able to truly sympathize with the soldiers. The poem starts out in self-pity, but as the metaphor gets extended there is a transition until finally the metaphor itself begins to become the subject. The poet moves from pitying herself to pitying the civil war soldiers who are dying en masse as this poem is being written, including some of Emily's own friends.

It reminds me in this way of Sylvia Plath’s poem “Daddy”, in which Plath is ostensibly expressing anger about her German father, but does this by comparing her father with a Nazi soldier. Plath's poem was controversial, as some saw it as sensational and opportunistic  (The gall of comparing your own privileged life to the horrors of the holocaust!) I can understand this, but I would argue that you can justify Plath’s move as a way of shedding light on domestic abuse, and, conversely, the parental abuse hinted at in poem sheds light on Nazi mentality too.

This poem has a bit of that same problem. In Dickinson’s poem though I feel as if she channels her suffering into empathy. Note that the poem never returns to its initial focus on “me.” In the end the pronoun “me” has been turned into “one.” It has been depersonalized. The soldier and the poet, through the alchemy of the poem, have become “one”.

Let's go through the poem.

First stanza: My portion is defeat today. I didn’t get as lucky as the victor did. For me there are less songs of triumph (paeans), less ringing of bells, and no marching drums at all. To be defeated is more difficult than death by bullets (balls).

Second stanza: Defeat is populated with the bones of soldiers and the stain of blood, with dead bodies so stiff they can no longer stoop, with piles of men moaning in pure agony, with dead boys who now have blank chips for eyes. (“chips” -what a word choice.) The dead boys are holding scraps of prayer, perhaps bible pages. (This is as biting a line about faith as Dickinson has yet written.) And then there is that final haunting image; the way the faces of the dead still show the surprise of death, as if the soldiers were statues carved in stone.

Third stanza: Those over there on the victorious side are “somewhat” prouder than the defeated are. Dickinson provides “something” as an alternative word for “somewhat” here, but I think “somewhat” is much stronger, because it implies that there is still SOME pride in defeat. There is still a minor victory. This is a subtle turning point in the poem and sets up the next lines. "Over there –/ The Trumpets tell it to the Air – " The trumpets of the winners tell their victory to the air. The trumpets are not being heard by anything but “air” though, implying that the victory is as empty as air. Still, empty as it may be, victory is still better, because it doesn’t make you wish you were dead. The defeated soldier would rather have died in battle than lost a cause he was willing to give his life for. And here we are reminded of the stakes for the poet too. She would rather be dead than to have lived without gaining the thing she would have given her entire being for.

This poem, which is, at the onset, about the poet, turns out to be one of the great anti-war poems through sheer force of Dickinson’s imagery.

There is also a unique and effective rhyme scheme and rhythmic structure. Read the poem and listen to it as if there were marching drums underlining it, with a pause in the beat of the snare at every dash. 

-/)dam Wade l)eGraff

To my small Hearth His fire came—

To my small Hearth His fire came—
And all my House aglow
Did fan and rock, with sudden light—
'Twas Sunrise—'twas the Sky—

Impanelled from no Summer brief—
With limit of Decay—
'Twas Noon—without the News of Night—
Nay, Nature, it was Day—

   -F703, J638, Fascicle 33, 1863


We start small here with a “small hearth.” A hearth is a fireplace, which stands here, I think, for the heart, or the life force, of the poet. Once again, as in several of Dickinson’s poems from this time period, the pronoun “His” is ambiguous. It could refer to God or to a lover. To Dickinson I believe it referred to a lover, though to the reader it might stand for any kind of inflamed love.

From “Him” the fire comes, and then the whole house (the whole being) is aglow, suddenly. This sudden fire isn’t the violent kind. Rather it is glowing, and it gently rocks. The verb pair “fan and rock” is an intriguing one. When you think of fire and fan together you might first think of fanning a fire, but here it is the fire that is fanning, so it must mean the fire fans out as it spreads. Rock is something that you gently do to a baby in a cradle to help put it to sleep. So how does a fire “rock”? When a fire is in your hearth the light of the flames seems to sway on the walls, and that’s what I imagine Dickinson is talking about here. “His” fire spreads and gently sways as it enlarges to quickly become the sunrise filling the entire sky.  The effect of this is that the fire that Dickinson felt so intensely has now spread through time and space to light a fire in the reader’s hearth too. Don’t you feel a warm glow from these lines? Don’t the words fan your spirit like a sunrise?

Candlewood Lake CT - 2/19/24

Oddly Dickinson switches to legalese in the next stanza. “Impanelled from no Summer brief—” In a legal context "impanelled" refers to the process of selecting a jury for a trial. It involves choosing jurors who will serve as impartial judges of the facts presented in the case. If we interpret "brief" in a legal sense, it could refer to a written legal argument, typically outlining the legal argument involved in a case. Putting these together, "Impanelled from no Summer brief" might imply that whatever experience is being described hasn't been brought about through the typical legal proceedings or arguments of “summer”. It suggests that the experience of this “fire” is not bound by the usual legal frameworks or seasonal circumstances. The phenomenon being described transcends conventional boundaries. Dickinson’s father and brother were both lawyers, so this type of language would come natural to her.

But “brief” has a double meaning here of having a short duration, as is made clear in the next line, “with no limit of decay.” Summer is brief, the poet is saying, but not the love from Him, which transcends the temporary and is not limited by decay. There is something eternal about this fire/sunrise/summer/noon/day.

The last couplet “'Twas Noon—without the News of Night—/ Nay, Nature, it was Day—” simply means it stays noon, that the “nature” of this love is like an eternal day. The sound play in these last two lines is fabulous, created largely from the run of six “N” sounds, and by the assonance too, the “ooo” sound of Noon and news, and the way nay elongates into Nature. But there are other little things too, like the way “Twas” echoes the earlier use of that word, twice, in the first stanza, and the way it is echoed in the half-rhyme of the word “News” later in the same line. Then there is the strong rhyme of Day with Nay and Decay, which makes the final point feel emphatic. The poetry, if it is to echo and reinforce its subject, must be made so lyrically beautiful that it stays alive forever, capturing in its sound a fiery sunrise brightening to become an endless summer noon. 

- /)dam Wade l)eGraff


My first time through a poem I will sometimes grab a guitar and find a chord pattern and rhythm that seems to fit the poem's tone and then drape Dickinson’s words over the chord structure. It’s such a pleasure to hear Emily Dickinson’s words sung. Along these lines I found a beautiful version of this poem online in which a composer named Juan Ramos has written a sweet melody. The video is great because it just gives you the notes of music scrolling along with the words, and the singing is left up to you. It’s like poetry karaoke.

Except the Heaven had come so near —

Except the Heaven had come so near —
So seemed to choose My Door —
The Distance would not haunt me so —
I had not hoped — before —

But just to hear the Grace depart —
I never thought to see —
Afflicts me with a Double loss —
'Tis lost — and lost to me —


     -Fr702, J472, Fascicle 33, 1863


Sometimes a cry of the heart is best put into simple terms. This is just such a poem. It mourns a double loss. It seems to also hint at regret, the suggestion that it might have been better, perhaps, to never have gotten that glimpse of “heaven” in the first place.

We can be pretty sure that by “heaven” Dickinson is referring to her love life here. Just a few poems earlier, the first poem in fascicle 33, Dickinson makes this clear when she writes that she “sigh(s) for lack of Heaven – but not The Heaven God bestow –”. This is a good example of what is gained by reading these poems in context. It’s fine if you read the “heaven” in this as a Christian heaven, or any other kind; a religious feeling and a romantic feeling can seem one in the same. Both kinds of heaven, the romantic and the spiritual, point us toward a relationship in which the singular self is transcended. But this poem, I believe, is written for, or about, an absent lover, one which the poet holds to be “grace” itself.

Even though this is a fairly straight forward cri de coeur, there is still, perhaps, a wrinkle in it. The clue is in that word “Double”. Note that the word is capitalized. Double is not the kind of word that normally gets capitalized. Our attention is drawn to it. Sometimes the smallest detail, such as a capital letter, can unlock a deeper meaning in a Dickinson poem. The word double is often a rhyme for some kind of trouble. Think of Macbeth: “Double Double toil and trouble.” Or “doublethink” in George Orwell’s “1984”. Doubleness is a sign of a divided mind. In this poem there has been a splitting of the self in two.

What does Emily mean by this “Double loss”? It’s a kind of riddle. “Tis lost — and lost to me.” The reader has to suss out the difference between what is meant by lost and what is meant by lost to me. I’d love to hear your take on this riddle. To me the first loss is an absence, but the second one signals a division of self. It’s as if the self has been taken away with the loss of the lover. “Lost to me” might be a way of saying that the poet feels lost to herself.

It’s the loss of the personal relationship, that unique chemistry in which a me and a thee becomes a we, a whole greater than the parts, that this poem is grieving. That’s what makes the loss doubly painful. It’s not just a loss of a person, it’s a loss of an us. Thus, the significance of the self is lost too.

-/)dam Wade I)eGraff

The Child's faith is new—

The Child's faith is new—
Whole—like His Principle—
Wide—like the Sunrise
On fresh Eyes—
Never had a Doubt—
Laughs—at a Scruple—
Believes all sham
But Paradise—

Credits the World—
Deems His Dominion
Broadest of Sovereignties—
And Caesar—mean—
In the Comparison—
Baseless Emperor—
Ruler of Nought—
Yet swaying all—

Grown bye and bye
To hold mistaken
His pretty estimates
Of Prickly Things
He gains the skill
Sorrowful—as certain—
Men—to anticipate
Instead of Kings—

   -Fr 701, J637, Fascicle 33, 1863

This poem calls into question the idea of a childlike faith. 

The first stanza might be paraphrased like this: The child’s faith is new. The child has absolute belief, and, just as absolutely, bases his principles off of this faith. This faith is widely held and is blinding like sunlight on freshly opened eyes. (You might have to squint when facing it!) This child has no doubt at all. He laughs at any uncertainty or hesitation. He believes only in the promised paradise. Everything else is a sham.

Second stanza: The child credits the world for all that is false. He considers God's dominion the largest of all kingdoms. Caesar is small in comparison to this greater kingdom. Thus far into the poem a general reader might see this poem as a celebration of a child's faith, but after the first five lines the second stanza switches gears in a tricky way. The last lines of the stanza “Baseless Emperor—/ Ruler of Nought—/ Yet swaying all—” complicates the poem because it functions as a sliding modifier. (This sliding modifier thing that Dickinson does is very confusing to the unpracticed reader, but I believe it is essential to understanding certain poems.) If you read the above lines as modifying the lines before them, then the baseless emperor is what the child thinks of Caesar;  powerful (“swaying all”), but ruling nothing real (baseless). But these lines may also syntactically modify the last stanza. Read this way, the baseless emperor is the child of faith. He rules nothing that is real, even if his faith might sway others. By conflating the two Emperors this way (Caesar and the child of faith) we see them as essentially the same. They are both baseless. Caesar might ultimately be an empty emperor, but so is the one who thinks his “faith” represents an even bigger kingdom.*

In the last stanza of this poem the child of faith “grows up”. He has grown, gradually over time, ("bye and bye"), to see that his absolute conviction about paradise was really just an estimate, and not an accurate one. It was pretty to believe so, but it doesn't resemble the hard truth, which is much more prickly than pretty. (I'm reminded of Hemingway's line here, "Isn't it pretty to think so?”)

Eventually the child "gains the skill/ Sorrowful—as certain— " to see more clearly. Learning to be skeptical and to doubt is presented to us as a skill. By going through sorrow the child “gains the skill” and a new kind of certainty; that man is flawed, and is not divinely right like a king is meant to be. We learn to accept reality for what it is.

There is a doubleness to the phrase "bye and bye" in this poem. The child learns by and by, but also learns "goodbye after goodbye". Loss is part of the deal.   

Experience leads us to a more humble kind of faith. I think this is what is meant here by "sorrowful—as certain—". Love doesn't point us toward future glory, and isn't based on comparison, but is a belief in the embrace of another in the here and now. One can have a kind of faith which is accepting of the whole person, as they are, flaws and all, rather than a faith which has more to do with self-regard and trying to be "good" for some future judge. 

- /)dam Wade l)eGraff

* To reiterate, the sliding modifier means it can be seen as two poems. The first one, seeming to praise the child of faith, ends after the second stanza. The second poem, criticizing the child of faith, begins in the second stanza with the line "Baseless emperor." It's worth taking a moment and reading it both ways, to get a feel for how Dickinson pulls this off. Compare the two below.

1. 

The Child's faith is new—
Whole—like His Principle—
Wide—like the Sunrise
On fresh Eyes—
Never had a Doubt—
Laughs—at a Scruple—
Believes all sham
But Paradise—

Credits the World—
Deems His Dominion
Broadest of Sovereignties—
And Caesar—mean—
In the Comparison—
Baseless Emperor—
Ruler of Nought—
Yet swaying all—

2.

Baseless Emperor—
Ruler of Nought—
Yet swaying all—

Grown bye and bye
To hold mistaken
His pretty estimates
Of Prickly Things
He gains the skill
Sorrowful—as certain—
Men—to anticipate
Instead of Kings—

The Way I read a Letter’s – this –

The Way I read a Letter’s – this –
‘Tis first – I lock the Door –
And push it with my fingers – next –
For transport it be sure –

And then I go the furthest off
To counteract a knock –
Then draw my little Letter forth
And slowly pick the lock –         (+slily, softly)

Then – glancing narrow, at the Wall –
And narrow at the floor
For firm Conviction of a Mouse
Not exorcised before –

Peruse how infinite I am
To no one that You – know –
And sigh for lack of Heaven – but not
The Heaven God bestow –

   -Fr700, J636, Fascicle 33, 1863


Imagine reading this poem the way Emily tells us in the poem that she reads a letter. First you take it into your bedroom and lock the door. Then you push on the door just to make sure it’s locked (because you know how sometimes you lock the door but it’s not all the way closed like you thought, so it’s still possible for someone to barge in?) The idea here is that you will need the most private space to get the full transport from the poem. Also, make sure you go as far away from the door as you can get, just to counteract any knock, should you receive one. Even one decibel less can make a difference! Then after you have locked yourself away, take the poem, and slowly unlock IT, with an emphasis on slooowly. Slowly (slily and softly) unlock the poem. But wait, before you read it, look along the floor to make sure not even a mouse can interrupt you. All clear? Okay, NOW you can read the poem with full transport.

What does the poem say?

It says how infinite you are.

Girl Reading Letter by Johannes Vermeer 

 
I think this gets at something essential about Dickinson’s poetry. It’s only in the small private space that the largess of the soul can be discovered, not in “public, like a frog”.

There is something curiouser and curiouser happening in this poem, like what happens to Alice in Wonderland. There is a reducing down in size, an effect Dickinson accomplishes here with word choice. The word “narrow” is used twice and there’s the word “little”. A mouse is mentioned. But it is, paradoxically, in that small, locked away space that the vastness of infinite self is discovered. The contrast helps you feel the effect of this sudden opening at the beginning of the last stanza. That infinity seems so much larger after locking away and narrowing down.

Peruse how infinite I am
To no one that You – know –
And sigh for lack of Heaven – but not
The Heaven God bestow –

Look at what Dickinson does in the last stanza. First that singular line, “Peruse how infinite I am”. Though the narrative of the poem is about looking over a letter from a lover, there is a doubleness here, because you are ALSO perusing a poem. You are perusing the lasting words of the poet, who becomes, herein, the infinite “I am”. This has a resonance with the biblical “I am”, except the end of this poem let’s you know that the biblical is not exactly what we are talking about here. “Peruse how infinite I am” If, in a thousand years, you had JUST this one line surviving from this poem, in the way that we only have one line fragments of certain Sappho poems, then “Peruse how infinite I am” would still resonate in the aura of the eternal.

But the sentence doesn’t stop at the line break. The line enjambs and carries over into the next one. “Peruse how infinite I am/ To no one that You – know–”. The reader is infinite TO the one who writes her the letter, but, lest you, like the little mouse, try to pry and see who it is from, save your questions. It is no one YOU know. The way Dickinson sets off the “know” in dashes makes that word hover importantly there, makes knowing itself hover there. It’s not someone YOU know, it is private. Love is, by necessity, between two people, and therefore private. But also, on the meta mystical level, when one is infinite, and, in turn, is seen by one who is infinite, how can there be any knowing? It is beyond the knowable.

Though it’s hard to imagine Emily was thinking about future biographers here, it's funny the way a line like this seems to be purposely teasing us readers who would love to know who that letter is from. This is not the right question it seems to be telling us. Emily Dickinson tells us HOW she reads, but not WHO the letter is from, since the letter writer is, like the poet, infinite and unknowable.

The last two lines of this poem continue the theme we saw in the previous fascicle, the idea of earthly love -and the momentarily infinite gaze between lovers- versus a heavenly love, which lacks the only thing we can truly know in this moment.

She keeps driving that point home, poem after poem.

- /)dam Wade l)eGraff
 

The power to be true to You,

The power to be true to You,
Until upon my face
The Judgment push his Picture —
Presumptuous of Your Place —

Of This — Could Man deprive Me —
Himself — the Heaven excel —
Whose invitation — Yours reduced
Until it showed too small —


       -F699, J464, Fascicle 32, 1863

This is the last poem of fascicle 32. “Fascicle" is the name that Emily Dickinson's early editor, Mabel Loomis Todd, gave to the homemade manuscript books into which Dickinson copied her poems. Dickinson constructed the fascicles by writing poems onto sheets of standard stationery already folded in two to create two leaves (four pages). She then stacked several such sheets on top of each other, made two holes in the left margin through the stack, and threaded string through the holes and tied the sheets together. 

Ah, I would love to hold one of Emily's fascicles in hand.

It is fascinating to look at how each fascicle hangs together, how the poems within each one appear to be in conversation with one another. Fascicle 32 is a prime example.

For instance, the poem that begins and the poem that ends this fascicle are both thematically about death and judgment. In fact the word or idea of “Judgment” appears in at least 7 of the 21 poems in fascicle 32. This gives some credence to the idea that Dickinson wasn’t just collecting her poems randomly in these fascicles, but making unified discrete collections of poems.

Several of the poems in the fascicle form a kind of polemic about renouncing an unknowable, and possibly non-existent, heavenly love for an earthly love here and now.

There are a few poems that don't fit this theme, at least not in an obvious way. For instance, stitched into this narrative there is another narrative about sewing and patchwork. Seeing as how these fascicles are stitched together, and that sewing may be seen as a metaphor for poetry, you might say that the fascicle itself forms a kind of patchwork of sorts.

Some of the poems, when re-read within the context of the entire fascicle, change tone, and therefore meaning. The 13th poem in this fascicle, for example, the one about the holy trinity ("The Jehovahs") being the only ones that are able to detect sorrow, and, further, not blab about it, reads as sincere on its own, but appears closer to sarcasm to me, or maybe defeat, when read in the context of the rest of the fascicle. 

In a similar manner, the line “We perish, though we reign” from F693 is ironic if you read the poem in context. Though I still WANT to read it as, instead, transcendent. 

The 20th and penultimate poem in the fascicle, the one before this one, says, "I live with him here in the eternal now, be Judgment what it may." (Judgment be damned! Haha.) The 4th time the word "Judgment" is invoked in this fascicle.

This poem, the fifth one to use the word "Judgment" and the final poem of the fascicle, says something like, no man has the power to shake my fidelity to my love. Only Judgment (death) can reduce it. "The Judgment push his Picture — Presumptuous of Your Place —" Note the small "h" used here for "his", a very small detail that speaks volumes.

21 poems in fascicle 32, all hovering around heaven’s absence of presence and earth’s presence of absence.

Although it feels reductive to read these poems as directed toward Charles Wadsworth, it’s hard not to see them in this light when reading them as a whole. (And Larry B's commentary throughout the posts on this fascicle are persuasive here). It certainly seems as if there is an argument being made for an earthly present love to a man who seems to be more worried about Judgment in heaven. Moreover, these arguments use biblical language, the language that Wadsworth, a Presbyterian Minister, was steeped in, against itself. 

On one hand I don't want to get too caught up in this biographical take. If too much is made of it, then it takes away from the poems' ability, as Susan Kornfeld beautifully puts it, to bloom within the reader. But, on the other hand, it’s a juicy story! It’s a very similar narrative in that way to the stellar second season of the TV series “Fleabag”, in which Fleabag and a priest fall in love. If you haven't watched that show, I recommend watching it, and then come back and read these poems again. 

But maybe you don't have to choose between the biographical and the personal. The poems can be both. They make an endlessly fascinating and psychologically intricate love story when read biographically, but they also have the ability to take the reader into Emily's side of that story, an argument for the reader's sake too, to be enraptured in the the present, heartbreak and all. 

-/)dam Wade l)eGraff

I live with Him — I see His face —

I live with Him — I see His face —
I go no more away
For Visitor — or Sundown —
Death's single privacy

The Only One — forestalling Mine —
And that — by Right that He
Presents a Claim invisible —
No wedlock — granted Me —

I live with Him — I hear His Voice —
I stand alive — Today —
To witness to the Certainty
Of Immortality —

Taught Me — by Time — the lower Way —
Conviction — Every day —
That Life like This — is stopless —
Be Judgment — what it may —


  -F698, J463, Fascicle 32, 1863


I read one analysis of this poem that takes the “Him” here as a representative of death, like the “He” in the poem, “Because I could not stop for death/ He kindly stopped for me.” This seems like a stretch. David Preest writes that “this poem shows Dickinson’s complete dependence on her lover.” This seems more likely, though I wouldn’t use the word “dependence”. For a general reader, knowing nothing of Dickinson’s life, the capitalized Him would point toward the usual designation for Christ. All of these are possible. It is safe to presume the “Him” in this poem is the same as the “Master” of the previous poem. Dickinson’s blurring of the lines between God and lover is part of the mystique of her poetry.

As intrigued and fascinated as I am by all of this, I want to read the poem outside of this biographical/religious realm and show the ways in which these poems may be relevant to the reader, i.e. myself. 

The first thing I find noteworthy in this poem is the idea that the poet is done with visitors AND sundown. To be done with visitors is extreme, but sundown too? No more night time? Is this because He shines so brightly that there is no more darkness? Or is it because the poet can no longer sleep in her agitated state?

It would seem the only thing that could forestall the poet’s seeing "Him" is death. The syntax gets tricky here. “Death's single privacy/ The Only One — forestalling Mine —” What does “mine” refer to? Is it referring back to death? That’s what I thought at first, but it doesn’t make sense that death would forestall death, unless the second death is symbolic. Does “mine” refer back to “privacy”? This makes more sense. Death’s single privacy is the only thing that could get in the way of the poet’s (double) privacy with Him.

And what does the “And that…” beginning the next stanza refer back to? The forestalling? The privacy? Death? I think it is likely the privacy, which helps make sense of the "invisible claim" that “He” has on the poet. This is followed up by “No wedlock granted me”. It seems because there was no earthly marriage for the poet, then “He” has a claim. This might lead us to believe that Christ is the Groom. Though, to return to biography for a moment, there is one narrative that says Dickinson made a pact to marry Charles Wadsworth in heaven. I learned this idea from faithful Prowling Bee reader Larry B. See his comment on F686 for more on this. This reading certainly dovetails with the poem, although it is harder to reconcile with a non-biographical personal reading.

Non-biographically, I can make sense of the Christ reading, or, alternatively, the idea of an earthly love that shows you a taste of immortal love. These both fit well for the third stanza here.

I grew up with the hymn “In the Garden” and the lyrics “He walks with me and He talks with me”, so that’s what I hear in the first line of the stanza. “I live with Him — I hear His Voice —”. That hymn was written in 1912, so Dickinson wouldn’t have been thinking of it, but given the fact that Dickinson writes in standard hymn meter, it is hard not to hear some resonance. Also the idea of being a “witness” is Christian parlance too. But again, Dickinson often uses religious language to speak of earthly love, so who knows?

The part that does resonate with me though is when the poet says, “I stand alive — Today —/To witness to the Certainty/ Of Immortality”. This focus on immortality, which is felt in the NOW, or “— Today —”, is where I, as a reader, find myself included. Here is a poet, one I deeply admire, who stood witness “— Today —” to the CERTAINTY of immortality. 

This brings us to the idea of what exactly Dickinson means by immortality. I would posit that you could make a life study out of this question. Dickinson’s poems and letters are overflowing with the idea. The following quotes are all taken from her letters, and give us a feel for the range.

"No heart that break but further went than immortality."

"Emerson's intimacy with his "Bee" only immortalized him."

"The 'infinite beauty' of which you speak comes too near to seek."

"Show me eternity, and 

I will show you Memory-
Be you - While I am Emily -
Be next - what you have ever been -
Infinity."

"There is no first, or last, in Forever- It is Centre, there, all the time."

"The risks of immortality are perhaps its charm."

"A letter always seemed to me like Immortality, for is it not the Mind alone, without corporeal friend?"

"Dear friend, can you walk, were the last words that I wrote her. Dear friend, I can fly- her immortal reply."

"An hour for books those enthralling friends the immortalities."

"The immortality of flowers must enrich our own."

"Amazing human heart-
a syllable can make
to quake like jostled tree-
what Infinite - for thee!"

Each of these quotes are worthy of contemplation and give us a new spin on the idea of immortality. And there are dozens more like this in the poems. In another letter Dickinson says of another writer (though it might as well be herself), "It may be she came to show you Immortality." This echoes the "I stand alive today to witness to the certainty of immortality" that we find in this poem. It may be Dickinson came to show us immortality.

The last stanza also resonates with me. Since the higher way, “immortality”, is timeless, we can only learn it the lower way, since we are creatures of time.

The Certainty of Immortality is...
"Taught Me — by Time — the lower Way —
Conviction — Every day —
That Life like This — is stopless —
Be Judgment — what it may —”

When you start reading Dickinson as a witness to immortality, then the biographical details are secondary (even if they are endlessly fascinating). What I find meaningful is that there is a certainty of Immortality that was taught to Emily by Time (by Time!), and that therefore it can be taught to us too; that life like “This” is stopless. Be judgment what it may. I take that "This" to include all that can be found in the above quotes, something tied into to the heart, to heart break, to flowers, bees, memory, books, something that is risky, something that is there all the time, and so on. Or to quote my favorite Dickinson lines about eternity, also from a letter, “The Life we have is very great. The Life that we shall see Surpasses it, we know, because It is Infinity, But when all Space has been beheld And all Dominion shown The smallest Human Heart's extent Reduces it to none.”

-/)dam Wade l)eGraff

My daughters Sofia and Lucia in front of

Banksy's mural in Queens, moments 

before it was defaced. 

Why make it doubt—it hurts it so—

Why make it doubt—it hurts it so—
So sick—to guess—
So strong—to know—
So brave—upon its little Bed
To tell the very last They said
Unto Itself—and smile—And shake—
For that dear—distant—dangerous—Sake—
But—the Instead—the Pinching fear
That Something—it did do—or dare—
Offend the Vision—and it flee—
And They no more remember me—
Nor ever turn to tell me why—
Oh, Master, This is Misery—


   -F697, J462, Fascicle 32, 1863



What is missing from this poem?


1. Perhaps the most conspicuous thing about this poem is what is not there. The first thing I notice is how bare it is. There is no beautiful imagery. It is devoid of the kind of sensory splendor Dickinson can do so breathtakingly well. If we look at the last few poems in Fascicle 32 we can see plenty of gorgeous imagery, like an “impalpable Array that swaggers on the eye like Cleopatra’s Company Repeated in the sky” (F696). This array is missing here.

2. There are no names, and nary a gendered pronoun. There is only “me” and “master, “they” and “it”. Significantly, “it” is presented to us 3 times in the very line of this poem. There are 7 in total.

We’ve met this kind of Dickinson poem before, notably a few poems back in “Like Eyes that looked on Wastes…Just infinites of Nought as far as it could see” (F693). The “it” there refers to a face. A face is just a thing when there is no soul to animate it. I’ve noticed that Emily often uses the “it” this way, to call attention to a part of the body which is dead in itself and needs the spirit to animate it. That’s what I think is going on here, with the dead thing being the heart.

But maybe to call “it” merely a heart would be to de-infinitize it. On one hand the word “it” refers to “thingness”, but on the other hand “it” is vague enough to take on many possibilities.

The reason I think the it refers to a heart is because there appears to be a romantic situation here. In boring prose, this scenario reads, “Why make me doubt. It hurts my heart so. It makes me so sick to have to guess your feelings. But it would make me so strong to know them (whether they say yes or no). My heart is so brave though. I’m in bed, telling myself the last thing you said to me and smiling, and then shaking with emotion for the sake of you, dear, so distant from me. It’s dangerous to my well being. My heart feels a pinching fear that something I dared to say offended you, causing you to leave. And I’m afraid that you’ll forget me and I’ll never know why. Master (of my heart), this is miserable.”

This is a lover who has put everything, her very being, on the line, who has dared to bare her soul. And you just know that Emily was like this. We love her for this. And yet, what if you were the object of this love? If you read through Emily’s love letters to Sue, you can just imagine how intense it must have been to be on the other side of them. It must have been a LOT. As Thomas Wentworth Higginson wrote to his wife shortly after meeting Emily for the first time: “I never was with any one who drained my nerve power so much. Without touching me, she drew from me. I am glad not to live near her.” I can easily imagine Emily’s daring being overbearing. And yet, a love letter from Emily? Who could resist such overbearingness? Wadsworth perhaps, Higginson too, but not Sue, not in the long run, as she was still around at the end to help Bury her friend.

I think one of the things that we love about Emily so much is her fierce all-consuming ability to love. But it IS intense. Sometimes it feels like I’m looking directly into the sun when I read Dickinson. Lucky Sue though. And lucky us. The poems, somehow, love us too. I wish I had the ability and courage to love that deeply.

3. A third thing noticeably missing in this poem is stanzas. It is one long stanza. There isn’t the breathing room of line breaks. It’s one long breathless plea.

This poem, given a contemporary title, might be called “The Plea of the Ghosted”. It so well sums up the horrible feeling so many of us have felt when ghosted by someone we love.

If you happen to be the Master in a relationship, then this poem is for you too. It’s telling you that it is far kinder to be clear, so the one you are leaving can be “ strong to know” instead of “sick to guess”. Don’t be a ghoster!

4. The final thing missing from this poem is a perfect end rhyme. All the couplet rhymes leading up to the last one are perfect, or nearly perfect, but the final one upsets the harmony and turns that “I” sound of “why” into a pained “ee” sound of “misery”, which sonically hearkens back to “me”. It's also worth noting that there is another poem in this fascicle that ends in "misery", F686. 

5. The absences in this poem signal absence itself.


-/)dam Wade l)eGraff


*Note Emily’s early use of the pronoun “they” for the singular “Master”. She was ahead of her time!

The Tint I cannot take — is best —

The Tint I cannot take — is best — 

The Color too remote 

That I could show it in Bazaar — 

A Guinea at a sight — T

The fine — impalpable Array — 

That swaggers on the eye 

Like Cleopatra’s Company — 

Repeated — in the sky — 

 The Moments of Dominion 

That happen on the Soul 

And leave it with a Discontent 

Too exquisite — to tell — 

The eager look — on Landscapes — 

As if they just repressed 

Some Secret — that was pushing 

Like Chariots — in the Vest — 

 The Pleading of the Summer — 

That other Prank — of Snow — 

That Cushions Mystery with Tulle, 

For fear the Squirrels — know. 

 Their Graspless manners — mock us — 

Until the Cheated Eye 

Shuts arrogantly — in the Grave — 

Another way — to see —

-F696, J627, Fascicle 32, 1863


For this poem I'm going to turn over the floor to Patrick Gillespie. I was introduced to Gillespie's blog when he commented on an earlier poem on Prowling Bee (F684). We corresponded a bit and I became a fan. I like his take on this poem and so, with his permission, I will include it here. The rest of his blog is well worth checking out too. Here's Patrick on "The Tint I cannot take — is best —":


"So this is a poem that has had me utterly puzzled for three days straight. And I have been irritably dissatisfied with every interpretation that I’ve read (of which there aren’t many, at least online) and mainly because all of them, Vendler’s included, fudge their interpretation of the last quatrain. As regards Vendler, her interpretation is so convoluted that she herself ends her explication with a question mark—a made-up question mark that is not reflected in Dickinson’s text (as if Vendler were imputing on Dickinson her own uncertainty).

The poet’s only remaining defense against a perpetual cycle of elation and discontent within Nature is deliberately to exclude herself from it, to return Nature’s arrogance with arrogance, and to shut her “Cheated Eye” in the grave. And after that? Is there “Another way — to see — “? Dickinson manifests only a skeptical prospect—she exhibits no certainty that there is “Another way — to see —.” [Dickinson: Selected Poems and Commentaries]

Except that Dickinson does none of these things. It is entirely Helen Vendler who “exhibits no certainty”. Dickinson, in fact, is quite certain:Their Graspless manners — mock us — Until the Cheated Eye Shuts arrogantly — in the Grave — Another way — to see —



The only question is in regards to what she’s certain about. Vendler interprets the poem as Dickinson’s “attempt to grasp the “Graspless” import of Nature” and asserts that, with each quatrain, Dickinson becomes more disillusioned by nature’s ‘withholding of its secrets’. Arguing that Dickinson’s poem is one of increasing disillusionment is how Vendler explains the seeming contradiction/bitterness of the last quatrain, in which the poet appears to assert that she’s been cheated. It’s a contradiction because Dickinson begins the poem by stating what facets of nature she thinks ‘are best’ (presumably that she likes best). And so why would she spend the first five quatrains extolling these facets of nature only to end by resenting them? Vendler thinks its because nature never, ultimately, gives up its secrets. Contrariwise, my own reading is that this is precisely the quality Dickinson likes and steadfastly admires throughout the poem. I would also argue that Dickinson isn’t strictly describing what she likes about nature, but is also describing, by analogy, what she likes in poetry. And credit for that possibility goes to Vendler who, though she doesn’t seem to recognize the significance, suspects that Dickinson’s poem 778 and “The Tint I cannot take” are related:

Dickinson’s first statement is one of gratitude for poetic incapacity, rejoicing in Nature’s capacity to withold her best secrets: “The Tint I cannot take — is best —”, she alleges, wanting something to be saved from human exploitation. Just as she would find (in *788) that “Publication — is the Auction/Of the Mind of Man —”

And there’s another parallel with this poem that Vendler either missed or deemed insignificant. That other Prank — of Snow — That Cushions Mystery with Tulle, For fear the Squirrels — know.

Compare that to 778 in which she describes her sheets/pages of poetry as Snow: We — would rather From our Garret go White — unto the White Creator — Than invest [sell/auction] — Our Snow [Poetry]—

My reading is that Dickinson, in describing what she likes best about nature, is describing her own philosophy of poetry. The Tint I cannot take [is what is best], along with the impalpable array, the moments of dominion, the eager looks of landscapes, the pleading of the summer and that other prank — the Snow. Those are the first five quatrains. So:The Tint [way of understanding] I cannot take [to market to sell or auction] — is best — The Color [meaning] too remote [refined, intangible, ineffable] That I could show it in Bazaar — A Guinea at a sight —

This can be interpreted in a couple ways: She’s not going to dumb down her poetry for the sake of a guniea; or, She likes most that feeling in her poetry that is too refined, too personal a way of understanding, too ineffable and revealing, to be worth a guinea. Dickinson doesn’t want her intensely personal poems to be defined by any monetary value.The fine — impalpable Array [rainbow]— [is also best] That swaggers on the eye Like Cleopatra’s Company — [a reference to Shakespeare's verse] Repeated — in the sky — [rainbow compared to Cleopatra on the Nile]

Dickinson, here, is all but directly referencing the famous passage from Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra.Her ladies and gentlewomen also, the fairest of them were apparelled like the nymphs Nereides (which are the mermaids of the waters) and like the Graces, some steering the helm, others tending the tackle and ropes of the barge, out of the which there came a wonderful passing sweet savor of perfumes, that perfumed the wharf’s side, pestered with innumerable multitudes of people. Some of them followed the barge all alongst the river’s side; others also ran out of the city to see her coming in; so that in the end there ran such multitudes of people one after another to see her that Antonius was left post-alone in the market-place in his imperial seat to give audience.

What is significant here is that Dickinson is explicitly referencing Shakespeare’s poetry and a particular passage. She is telling us what she admires in poetry. In this case the kind of swaggering and impalpable beauty in Shakespeare’s verse that defies explanation.The Moments of Dominion [when poetry overwhelms or conquers] That happen on the Soul [the reader] And leave it with a Discontent [an inability to dislodge the poetry] Too exquisite — to tell — [for reasons too moving/personal to explain]

In other words, she also likes best those moments when a given passage so overwhelms/dominates her that she can’t think of anything else [like me and this poem for example]. She’s left in a state of discontent/agitation for reasons too exquisite to explain. And it’s precisely because she can’t explain the reasons why she is agitated and exercised that she knows the value of the poetry. This is what great poetry should do.The eager look — on Landscapes — [at the terrain of other poems] As if they [the poets] just repressed [just narrowly hid] Some Secret [meaning] — that was pushing Like Chariots — in the Vest — [the thumping heartbeat in the breast]



What she also likes best: Eagerly looking—opening the pages—to visit the terrains of other poems, and especially by poets who, wishing to conceal the true meaning/inspiration of their poems, are also simultaneously driven to confess/reveal their “secrets” with the eagerness of the heart (hopefully beating in the chest) desiring to be understood. (The chariots are like the bringers of the news and the thudding hooves of the horses their heartbeat.) I personally read in this metaphor a description of poetry as a kind of coy flirtation. Dickinson reads and writes poems that are like flirtatious invitations—she both conceals her true intentions, to protect herself should she be rejected, but also wishes to be understood with all the flush of a beating heart. And that makes sense of, and leads directly to, the next quatrain:The Pleading [the flirtation] of the Summer — [of the poet herself] [And] That other Prank [feat and/or gaudy dress]— of Snow — [the flirtation of her poetry] That Cushions [covers] Mystery [the truth] with Tulle, [rhetoric/the words themselves] For fear the Squirrels [the too curious/invasive reader] — know. [will find her out]



If Dickinson considers the best poetry to be like flirtatious invitations (and that’s how I might characterize many of Dickinson’s poems) then the “Pleading of the Summer” might be understood as the flirtation of the poet herself, in the blossoming guise of summer. By referring to Snow/her poetry as that “other Prank”, she is playfully referring to herself, in the previous line, as a prank (that other gesture for attention). In other words, the heart of flirtation/poetry is jest, deception, truth and the desire for reciprocity (the desire for one’s joke/insight/meaning to be understood). Not to be overlooked, though, is an older meaning of prank. To prank also has the (now archaic) meaning to dress up showily (a meaning which the Dickinson Lexicon overlooks, by the way). This meaning would have been current in Dickinson’s time and is a meaning Dickinson would have encountered in Shakespeare’s Winter’s Tale, for instance.PERDITA Sir, my gracious lord, To chide at your extremes it not becomes me: O, pardon, that I name them! Your high self, The gracious mark o' the land, you have obscured With a swain's wearing, and me, poor lowly maid, Most goddess-like prank'd up: but that our feasts In every mess have folly and the feeders Digest it with a custom, I should blush To see you so attired, sworn, I think, To show myself a glass.

This latter interpretation strikes me as the more likely. Summer’s Pleading, in other words, would be it’s ostentatious display/prank of flowers (for example), while the poet’s pleading is prank’d up in her poetry/Snow. It’s a great contrast and it makes better sense of the quatrain. The poet’s prank (gaudy dress) of Snow/Poetry cushions/’covers over’/conceals her true appearance with Tulle (a veil of words) to keep out the overly nosy/inquisitive/curious squirrels looking for pat explanations (or gossip).Their Graspless manners — mock us — Until the Cheated Eye Shuts arrogantly — in the Grave — Another way — to see —



And now we get to the last quatrain, which at first glance seems to undercut all of this. Many interpreters, including Harold Bloom, seem to (want to) imply that this last quatrain is a rejection of everything written before and that, once in the grave, we’ll finally see with the eyes of the soul/spirit—a hopeful stab at profundity by many interpreters; but Dickinson gives us zero reason to read it that way. She writes quite plainly that ‘Another way to see’ is arrogantly shut in the grave by the Cheated Eye.’ Period. There’s no revelation in those lines. But, once again, I’m going to suggest that many, possibly most, readers have been misreading this final quatrain. All the puzzle resides in sorting out who “their” is, who “us” is, what (or who) the “Cheated Eye” refers to, what “arrogantly” means, and what is meant by “Another way — to see“. According to all the interpretations I’ve read so far, including Vendler, the “Cheated Eye” is Dickinson’s own eye, the same “eye” as in the second quatrain—”swaggers on the eye”. If read in this sense, then Dickinson is saying that everything in the previous five quatrains cheated/deceived her eye. But maybe not. Why is eye not capitalized in the second quatrain, but is capitalized in the final quatrain? That’s not the kind of detail to be overlooked in Dickinson. My suspicion is that they aren’t the same. They mean different things.

There’s a fascinating series of revisions in Dickinson’s poem I’m ceded—I’ve stopped being theirs, in which she writes:I've finished threading—too— Baptized, before, without the choice, But this time, consciously, of Grace— Unto supremest name— Called to my Full—The Crescent dropped— Existence's whole Arc, filled up, With one small Diadem.

For “whole Arc”, she also tried and rejected: whole eye, whole rim/surmise. What we have is a Dickinson Thesaurus provided by Dickinson herself. In other words, she considers eye to be, in a sense, a synechdoche or synonym for the span of life, existence’s arc, rim (circumference) or surmise. And what if that’s the sense in which Dickinson meant “Cheated Eye”? In that case, I would read “their” as not a reference to the examples of the previous five quatrains—the tint, the impalpable array, the moments of Dominion, the Landscapes, Summer or that other Prank of Snow (all of which she stated as being “best”)—but to squirrels. Yes. Squirrels. It’s the squirrels who are the villains. Squirrels digging rudely in the snow of Dickinson’s poetry, grasping for the next guinea. They’re not some vague “nature spirits”, as Vendler would have it. Dickinson is talking about readers (and editors) who want to reduce her poetry to something pat and banal (remember, she’s just spent the last five quatrains celebrating the ineffable—truth and beauty beyond words and explication). For Dickinson, it’s the ineffable and inexplicable that gives poetry its power, not anything made pat for the convenience of a sale. Poetry isn’t something that some damned squirrel can dig up like a Guinea and stash in its larder/bookshelf.Their [the squirrels] Graspless [failure to grasp] manners — mock us — [belittle the poet's efforts or more generally mock/resemble all of us] Until the Cheated [the deceived/wasted] Eye [arc of life/surmise] Shuts arrogantly [triumphantly] — in the Grave — Another way — to see — [our/their opportunity to see the world through Dickinson's eyes or more generally the ineffable]



So. in plain English: The borish readers/editors, only interested in a guinea’s worth of entertainment, mock and belittle the poet’s effort. Their manners are graspless, in the sense that they can’t grasp the truth and beauty of the ineffable. (And this plays against the first line in the sense that it’s what Dickinson can’t take that is the most valuable.) They cheat themselves of the ineffable by their pursuit of the easily comprehended (cheating themselves of the profundity Dickinson has described in the previous five quatrains) until the natural arc of their cheated lives shuts them in the grave, forever closing them off to that other way “to see”—that other way offered by Dickinson and the great poets before her.

If read and understood this way, the final quatrain reaffirms the first five quatrains, rather than negating them. And if read this way, Dickinson’s poem isn’t only a sharp rebuke of readers, but also of the poetry being produced by other poets, along with the whole monetization of poetry (and the demands made on poetry by that monetization). One might respond that this was self-defeating on Dickinson’s part but remember that Higginson made Dickinson change her poems so that they would more readily and easily appeal to readers (ergo: so that they would sell better). Dickinson, with reason, fundamentally saw publication and its readership as hostile to her and her poetry. As I read this poem, it’s Dickinson’s defense of herself, her decision not to publish her poetry, and her criticism of readers and the state of contemporary poetry in general."

Bravo Patrick, thanks for helping us see "Another way — to see —".