It was too late for Man—

It was too late for Man—
But early, yet, for God—
Creation—impotent to help—
But Prayer—remained—Our Side—

How excellent the Heaven—
When Earth—cannot be had—
How hospitable—then—the face
Of our Old Neighbor—God—        +New


F689, J623, Fascicle 32, 1863


“It was too late for Man”. Now that’s what you call a cold open! This would imply mankind is doomed, and perhaps it seemed so to Emily in the midst of a civil war in which brother was fighting brother, and over such a terrible issue as slavery. But this line has only come to feel more apropos nowadays with climate change, nuclear weapons, the threat of AI, and so on. Emily saw the writing on the wall. Humanity, left up to its own devices, appears hellbent on self-destruction.

But then you get that big “But’ in the next line. “But (it’s) early, yet, for God.” That’s reassuring. We are a blip in the broader manifestation that is happening in the vast universe. I saw a t-shirt worn by the comedian Reggie Watts that said, “When in doubt, zoom out.” That’s what Emily seems to be doing here, taking the long view.

Not only is it too late for man, but we read in the next line that Creation is impotent to help. In the line following this one we get our second big but, "But Prayer—remained—Our Side—" One would think Creation being impotant to help might negate prayer. Creation is not taking care of us, so what makes us think prayer will help? You could read the line “Prayer remained our side” as hopeful, but you can also read derision there. Take the “our side” qualifier for starters. What does it imply? It reminds me of that deeply sarcastic Bob Dylan song, “With God on our side”. Any time you have sides, you have disparity. Still, I like the hopeful possibility, and if you think about the prayer as applied to ourselves, to "our side", where it must "remain", then the prayer is for us.

This poem can also be read as taking the short view too. The Man called out in the first line may be Man in general, but it may also refer to the singular man or woman. When it is too late for you, when you have exhausted your own human limitations, then that’s when God can get to work.

That's the premise. Let’s see how Dickinson will use the second stanza to comment upon and modify the first. When we read “How excellent the heaven” right after reading man is doomed and Creation is no help, then we are tipped off that the adjective "excellent" might signal sarcasm. But then we take in the next line, “How excellent the heaven/ When earth cannot be had.” This is a caustic aphorism. We idealize a future heaven, when life is hell, instead of focusing on the present. Dickinson comes back to this point often in her poems. I'm reminded here of Whitman's line too, “There will never be any more heaven or hell than there is now.”

The last couplet is tricky. But here’s where we may find a sharply pointed lesson. When we reach this “excellent heaven” our old neighbor God will be hospitable. What does Dickinson mean by our “old neighbor” God? Why is God an old neighbor we wonder? Then a possible meaning occurs; the reason earth can be hell is BECAUSE of our old neighbor, because of man’s inhospitality to man. In a heavenly place our old neighbor would be welcoming. God is not somewhere out there, but can be seen in the face of the neighbor. “As you do for the least of these, you do unto me.”

To extrapolate further, we might say that it is in BEING a good neighbor ourselves that we might “save mankind.” But it's not man saving man here, since man is past help. It is God, the Divine within us, which, as the second line of this poem reminds us, has only just begun.

It’s worth noting that the alternate word for “Old” in this poem is “New”. We saw something similar in the previous poem with "last" and "first", where Dickinson provides an opposite as an alternate word choice. “New” would have worked well here too, as it would still call to mind for us the “old” neighbor. But changing the word to “Old” complicates the poem, as we get a conflation of the neighbor that made earth hell with God, but it also enriches the poem because it leads us to see God in the old neighbor, and, perhaps, the old neighbor in God.

A note about scansion here. This poem has a unique 3343 3353 meter. I think the elongated pentameter of the 7th line puts emphasis on the extra word in that line, "then". "How hospitable—then—the face." "Then" is also emphasized by the dash on either side of it. The word "then" can be read as the turning point of the poem, so the extra metrical and syntactic emphasis here helps push the meaning toward its conclusion. Here, now, love your neighbor as yourself.

-/)dam Wade l)eGraff