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