I many times thought Peace had come

I many times thought Peace had come
When Peace was far away —
As Wrecked Men — deem they sight the Land —
At Centre of the Sea —

And struggle slacker — but to prove
As hopelessly as I —
How many the fictitious Shores —
Before the Harbor be —



     -F737, J739, Fascicle 35, 1863



When you are in dire straits there is nothing worse than a false hope. One false hope is bad enough, but how are you supposed to deal with one after another after another? The metaphor in this poem is apt. When you are struggling to keep your head above water, and have been disappointed by yet another false sighting of land, how do you keep from giving up and just going under?

I sat with this poem for a couple weeks as I was traveling. When I saw people struggling, (which you see everywhere if you are really looking,) I was reminded of it. It seemed to speak for these people. A poem like this is effective, in part, because it makes us feel less alone in our own struggles. Here is a woman who has been there, who understands what it is like to have one hope after another dashed. We bond through our pain, and here Dickinson gives us a poem much less complicated than her usual fare. The simplicity of it is important. It aids in the catharsis. It helps us relate.

But there is another way it is effective. It encourages us not to give up. There is the barest glint of hope in this poem. You see it in that surprising turn of phrase, “struggle slacker.” When a sailor thinks he sees land, he brightens with hope and therefore his struggle slackens. This is a mistake. The poem seems to be pushing us toward making every last effort, reminding us not to be misled by false hopes, not to slacken our struggle.

And then there is that word “fictitious,” which reminds us that the fictions we tell ourselves, the constant promises of romance we are confronted with daily, will only lead us away from the true goal.

This is the last poem of Fascicle 35. Fascicle 35 differed, it seems to me, from the fascicles that preceded it in its intent. While I don’t question the sincerity of the poems in this fascicle, they feel less insular. They seem to be made more with a general reader in mind. This poem is a good example. It says to the astute reader, "Don’t be a sucker like I was. Fight against the false promises of fiction." I don’t know what to do with the fact that Dickinson wasn’t actually sending these out to a general audience for publication. Perhaps she had faith they would eventually make it into the right hands. If so, then her faith has been rewarded. It's remarkable to think that we might well be the real harbor Dickinson was struggling so hard to reach. Poetry's victory over fiction!


-/)dam Wade l)eGraff

P.S. Franklin prints the original version of the last line, ‘Or any Harbor be.’ Johnson prints her marginal variant, ‘Before the Harbor be.’ There is a pretty dramatic difference between the two. The variant carries hope in it, since it implies a real harbor, whereas the original does not, as it continues the idea of the harbor being, like the shores, fictitious. Normally I stick with the original, and present the variant, but here I let my optimistic side take over, romantic sucker that I am. Of course, if you want to go the cynical route, you could read it as "How many the fictitious Shores — Before the Harbor be (fictitious also) —" That's really dark, which I also appreciate. But the point is that you can read it both ways, so with the variant there is more -possibility.

P.P.S. David Preest tells us that Dickinson “had occasion to use line 4 herself in the year after this poem, because in September 1864, towards the end of a miserable summer spent in Boston with her cousins having eye treatment, she begins a letter (L294) to Sue with ‘At Centre of the Sea’ as a kind of heading to the letter before saying, ‘It would be best to see you _ it would be good to see the Grass, and hear the Wind blow the wide way in the Orchard.’"