It's easy to invent a Life—

It's easy to invent a Life—
God does it—every Day—
Creation—but the Gambol
Of His Authority—

It's easy to efface it—
The thrifty Deity
Could scarce afford Eternity
To Spontaneity—

The Perished Patterns murmur—
But His Perturbless Plan
Proceed—inserting Here—a Sun—
There—leaving out a Man—

    -F747, J724, Fascicle 37, 1863

Reading essays online about this poem, and even looking at the venerable Helen Vendler's take, one would think this was a poem that was railing against God's lack of concern for human life, but I see it the opposite way. First of all, I think Emily knew better than to blame a deity for the necessity of change, especially since she famously didn't believe in said deity. That would be a strange thing to do.

This is a poem, rather, embracing the necessity for God (read: Nature) to continually erase the old life, and invent new ones. And not only is she embracing it, but she is also identifying with it, which is why she looks at life here in terms of "Perished Patterns," and "invention." God, here, is a playful, but efficient artist. Just like Emily.

It's easy to invent a Life—
God does it—every Day—

Creation keeps on creating, life begets life. This happens every "Day." Day is presented to us here with a capital D, which clues us in that this is a life we're talking about: a "Day"represents a life, just as the "Sun," later in this poem, represents a Son.

Creation—but the Gambol
Of His Authority—

It's easy to efface it—

Is there some Grand Designer that plays willy nilly with life, creating and effacing at whim? Did Emily believe that, or is she setting us up here for a deeper truth?

The philosophical inquiry of this poem centers around a question: if we could live forever, what would be lost? The answer to this question is posed by Dickinson like this,

The thrifty Deity
Could scarce afford Eternity
To Spontaneity—

If you had eternity, then you would lose spontaneity. You would lose change. To be eternal is, essentially, to stay the same. That’s the thought-provoking core of this poem for me.

God, or, if you will, the universe, is thrifty. To say God is thrifty is, perhaps, to grumble. ("Hey God, how about being more generous and giving us more life!") But seen another way, to be thrifty is good, it’s efficient. Life may gambol, but it doesn’t gamble. It is invested in the future, which is only possible if it moves forward and dies to the past. God, here in the guise of the prime mover, will place a new sun/son (read: child) for every father and mother who becomes effaced. This son/sun will have something the older generation doesn’t. It doesn’t matter what that something is, so much as it matters that there is something different. Each old plan, each "Perished Pattern," meaning, chiefly, ourselves, "murmurs" about this loss and may be quite perturbed by it. But the way of the universe, in a constant state of perturbation, is to be perturbless. You can't upset upsetness itself. You can't destroy destruction. 

(Or can you? She doesn't go there in this poem, but the way to immortality is explored in other poems, including F743 from this same fascicle.)

The Perished Patterns murmur—
But His Perturbless Plan
Proceed

You get a philosophical treatise just inside the pattern of those P words. The proliferation of P sounds seems to stem from the word “Plan.” You get the old Plan, which has now become "Perished Patterns," and you get the new Plan, which, in its very changeability, is Perturbless. 

Proceed—inserting Here—a Sun—
There—leaving out a Man—

We all become sun/son or daughter inserted into Eternity, and we all become, eventually, the man or woman left out. (And what a way to put it, "leaving out Man," invoking, as it does, the feeling of becoming old and left out.)

We are, indeed, as sons/suns, part and parcel of the gamboling of creation. Like lambs, we gambol, innocent young things running around a field in joyful abandon. Until we don't. Lambs to the slaughter.

But why grumble when the perturbless plan is what makes life so full of spontaneity, of surprise and wonder? Would we give that up if we could? Would we want to? 

The use of the word “Authority” in the first stanza makes the poem feel like a rebellious complaint. But "Authority" is also a way to invoke the realm of the "Author."

Dickinson, as the Author of this poem, is well acquainted with the necessity to constantly invent new patterns, not to mention disrupting old ones. You could say her entire poetics is based on this idea. For the vast majority of her poems she takes “common meter,” otherwise known as "hymn meter," the signature meter of the church songs rooted in English tradition that were so pervasive in early America, and deconstructs it, both in form and content. This poem is no exception. Hymn meter is 4-3-4-3. The pattern here goes 4-3-3-3/ 3-3-4-3/ 3-3-4-3, which may well be a unique pattern among her works.

This is a poem, as I read it, about learning to accept change, including loss of self.

-/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Note: 

Emily had no children, that we know of. Her poems may be seen as progeny, still living among us. So the last lines of this poem might be read as the gamboling of her authority:

Proceed—inserting Here—a Sun—

There—leaving out a Man—

Or in other words, the poem is the son she has inserted here, leaving out the Man in the process.