I think to Live—may be a Bliss

I think to Live—may be a Bliss     
To those who dare to try—           
Beyond my limit to conceive—
My lip—to testify—

I think the Heart I former wore
Could widen—till to me
The Other, like the little Bank
Appear—unto the Sea—

I think the Days—could every one
In Ordination stand—
And Majesty—be easier—
Than an inferior kind—

No numb alarm—lest Difference come—
No Goblin—on the Bloom—
No start in Apprehension's Ear,
No Bankruptcy—no Doom—

But Certainties of Sun—

Midsummer—in the Mind—
A steadfast South—upon the Soul—
Her Polar time—behind—

The Vision—pondered long—
So plausible becomes
That I esteem the fiction—real—
The Real—fictitious seems—

How bountiful the Dream—
What Plenty—it would be—
Had all my Life but been Mistake
Just rectified—in Thee

    -F757, J646, Fascicle 34, 1863

Who is the "Thee" that this poem refers to at the end? David Preest suggests "Christ" as one possibility. That works. Judith Farr suggests that it is "that beloved master whom Emily could not marry." It's a fun game to try to solve the mystery of who the specific "Thee" is that Dickinson is writing about from poem to poem, but, because a poem is an experience between the poet and the reader, I propose that the reader of the poem is its truest object. Let us assume that Dickinson sewed these poems into packets to preserve them for her future readers, meaning, most intimately, you and me. This very poem, in one of dozens of little sewn together books, was preserved for whom, if not a future reader? Therefore, goes my logic, the Thee is thee, and we may read the poems as if we were the requisite Other. Without a doubt, on the most immediate level, we are. Without our eyes the poem doesn’t exist. Or, put another way, as we read the poem, it only exists, in that moment, for us. 

Let's take this poem stanza by stanza. 

I think to Live—may be a Bliss
To those who dare to try—
Beyond my limit to conceive—
My lip—to testify—

One of the joys of reading a Dickinson poem is the way it builds meaning, word by word and line by line. So let's start with just the first half of the first line, I think to Live. That’s Emily, alright, who certainly lived through thought. You could stop the poem there and it would still be a worthy fragment. 

But then there's the rest of the line: I think to Live—may be a Bliss. Emily famously wrote “I dwell in possibility.” The possibility here, well worth dwelling upon, is that living may be a Bliss.

To those who dare to try—

This feels like a challenge doesn't it? It's a dare! It's inspiring. It challenges you to want to try.

Beyond my limit to conceive—

The Bliss, because it requires "Thee," is beyond the speaker's limit of conception. You can’t conceive of it on your own. It is more than just “thought.” 

So there is a double possible meaning here to the line following this one, depending on how you read it.  The following line may be saying it’s beyond my lips to testify, because I can't conceive of it, or, it may be saying, my lip will testify, because beyond my limit, with Thee, I've experienced Bliss. It’s both beyond our ability to describe, and, once the self has been “rectified” with Thee and conceived, beyond limit, that the lip may testify. 

Nobody can multiply meaning like Dickinson can, with the possible exception of Shakespeare. There are other readings I can make of this stanza too. The slipperiness of the dashes are part of what allow these ambiguities to happen, which is just one of the many reasons they are such a subtly powerful form of punctuation. The effect of the resulting ambiguities is an opening up of the poem to the reader’s imagination, and thus to the reader’s self, to the conception beyond limit.

Bliss may be beyond our ability to testify about, but, at the same time, this very poem is testament. It's here in the *majestic sweep of its language.

I know we have a tendency to want to “pick a lane” when it comes to having a take on a poem, but Dickinson, due to her multi-track mind and deft use of language, makes it difficult.  She just keeps opening up more lanes.

I think the Heart I former wore
Could widen—till to me
The Other, like the little Bank
Appear—unto the Sea—

How about the weird future-past combo here? I think the heart I former wore (past tense) could widen (future possibility.) It’s as if the heart is in mid-air, neither there, yet, nor any longer here.

If the Self dares, then “The Other” shore would “Appear unto the Sea” The Little bank on the other side would widen to become “unto the Sea.”  I've noticed Dickinson likes the ambiguities of the word "unto." Here it allows a mind-bending transformation from little Bank to Sea.

There are other ways I can read these lines too. The meanings widen with each voyage back and forth between shores, each pass between Emily’s bank of meaning and mine.

I think the Days—could every one
In Ordination stand—
And Majesty—be easier—
Than an inferior kind—

The majesty of the language in this poem is fitting for the majesty of the subject matter. If this poem seems to be reaching for Other for validation, it has, regardless, already achieved that validation in the language itself. If this poem is saying every day may be a majestic ordination, it is proving this to be true by couching the statement in a majestic language.

Does this majestic ordination really necessitate an Other? Yes, and no. The Self may be also read as a kind of Other, after all. See Emily’s mirror poems for more on this, for  example, F693. It's complicated. I'm convinced Dickinson's poetry, and expansiveness, came as much from solitude as it did her relationships. A great paradox in her poetry is the way the poems, like this one, exist, somehow, in the liminal space in between.

Majesty be easier than an inferior kind 

Nearly every line of Dickinson’s seems to have some wrinkle to it, some kind of a riddle. What does this one have? What would an inferior “kind” be? Something unkind? Something less kind? Not only does every line of this poem seem to have multiple angles, so do many of the words. Kind, for instance, may mean “sort” or “caring” or “kindred," or, as I think it may here, all three at once.

No numb alarm—lest Difference come—
No Goblin—on the Bloom—
No start in Apprehension's Ear,
No Bankruptcy—no Doom—

Bum bum BUM. In this stanza the “M”s come marching in, and with them, some doubt.  The internal rhyme of numb/alarm/come/bloom/doom is strong and a bit sinister. We are hearing in the sound itself a kind of red flag. Difference is cause for an alarm. Is it? The little shore turning into the Sea seems so ideal, on first glance, but if we are all just “Sea,” then where is our shore, our unique self? Dickinson is both grieving loss and retreating here, I believe. She is sounding the very alarm she is speaking of, you might say. There is a goblin here, but maybe, in Dickinson’s goth sensibility, a goblin is not unwanted. This bend in the poem, if there indeed is one, also puts “apprehension” into question. Perhaps apprehension is necessary? And bankruptcy? And even Doom?

Dickinson has flexed this idea elsewhere, like in F320, "Internal difference where the meanings are” and in F706, and its meditation on "The white sustenance/ Despair."

Dickinson could also be saying here that it is alarm itself that brings the goblin to our differences. Without alarm our differences would not be a problem,

But Certainties of Sun—
Midsummer—in the Mind—
A steadfast South—upon the Soul—
Her Polar time—behind—

Ah, look how Dickinson retains just a touch of the UM feeling of the previous stanza with Midsummer. She's so masterful with her use of sound.

That “But certainties of the sun" could mean, “No more goblin, no more Doom, but only certainties of the sun.” But, that “But” could also be a negation. But for the certainties of the sun we would still have our differences, our own space, our sustaining despair. The Dickinson poem so often shows both sides of the equation. You learn to look for these "differences," lest you get too caught up with one side or the other.

It’s so so tricky with Dickinson. There is no other way to get underneath the multiplicities of meaning  without heading out into rough water. I know that I’m still only treading the surface of this poem, but at least I know I’m swimming in it.

The Vision—pondered long—
So plausible becomes
That I esteem the fiction—real—
The Real—fictitious seems—

Here is another stanza that could be read against itself. Is the “Vision” heartbreaking because its not real? Or is it liberating because it is fiction? There is a sense of Fiction’s possible victory over the Real here, and yet, we know that Bliss depends on a real connection outside the bounds of fiction…

How bountiful the Dream—
What Plenty—it would be—
Had all my Life but been Mistake
Just rectified—in Thee

How bountiful the Dream. (There’s that M again.) Again, is it the Real that is bountiful, or the dream itself?

I can even see a double meaning in “What plenty it would be/ had all my life had been mistake." This may be read as the poet saying she embraces the mistake, and its plenty.  

I know this reading goes against the surface reading, which says the dream would come true and be plenty if the mistake of the my life was rectified (made upright) by Thee. But Dickinson is wily. Words like “rectified” go against her “slant” nature.

Nonetheless, I do think she is acknowledging here the need for love from the reader. It’s just that we, if we love Emily, love the mistake too, the little bank, the nobody at odds finding meaning in “difference.”

     -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Goblin—on the Bloom—

* David Preest, after giving an attempt to parse this poem writes, "But any elucidation of this poem pales into insignificance before the sustained, majestic sweep of its language.”

I can appreciate Preest throwing his hands up at his attempt to elucidate the poem in the face of the actual poetry and succumbing to the “majestic sweep” of the poem’s language. It's always worth remembering. 

Notes: There are several word substitutions Dickinson provides for this poem in the MS. Some scholars believe that these alternative words are meant to be part of the poem itself. It certainly can aid in understanding the meaning of the poem. You can look at them yourself in the fascicle here.  You can also see a rare crossed out word. "Appear" is crossed out (disappears!) and becomes "becomes," probably to heighten the "UM" sound in that stanza.