No Bobolink – reverse His Singing

No Bobolink – reverse His Singing
When the only Tree
Ever He minded occupying
By the Farmer be –

Clove to the Root –
His Spacious Future –
Best Horizon – gone –
Brave Bobolink –
Whose Music be His
Only Anodyne –


     -Fr766, J755, Fascicle 34, 1863

The first line of this poem is funny. What would it mean to “reverse” your singing? By “reverse,” Dickinson means “will stop.” But why not just write “will stop” there? The word "reverse" leads you to imagine the bobolink song being sung backwards. So my first question is, why did she use the word “reverse?” My best guess is that it points toward the absurdity of life going backwards. Birds are going to do what birds do. The song goes on, no matter the circumstances. Creation is irreversible.

Another oddity is the line, “The only tree ever he minded occupying.” This implies that no other tree would do, which gives us a clue that it is a person, not a bird, that we are talking about here. A bird surely wouldn’t mind occupying a different tree.

The next funny move here is the way the last line of the stanza continues in the second stanza. “By the farmer be-// clove to the root.” The poem, itself, like the tree, has been noticeably cleft in two.

Alas, the tree has been cloven in two, and the “spacious future” and “best horizon” for the bird is gone. But at least it has its song for anodyne. (An anodyne is a painkilling drug.)

Song goes on no matter what, but singing, because it is anodyne, is especially useful in difficult times. Larry Barden, in his take on this poem, helpfully points out that Dickinson's second letter to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, L338, dated April 28, 1862, included this sentence:

"Mr Higginson, . . . I had a terror – since September – I could tell to none – and so I sing, as the Boy does by the Burying Ground, because I am afraid.”

We can infer that the brave bobolink in this poem is Dickinson herself, and her poetry, her irreversible song. Her song is still moving forward 160 years later.

Life got you down? Be like the bobolink, this poem tells us, and keep singing.  It will be an anodyne. As another Bob pointed out, "One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain."

-/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Notes:

1. There is an earlier poem in which Dickinson speaks of the Bobolink’s song as an “anodyne,” Fr88. 

2. There is a terrific website call Dickinson's Birds which features recordings of actual birdsong along with Dickinson’s poems. Click on the link to listen to the bobolink.