Bloom opon the Mountain—stated—

Bloom opon the Mountain—stated—
Blameless of a Name—
Efflorescence of a Sunset—
Reproduced—the same—

Seed, had I, my Purple Sowing
Should endow the Day—
Not a Tropic of a Twilight—
Show itself away—

Who for tilling—to the Mountain
Come, and disappear—
Whose be Her Renown, or fading,
Witness, is not here—

While I state—the Solemn Petals,
Far as North—and East,
Far as South and West—expanding—
Culminate—in Rest—

And the Mountain to the Evening
Fit His Countenance—
Indicating, by no Muscle—
The Experience—


       -F787, J667, Fascicle 37, 1863


In this gorgeous sunset poem Emily is comparing her own “stating” to that of nature’s. In the first line a blooming sunset is “stated” upon a mountain, and then in the first line of the fourth stanza we see that this is happening even while the poet herself is stating. “While I state,” she states. That’s the main idea here, and for the rest of this poem Emily will flesh out this theme in the sunset-tinged hues of her language.

Let’s take it stanza by stanza:

Bloom opon the Mountain—stated—
Blameless of a Name
Efflorescence of a Sunset—
Reproduced—the same—

The poem begins with the novel idea of a sunset blooming like a flower on the side of a mountain. Thank you, Emily. I don’t think I have ever thought of a Sunset as a flower blooming before, and certainly not on the side of a mountain. How majestic. I've also never thought of any of this as some kind of “statement.” But it is, both as it is stated in reality and as it is "Reproduced—the same" in poetry.

Dickinson’s hues are produced synaesthetically through sound, and then, through the nuances of sound, to shades of meaning. The soundscape, indeed, blooms. The word “blooms,” with which this poem begins, is onomatopoeic. It’s as if the poem is suddenly blooming from its first word. Then the sound is picked up in the next line with BLameless. The “M” sound in both words makes a subtle Moan, and builds up through the poem until the sounds of those Ms “culminate” at the end of the poem into “Mountain” and “Muscle.”

Woven into those BLs and Ms you have a slew of Ss. Read through the poem focusing on just these sounds.

BLooM opon the Mountain—Stated—
BLameLeSS of a naMe—
EffLoreScenCe of a SunSet—
reproduCed—the SaMe—

Every bit of that consonance, plus the rhythmic disturbance in the meter created by the dashes, is part of the sonic landscape of the poem. Like a sunset, the poem itself blooms and effloresces, “Reproduced the Same.”

I love that spelling of"opon" instead of "upon." Most editors change this to "upon." Why! You must leave these things in Emily Dickinson's poems. They are intentional and add to the overall beauty of the poem. Opon is stronger in its sound than upon. Also it is a very clever mash-up word, meaning both open and upon. "Bloom open/upon the Mountain"

Before leaving this stanza we should also mention that glaring adjective, “blameless.” What does it mean to be blameless of a name? Is it possible that our blame may only to be found in our identities? And if so, does that mean if we can forgive and let go of the past, then we can be as blameless in the present as the flower of the sunset? Is that what it means to grow old gracefully? 

Seed, had I, my Purple Sowing
Should endow the Day—
Not a Tropic of a Twilight—
Show itself away—

The “Seed, had I” construction is meant in the sense of, “If I had seed...” If I had the seed of the Sun, I “Should” endow the Day and make it beautiful. In other words, if my seed, my words, my poetry, were as beautiful as the sun setting on the mountain, then I would likewise endow the day. Endow means to provide with an asset. As the sunset endows the mountain, the poet wills, so let my poetry endow the day.

Purple is a funny choice because Emily normally shies away from the Purple in her poetry, at least in the sense we mean when we say “purple prose,” writing that is elaborately ornate. But in this poem, she does get a little purple in her diction, at least a little more so than usual, as can be heard in the phrase, “efflorescence of a sunset.”

That line “Not a Tropic of a Twilight/ Show itself away” sets up the idea in the following stanza. If I had the Sun’s power, I could endow the day, but the tropic twilight won’t “Show itself away.” It won’t give up its secret…

Who for tilling—to the Mountain
Come, and disappear—
Whose be Her Renown, or fading,
Witness, is not here—

In other words, the one tilling the bloom of sunset on the mountain doesn’t “show itself away” (give itself away) but is a mystery as it “Come, and disappear.” And is this Giant Gardener full of Renown, or is She fading?

That’s a great question to ponder in our later years, right? There is glory and renown in a sunset, but there is also fading. We can’t see this great Tilling of our Souls, so, we don’t know which is which.

While I state—the Solemn Petals,
Far as North—and East,
Far as South and West—expanding—
Culminate—in Rest—

Here the “Solemn Petals” of the sunset are expanding, in all directions, even as they coming to rest. There is Renown in the fading, an efflorescence increasing as it comes to rest.  

The “While I state” here means the poet is stating even while the sunset does, but it also conflates the two statements. The stating of the poet, which consists of the poems, are also solemn petals expanding as they culminate in rest.

For me, this poem blossoms fully on that word "expanding," the way the word expands out in that line, coming after an already expansive naming of the four directions. And look at the sonic hues in this stanza, those two popping P sounds for example, the way the sounds of "East" and "West" set up that final "Rest."

 
And the Mountain to the Evening
Fit His Countenance—
Indicating, by no Muscle—
The Experience—

The face of the mountain is coming to a rest in evening, just as the poetic countenance of the poet is coming to rest in death. If you are taking your clues from nature, as Dickinson is here, then we can trust nature that our countenance will be fit for death. Just let it come naturally.

No need to kill yourself with too much tilling, or at the very least, it should appear effortless "Indicating, by no Muscle." Let the sunset of your life bloom on the mountain in the acceptance of its own fading away and coming to rest. 

     -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

The sunset blooming on the mountain like a poem

Notes:

1. David Preest points out in his explication of this poem that this isn’t the first time has Dickinson compared her own poetry to a sunset. See also F549 and F557.

2. Also, here's a blog post from Jonathan Morse that has some good insights into this poem, one of which is the pun in "tilling" and "telling," and another is that "we can now see that during the second half of 1863, when Dickinson wrote “Bloom opon the mountain,” she was thinking about the incommensurability between human language and the impassivity of the phenomenal world. From this period, three other poems that explore the theme are Fr768, “The mountains grow unnoticed”; Fr776, “Drama’s vitallest expression”; and that deep exploration of the void, Fr778, “Four trees opon a solitary acre.”