Split the Lark — and you'll find the Music —

Split the Lark — and you'll find the Music —
Bulb after Bulb, in Silver rolled —
Scantilly dealt to the Summer Morning
Saved for your Ear when Lutes be old.

Loose the Flood — you shall find it patent —
Gush after Gush, reserved for you —
Scarlet Experiment! Sceptic Thomas!
Now, do you doubt that your Bird was true?

       -F905, J861, Sheet 8, 1865

I was first made aware of this poem when I watched the episode of the Apple TV series "Dickinson" called “Split the Lark.” In this episode this poem is sung on an opera stage by Sue. 

This made me take a deeper look at the poem and I have since come to view it as one of her best.

Let's start at the beginning, with the word "Split." First of all the word is onomatopoeic, so you feel the violence in its sound. 

Then the trochaic rhythmic structure of the poem causes that word to be emphasized. (Trochaic rhythm is the opposite of the more common poetic rhythm, iambic meter. Iambic meter goes: ta DA ta DA ta DA. Trochaic meter goes: TA da TA da TA da TA da.) Because this poem begins on the beat, the word “Split” comes down on us like an axe.  The effect is to give extra venom to an underlying anger.  It's almost as if this word, and therefore this poem, is being spit out, like a metal shriek. SPLIT the Lark!

This move gets carried through the rest of the poem too, especially in the second stanza with the emphasis on the first words of the 5th and 8th line, “Loose” and “Now.” It’s a masterful use of the trochee.

Another brilliant thing about this poem is the way the letters of the word “Split the Lark” continue through the poem, almost as if the phrase itself is being split apart: S L and R sounds, especially, are scattered through the poem. I’ve seen Dickinson do this kind of thing before, using a single consonant cluster of a key word or phrase to inform the sound of the rest of a poem, but this is next level. 

Also worth taking note of here is the use of the second person, "you." This is somewhat rare for a Dickinson poem. According to Google, “There is no single, publicly verified count of exactly how many of Emily Dickinson’s nearly 1,800 poems use the second person." I can think of a few. “I’m nobody, who are you?” comes to mind. In that poem though the "you" feels general. In this one it feels pointed at someone specific. This naturally makes us want to know who, in Dickinson’s wild and complicated private life, was the recipient of this poem? I’m not going to speculate too much here (see end notes), but I will share something which relates to this poem and further deepens the mystery. The second of Dickinson's so-called "Master letters" (L233) begins:

“Master, If you saw a bullet hit a Bird—and he told you he was'nt shot you might weep at his courtesy, but you would certainly doubt his word. One drop more from the gash that stains your Daisy's bosom—then could you believe? Thomas's faith in Anatomy was stronger than his faith in faith. God made me—(Sir) Master—I didn't be—myself. I dont know how it was done.”

(Gosh, I just re-read that letter six or seven times in a row and it got more strange with every pass. The line “Thomas’s faith in Anatomy was stronger than his faith in faith” stopped me in my tracks. It’s so wry!)

We’ve covered the first word, "Split," so now let’s contend with the rest of the first line. 

Split the Lark — and you'll find the Music —

There is a long poetic history of the lark. Many of the poets Dickinson knew and loved, including Chaucer, Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, Milton, Bronte, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Emily's favorite) all used the lark in their poetry as a symbol of poetry itself.

What does it mean that if you split open the lark you'll find music? 

Much of Dickinson’s poetry, especially in her prolific period from which this poem comes, is born from the pain of loss. It is elegy. She calls it the “White sustenance Despair” and hers is a “Soul at White Heat." (Elegy is, perhaps, at the very heart of poetry. See Elizabeth Bishop’s "One Art," for a prime example, where loss and poetry are posited as "One Art.")

This first line carries anger and sadness in its blood, what Federico Garcia Lorca called duende. It's the sound of heartbreak, like the voice of Merry Clayton on The Rolling Stones' Gimme Shelter when she belts out, “Rape, murder!”

The second line of the poem is equally astonishing,

Bulb after Bulb, in Silver rolled —

I showed this poem to my HS senior English class and I asked them what they thought these bulbs were. I was given many possible answers. It must have something to do with music, because it follows directly from "you will find the music" in the previous line. But bulbs could refer to the bulbous organs found inside the split bird, "in Silver rolled," encased in the silver feathers of the bird. It could be bulbs of blood. It could be the bulb of the bird's throat as it expands over and over to chirp. It could refer to the bulb of the clapper of a silver bell. There is a dense synaesthesia of music and image in these bulbs. The song itself, we are to understand, has a silver sound. 

Dave Cappleman captions this photo “The sweet silver song of the lark.”

Because of the next line of the poem we might also see the bulbs as flower bulbs, seeds that are:

Scantily dealt to the Summer Morning

The notes of the bird song are like seeds which are scantily dealt. This music, this poetry, is rare.

It's difficult to make the turn between the first two lines of the first stanza and next two, but I think it is key to understanding the poem. The dense syntax of this poem goes something like this. Split the lark and you'll find music. You'll find it alright! gushing out, bulb after bulb, a profuse outpouring of agony. But the next two lines tell us that a song bird doesn't normally gush. It deals its song scantily. You catch a little here and there, if you are lucky, on Summer mornings. The "reserved" song, the rareness, is what preserves it, what saves it for the long run, so that it be...

Saved for your Ear when Lutes be old.

If you can be patient, and just accept the little snatches of song, of love, when they come, then it will last you your whole life, but if your doubt, or your jealousy, causes you to be impatient, or greedy, because you couldn’t wait for the music, you will kill the bird. 

"When Lutes be old" could be the two lovers, or Lutes, growing old together. That's how I take it. But it could also mean something like old-fashioned instruments (and ideas) as opposed to music that stays as fresh as the song of a lark.

The gist is that by not having faith and killing the bird you are getting all of its music at once, in this pained outpouring, instead of having it dealt out to you slowly over the long run. It won't last.

After a much needed breath of a stanza break the next gush of blood-song spurts up.

Loose the Flood — you shall find it patent —

Flood is a poignant word here. It rhymes with blood, a word which is not mentioned, but is at the center of this poem’s scarlet imagery. It's a flood of blood gushing out of the split-open bird. But it's also a flood of emotions, a flood to drown in. The word "patent," used in this way, is antiquated. Here it means something like "proof."

Gush after Gush, reserved for you —

This line does the same thing "Bulb after Bulb" did, which is to create a rhythmic surge. Gush gushes.

“Reserved for you” has an interesting double meaning here. It means, on one hand, all of this is for one chosen person. It’s not a general love, but a specific one. But “Reserved” can also mean to hold back. Both meanings play out here. It's reserved for you, and you can have it all now, painfully, or you can have it spread over the years, reserved.

Scarlet Experiment! Sceptic Thomas!

Experiment is an odd word to use in the context of this poem. If this song is about lack of faith killing a song bird, then how does experiment fit in? How is the lover experimenting? Is this poem about infidelity perhaps? However it plays out in the psychological drama at which it hints, “experiment” takes the poem into the realm of science, like the idea that you have to prove the existence of God, or music, through some kind of tangible evidence. If you look at the two previous poems in the sheet this poem was originally written on (the previous two poems on this blog), you’ll see the words “prove” and “doubt.” The poems on this one sheet can all be read in dynamic relationship to one another.

Dickinson adds a whole new idea here with that word “experiment.” When you try to analyze something (like a poem!) you can kill its music. It's like the irony of killing and dissecting a frog to find out how it lives. It reminds me of one of my favorite Kafka aphorisms, The Top, in which a philosopher wants to understand how a top spins, so he picks it up, which stops it from spinning, thus upsetting the kids, who then chase him away. 

Dickinson could have written “doubting Thomas” here and it would have scanned just fine in the trochaic rhythm, but by using the word "Skeptic" she doubles up on that SK sound.The double SK sound in this line gives a harshness to the already vitriolic poem. You hear this sound subtly in the first line "Split the larK," and in "Scantily" in the third line, which prepares you for this. It's part of the scathing sound underlying the poem. This is intensified by those two exclamation points.

(The word Skeptic is spelled in this poem with a C. This is confusing because we naturally read this as a different word at first, sceptic as in sceptic tank. I assume though that in Dickinson's day it was just common to spell it with a C and the word should be "Skeptic.")

Thomas, for those of you who don't know the Gospels, is the one who had to touch Jesus' wounds to believe He was real. This reference gives the bird, and thus the "I" of this poem, a Christ-like quality. This poem can be imagined to be spoken by Christ himself. 

It’s dazzling, and dizzying, how much is going on in this poem.

We finally end with the plaintive line,

Now, do you doubt that your Bird was true?

All the disbelieving skeptics, all the scientists, all the jealous lovers, indeed, all of us, are hereby admonished. The Love of the poet, of nature, of music, is True. Be patient, it will be scantily dealt to you, saved for you when you get old. If you rush to prove it is true you will kill it. But hey, the poem sardonically reminds us, at least in killing it, you will have your proof!

     -/)dam Wade l)eGraff
 

 

Notes: 

1. David Preest, amongst others, has made the argument that the recipient of this poem was Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Dickinson referred to Higginson in a letter as her Preceptor, which is another term for Master. Also the reference to "skeptic Thomas" in the second stanza may be a sly reference to Higginson's first name, Thomas. I’d personally love to believe it was Higginson instead of Charles Wadsworth, who some believe to be "Master," just because I like Higginson better as a person. I’m also fine with "(Sir) Master" being Emily's sister-in-law Sue. (Johnny Cash's song "A boy named Sue" suddenly comes to mind). Anyway! This poem could be for anyone who sometimes doubts love, which is to say, I suppose, if we are honest, all of us.

2. There is much more to say about the play of consonance and rhyme in this poem, which is mind-boggingly well-composed. One small example I love is the way the sound of "Lutes" in the first stanza sets up "Loose" in the second.

Absence disembodies — so does Death

Absence disembodies — so does Death
Hiding individuals from the Earth
Superposition helps, as well as love —
Tenderness decreases as we prove —

       F904, J860, 1865, sheet 8

This poem is chewy like a jawbreaker. (Do you remember those? The good ones had a tart but sweet center that made all of the hard work worth it, not unlike this poem.)

Death, like any absence, takes the body away from us. This leaves us in anguish. But "superposition" and love both help us deal with this pain. 

Love is something we each have our own deep feeling for. I guess if I had to define it I would say it is the summation of feeling we have built up for a particular person. But the problem is that it's often iffy whether or not that feeling comes from attachment or concern. It's slippery.

Superposition though? What is that?

Superposition, I take it, is a position above the position, like an overlay. It is a position removed from the position of presence, left behind in the imagination. (Now days the term "superposition" is used in Quantum Mechanics, but not back in Dickinson’s time.*)

One possibility for superposition here is that you hold both the present and the past (your memory with the other person) at once. Hope might be in there too, the possibility of seeing them again someday. There may also be the idea that you are connected together in some kind of immortal sphere, beyond time. The emphasis in the second line of "Earth" helps us see "superposition" as something beyond the earth, a view from above.

The wonder is that Dickinson goes into such far out territory with this one word, as if summing up an entire theoretical understanding. It's tantalizing.

The poem hinges on the word though so we must contend with it if we want the "help." 

I think the clue to what superposition means can be found in the final line. 

Tenderness decreases as we prove —

When we are with someone, when we "prove" our connection through presence, then our tenderness for the other person lessens. That line alone gives us a lot to chew on. It's like the final layer of the jawbreaker, the hardest one yet. It's a line full of irony, like "Absence makes the heart grow fonder." But "tender" is a better word here than "fonder," and one that clues us into the "superposition." 

Tenderness is one of those words that shifts as you look at it. Tenderness means sensitivity. But what causes sensitivity? Pain. When we feel pain we therefore become sensitive to the pain of others. 

This is, I think, the superposition. We are in pain due to loss and therefore become more tender toward others. Conversely then, when the beloved is near we are, unfortunately, less tender. We may be in a state of bliss, but because we are, we are less aware. 

When you see that the corresponding gain of tenderness is in proportion to loss, it helps. There is a painful, but beautiful exchange.There’s a sour dramatic irony there, no doubt, but it's one that still leaves us, in the end, with something sweet too.

      -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Schrodinger's cat, like Emily, in a superposition

* Quantum superposition is, according to Google, a fundamental principle in quantum mechanics where a photon exists in multiple states or configurations simultaneously. Instead of being in one definite state, a quantum object exists in a linear combination of all possible states, described by a wave function, until a measurement causes it to "collapse" into a single, observed result.

The poem uses "Superposition" then almost prophetically in the way that it resembles the language of quantum physics. Uncertainty sustains Love. Proof collapses possibility.

A Doubt if it be Us

A Doubt if it be Us
Assists the staggering Mind
In an extremer Anguish
Until it footing find -

An Unreality is lent,
A merciful Mirage
That makes the living possible
While it suspends the lives.

     -F903, J859, 1865, sheet 8


It seems as if Dickinson purposely made many of her poems to be one size fits all. This one, for example, carries a general idea that anyone can fit into their own situations. All of us have struggled with doubts and insecurities about belonging and being accepted, and all of us find some kind of comfort in a fantasy that helps us deal with this and go on with life. Our doubts lead us to our illusions.

This is an idea worth thinking about. It spurs me to ask myself what constitutes my own merciful mirage. Am I suspending my real life in a fantasy? In asking myself this question I come up against some uncomfortable answers. But I'm glad. I'd rather not "suspend" my life.

It’s mind-boggling to think about how many ways there are to apply this maxim. Here's one. I recently heard that Gen Z was the “parasocial” generation. I asked my 16 year old daughter Sofia what Parasocial meant. She said it basically meant a one-sided relationship with celebrities on social media.* The rise of AI “friends" is another pertinent example. In both cases real Lives are being suspended. There are countless ways to suspend reality.

Okay, let’s take a deep dive into the poem.

A Doubt if it be Us

We can apply this poem in our own particular way, but still one is always deeply curious what the poem meant to Dickinson. It’s hard to say what the impetus of this poem was though. The word “Doubt” suggests the anguish of not being a "believer." Dickinson’s struggle with her self-exclusion from the church can be seen in many of her letters and poems.

But there might be another genesis for this poem. The word “Us” may point to a relationship. The lost faith may be predicated on lost love. Either way, this doubt...

Assists the staggering Mind
In an extremer Anguish

If doubt assists the mind in an 'extremer Anguish," then that means the anguish was already extreme. When you are deep in extreme anguish, you so badly want to believe in someone or something. To not have the comfort of that belief in the midst of extreme discomfort is doubly devastating. 

Until it footing find -

Footing may mean anything that gives you a toehold out of the extremer anguish, but the word "footing" gives us a possible hint as to what Dickinson meant. The word "feet" is almost always code for metrical feet (or verse) in Dickinson's lexicon, so the idea of finding "footing" may be read here as finding poetry. 

An Unreality is lent,
A merciful Mirage

The Merciful Mirage that Dickinson escaped to may be poetry, but it also might have been a good novel? When I read “Unreality is lent” I suddenly think of a library. Fiction is lent to us from the library. What else could be lending this Unreality? What does it mean that it is lent to us? Are we finding the mirage or is the mirage finding us?

That makes the living possible
While it suspends the lives.

Note the contrasting meanings of “living” and “lives” here. It’s a paradox. How is “living” possible if the “lives” are suspended? The false kind of life, the unreal mirage, isn’t really LIVING.  Instead, it suspends real life.  

“Suspends” is a super interesting word. It has a double meaning. The Unreal mirage suspends our lives, like a castle in the air, but it also causes us to suspend, or put off, really living.

I also hear an echo in this poem of the phrase that was coined by the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge in his 1817 work Biographia Literaria, which I'm sure Dickinson must have read: "that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith."

We suspend our disbelief, so that we may live. But deep down? We can't believe it.

   -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

A parasocial relationship of the first order:

this sticker is on the back of my laptop.

*I found this insightful, from First Things:

“Parasocial relationships, ersatz intimacies, are shaping Gen Z in ways we are only beginning to understand. From the rise of finstas (secondary Instagram accounts where users post more personal, unfiltered content) to ceaseless online commentary lamenting the paucity of real-life relationships, it’s clear that Gen Z craves authenticity and connection. And yet members of Gen Z are more likely than those of older generations to bail on commitments and reflexively distrust the very peers they long to connect with. This simultaneous craving for, and retreat from, the real is symptomatic of a crisis of belonging.”

Too little way the House must lie

Too little way the House must lie
From every Human Heart
That holds in undisputed Lease
A white inhabitant—

Too narrow is the Right between—
Too imminent the chance—
Each Consciousness must emigrate
And lose its neighbor once—


     -F902, J911, 1865

Dickinson often does a funny thing where she speaks of her subject in a purposefully indirect way.

House…undisputed Lease…white inhabitant…Right…emigrate…neighbor? For a minute I thought this poem had something to do with white property owners and immigrant rights. That wouldn't be a very Dickinsonion theme though so we are suspect. Sure enough, with a closer reading, this line of thought appears to be a ruse. It seems as if the poem purposely misdirects you. 

This misdirection does a few things. First, I think it is a way of making a meta-commentary on both the subject and the metaphor. It adds a layer of meaning and gives a deeper dimensionality to the poem. (For instance, to follow one possible thread of thought, I think the metaphor in this poem may be making a subtle side-swipe at the narrow-mindedness of the rich in the line, "Too narrow is the Right between—").

Another thing about this misdirection is that, though frustrating, it adds to the power of the poem to pull you in. That puzzle-loving part of us is awakened. We want to see the puzzle, and therefore the poem, completed. But Emily doesn't make it easy. 

After a few readings of the poem, paying attention to all of the clues at our disposal, we come to the conclusion that House means grave. Once we see this, then “white inhabitant” becomes "corpse." Okay, we have a starting point. 

Too little way the House must lie
From every Human Heart

Life is short and the grave is close. The Human Heart brings in the idea of life-force, but also, love.

That holds in undisputed Lease
A white inhabitant—

Does "That" refer to the Human Heart or the grave? Both, perhaps. Both hold a body in undisputed Lease; the Heart in memory, and the grave in physical residence. 

Death as a permanent undisputed lease is a provocative idea. The idea of paying “rent” here has a dark humor. It makes me think, in contrast to an undisputed lease, about how difficult it is to pay rent when you are living. Your rent is always in “dispute” when you are alive.

Too narrow is the Right between—

This line seems to further the “Too little way” in the first line. If it does, then it means something like: our life-time is too narrow between birth and death. In this case, we have a kind of “Right” to life, though it is a very limited one. It also carries the sense of "Right now." This is your in-between, don't miss it.

The line could also easily mean the “narrow” space in the ground, the space of the grave, where the body has its lease. In this case “Right” could mean a number of other possible things, the "Right" to be dead, for instance. More dark humor.

It’s a bit mind-boggling how Dickinson pulls off simultaneous readings. Does the "narrow... between" refer to time or space? And, if so, why is it "Right" between?

Too imminent the chance—

What Dickinson means by “chance” here is pretty hard to pin down too. It might mean something like the “chance” to really live while we still can. This is the reading I prefer. I suppose this exposes my optimistic idealism, because there's another way to read the line. If the thing that is imminent is the House (grave), then it might also be referring to the chance of death. Death is the imminent chance. To think of death as a chance is darkly funny too. It's not a chance, but a certainty.

There is another option I can think of for the meaning of "Chance" here, which is introduced in the next lines about emigrating. "Chance" could refer to escaping the grave after death, the chance of the spirit being released into Paradise. If so, there is perhaps the suggestion that there is something we can do to increase that chance. 

Each Consciousness must emigrate
And lose its neighbor once—

These lines could mean that since our consciousness must emigrate to the house of the grave, we should embrace our neighbors while we can. 

But, following the other track of meaning, these lines could mean that each consciousness must (should) emigrate from the grave to Paradise and lose the neighborhood of corpses it once had.

Both meanings have power.  

The “once” at the end of the poem is poignant. It could mean that we only get "once" to be here, only one go around. But if you take “death” as the “Right” in this poem, then the “once” refers to the joy of leaving this earth and going to paradise, like in the old spiritual: "Some bright morning when this life is over, I'll fly away."

I far prefer the former reading, the one which seems to say to us, "Take the chance of life while you can." But the latter reading, the wish to emigrate from the House of the grave to the spirit in the sky may be more in line with Dickinson’s meaning.

On top of this, there is still that subtext about white inhabitants and emigrating at play in the subtext of this poem, whatever we are to make of that.

      -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

 

The Soul's distinct connection

The Soul's distinct connection
With immortality
Is best disclosed by Danger
Or quick Calamity—

As Lightning on a Landscape
Exhibits Sheets of Place—
Not yet suspected—but for Flash—
And Click—and Suddenness.


    -F901, J974, 1865


This poem points us to a revelation. Since the landscape is dark, though, we don't know what that revelation is. All we have is the finger pointing into the dark. This poem bears witness to an experience of Truth. The revelation is best described by this witness as "the soul's distinct connection with Immortality."

This revelation, she tells us, is best disclosed by danger and calamity. Dickinson is like Dante returning from hell, albeit with far more brevity in her poetry. What our wizened witness reveals to us in this poem, in the fewest words possible, is just the word Immortality and the realization of our Soul's distinct connection to it. Since these words "Immortality" and "Soul" are quite slippery ones, everything hinges on how you interpret them. 

What is a Soul? What is Immortality? (And how can Emily wield these words with such impunity?)

For most people Immortality means the self goes on forever. Immortality, though, is impossible. It is a self-negating paradox. To be mortal is to have flesh and blood, so one cannot be not mortal. 

The only way one could be immortal would be to live beyond the confines of the body. And for that to be there would have to be some way for the memories of the self to remain beyond the body. Something would have to carry the memories. One wonders, is there a back-up storage for the brain, like memories stored in the Cloud? Perhaps, who knows. Belief in this kind of perpetual self is a mere matter of Faith. 

If Immortality is not some kind of living-forever of the self, then what is it? What kind of immortality is it that Danger and Calamity Reveals? What is this "distinct connection"?

According to this poem, those who have experienced intense Danger and Calamity would best know the answer to this question. I don’t think I have ever quite felt this myself. I’ve felt terror, and have experienced some horrible things, but none of them made me see a flash of Immortality lighting up the landscape. On the contrary, Danger and Calamity have the opposite effect on me. They make me want to cling tighter to the temporal.

What I feel in moments of Danger and Calamity is a deeper sense of what is real and meaningful to me, a deeper connection to loved ones and to the earth and stars beyond. Perhaps love comprises a kind of immortality then? 

Yesterday Tom C, faithful Prowling Bee reader and writer, was in Queens and paid a call. We had a talk about this poem, since I had been thinking about it. He told me his experience of going through grief and how it gave him a real sense that Love is permanent. Love doesn't diminish, said Tom.  

There is something immortal in that feeling of human connection. In one of my favorite Dickinson poems she states that the smallest human heart’s extent reduces Infinity to nothing:

The Life we have is very great.
The Life that we shall see
Surpasses it, we know, because
It is Infinity.

But when all Space has been beheld
And all Dominion shown
The smallest Human Heart’s extent
Reduces it to none.

I’ve long been fascinated by Dickinson's conception of immortality.  It goes beyond the usual definition of the word. In one of her letters she writes, "It may be she came to show you Immortality." I suspect she was speaking of a young one who died. But she might just as well be speaking of herself too. So what is it she came to show us? The following quotes are all taken from her letters.

"No heart that break
but further went than
Immortality."

"Emerson's intimacy with
his "Bee" only
immortalized him."

"The 'infinite beauty' of
which you speak comes
too near to seek."

"Show me eternity, and
I will show you Memory-
Be you - While I am Emily -
Be next - what you have ever been -
Infinity."

"There is no first, or
last, in Forever-
It is Centre, there,
all the time."

"The risks of immortality
are perhaps its charm."

"A letter always seemed
to me like Immortality,
for is it not the Mind
alone, without corporeal friend?"

"Dear friend, can you walk,
were the last words that I wrote her.
Dear friend, I can fly-
her immortal reply."

"An hour for books
those enthralling friends
the immortalities"

"The immortality of flowers
must enrich our own."

"Show me eternity, and
I will show you Memory-
Be you - While I am Emily -
Be next - what you have ever been -
Infinity."

"Amazing human heart-
a syllable can make
to quake like jostled tree-
what Infinite - for thee!"

What do you make of all that? Immortality is tied in with a broken heart, with intimacy with a bee, with the cycles of nature, with memory, with what you have always been, with the eternal moment, with risks, with the written word (letters and books), with flight, flowers, and the power of the human heart.

She’s getting at the circumference of something profound here, and this poem is just another clue: Danger and Calamity.

***

Okay, all that said, and that was a lot, one thing we haven't broached yet is the word "distinct." Distinct means "identifiable, separate, clearly different from others." So then, Immortality, in this poem, is either about our distinct selves going on forever into the future, or its about the way we hold the distinction of each other in a forever way in our heart. I suspect for Dickinson, it is about the latter.

***

Another thing worth mentioning here is the amazingly cool imagery of this poem, the way it conflates lightning and photography and spiritual insight together into one thing. It’s an awesome way to conceive of something larger than what it is we can ordinarily perceive. The lightning flash is like a 3D photograph, but of a temporal landscape of Immortality! Whoa. 

     -/)dam Wade DeGraff

Twas awkward, but it fitted me —

Twas awkward, but it fitted me —
An Ancient fashioned Heart —
Its only lore — its Steadfastness —
In Change — unerudite —

It only moved as do the Suns —
For merit of Return —
Or Birds — confirmed perpetual
By Alternating Zone —

I only have it not Tonight
In its established place —
For technicality of Death —
Omitted in the Lease —


     -F900, J973, 1865



'Twas awkward, but it fitted me —

An Ancient fashioned Heart —

I love "Ancient fashioned Heart." The heart is not just old-fashioned, it's Ancient fashioned. That word Ancient is so deep in time. It's like saying, "My love has been around forever, and therefore it's not going anywhere soon." 

Why is this ancient fashioned heart awkward though? I think Dickinson is implying it's not the newest thing that counts, the new interesting person, it’s the tried and true, the old friend, the society of the soul. 

This "awkward" business is funny. Dickinson's poetry is awkward not because it’s old-fashioned, but rather because it’s always new and difficult to get used to. Suffice to say, the most important thing is that the heart, and the poetry too, are ever true:

Its only lore — its Steadfastness —

This line is funny also, because there is SO much lore that has been created about Emily Dickinson. Scores of lore. Emilycore. And yet here it is as if she is saying that you can set all that aside. The only lore she has for us is her Steadfastness. It's remarkable too because here she still is, her Ancient heart still travelling into the future, steadfast as ever.

In Change — unerudite —
 
Yet another funny line. To be erudite is to have deep and arcane knowledge about subject. It’s to be in the know. By saying “In Change — unerudite —" it’s as if she is saying that change, the newest knowledge, is not what she knows about. Maybe one can read a hint of fear here. The poem takes a turn at the end, and so we know change is imminent for this Steadfast heart.

It only moved as do the Suns —
For merit of Return —

Are you kidding me with these lines? Dickinson aligns her Ancient heart with the Sun. We get the idea that Dickinson's Heart moves as the Sun does. And the reason it moves is merely for the merit of returning again. But wait? What? The sun doesn’t move, does it? Rather the earth moves around the sun. The line is a kind of trick of perspective. Rather it is the lover, the reader, that is always returning to the Steadfast Sun of Emily’s Ancient Heart.

Still, this idea of moving, for the sake of returning, whether it is the sun or the earth, is shrewd. Dickinson is declaring eternal steadfast love, but she’s also acknowledging the dance.

"It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing"

Or Birds — confirmed perpetual
By Alternating Zone —

The birds perpetually fly south for the winter and north in the summer. Now Dickinson’s heart isn’t just the Sun, it’s the "confirmed perpetual" movement of life toward the Sun at all times, following it just as the birds do, from north to south in the winter and back again in the summer. 

The change is all contained in a larger love, just like the seasons are overseen by the sun. It’s a wonderful way to look at both the heart and the sun. The two become one, the heart and the Sun.

I only have it not Tonight
In its established place —

Ugh, crushing lines. The way Dickinson wields a “not” is wicked. (See F891.) Dickinson’s heart is steadfast, so why isn’t in its established place? It must be because the lover’s heart wasn't as constant? 

For technicality of Death —
Omitted in the Lease —

Either someone literally died, and Emily’s Steadfast heart can’t follow them into death, or for some reason the other person could not be steadfast in return. (Who knows what that reason might be, but it's worth mentioning, perhaps, that Dickinson's two greatest loves, Sue Gilbert and Charles Wadsworth, were married to other people.)

Here Dickinson switches her tone from the eternal language of nature, of birds and suns, to a legal language. Her father and brother were lawyers, so this kind of terminology in her poems often has, I've noticed, a bit of a bite. The poem begins so earnestly and grand and ends in a "technicality? " A broken lease due to the cause of death? 

There’s the tone to me in those last lines of an icy finality. Either Emily’s begrudging the business-like transaction of death, or she's bitter because of a lover's neglect, as if to say, hey! you broke a contract with the Sun!

      -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Our Lady of Sorrows at the Church of the True Cross, Salamanca, Spain

Experience is the Angled Road

Experience is the Angled Road
Preferred against the Mind
By — Paradox — the Mind itself —
Presuming it to lead

Quite Opposite — How Complicate
The Discipline of Man —
Compelling Him to Choose Himself
His Preappointed Pain —

  

         -F899, J910, 1865

The first thing that stops me in this poem is the adjective "Angled." In a letter to T.W. Higginson Dickinson writes, "I know nothing in the world that has as much power as a word. Sometimes I write one, and I look at it, until it begins to shine." "Angled" starts to shine when you look at it. 

Experience is the Angled Road 

Here "Angled" means that the road isn't straight. But Dickinson could've used other words, like windy for instance. Why use "Angle?" Well, for one, it gives the impression of a sudden sharp turn. Experience leads to sharp, painful, turns. But there is another meaning of "Angled Road," which is the idea of something being "angled" for. That one word carries the "paradox" of this poem. You are not expecting the road to angle, and yet you are angling for just that. Neat.

The next thing that stops me is to wonder what is doing the preferring?

Experience is the Angled Road
Preferred against the Mind
By — Paradox — the Mind itself —

Is it “Paradox” or the “Mind" that is doing the preferring? It depends on how you punctuate the lines. Both readings are fitting, but one has an emphasis on fate and one on freewill, which is an undercurrent throughout this poem. Either the mind prefers something against itself (against its own desire,) or the principle of Paradox itself is preferring it for us, because that’s just how life is. 

Either way the first stanza is basically saying that Experience is a road with surprising turns, and though the mind would prefer an easier and more straight-forward path our actual experience takes us a different way.

Experience goes against what the mind thinks it wants and yet it is still preferred. Why? How could we prefer something that we don’t want? 

No pain, no gain. We choose experiences we know may hurt, like starting a new relationship after a painful breakup, or committing to something grueling like marathon training, because they promise us meaning and growth, and maybe even self-respect.

Quite Opposite— How Complicate

It's fun to say this line, the way the K, P and T sounds interweave, and the rhyme of Opposite and Complicate. "Quite opposite— How Complicate." 

There is a great scene in the movie "The Five-Year Engagement" where Jason Segal is telling Emily Blunt why instant gratification can be a wiser choice than self-discipline.

It's complicated!

The word "Complicate" also describes the syntax of this poem. That may or not be on purpose, but it's apt.

          — How Complicate
The Discipline of Man —

The word "Discipline" clues you into the idea in this poem that something is being "angled" for. The complication is that we are of two minds; satisfaction in the moment as opposed to a long term gain. 

Compelling Him to Choose Himself
His Preappointed Pain —

How complicated human discipline becomes, since our goals compel us to choose our own suffering. We are forced to participate in our own struggle.

This poem is funny. It's a God's eye view of the tragi-comedy of being human. The Self must act in spite of the self to become the Self. Haha! Good luck, humans!

On one hand the mind doesn’t want pain, especially in lieu of pleasure, but on the other hand, there are great benefits to be had from choosing pain. So what's a girl to do?

"Preappointed" is another word that stops me cold. Does "Preappointed" mean that the pain is fated? On one hand it is probably true that pain is fated no matter what "road" you choose. But here "Preappointed" seems directly tied into discipline, so the one doing the preappointing is either fate or the self, it's up to you. Have your pain now or later. Just like with the word "Angled," this word encompasses the paradox of this poem. 

The question this poem begs for me is what it is that is "Compelling" us to "Choose" pain. This is a question worth leaving open.

       -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

P.S.  A story I love that asks the same open question is Cream by Haruki Murakami. Check it out if you get half a chance.

P.P.S. I've never heard of the Lithuanian poet, Jonas Zdanys, but I dig the title of his collected poems, "The Angled Road." From a review of the book by Ken Hada, "Emily Dickinson’s 'angled road' of experience is the touchstone for Zdanys, her lines declaring a “paradox” that surpasses intellectual abstraction to confirm the authority of art.' According to Hada then, Art is the thing that compels us to choose pain. That's one angle anyway.

An Hour is a Sea

An Hour is a Sea
Between a few, and me —
With them would Harbor be —


      -F898, J825, 1865


This poem is similar in content to the famous poem Wild Nights, Wild Nights. For comparison, let’s look at that one, written four or five years earlier:

Wild Nights – Wild Nights!
Were I with thee
Wild Nights should be
Our luxury!

Futile – the Winds –
To a Heart in port –
Done with the Compass –
Done with the Chart!

Rowing in Eden –. Ah, the Sea!
Might I but moor – Tonight –
In Thee!

It's a similar idea right? But "Wild Nights" sweeps you away. It’s full of anguish, but it’s also very romantic. 

But this poem on the other hand? There is something in the extreme compression that adds a note of desperation to it. The poem almost seems like it's in a hurry, desperate for that hour to be over. The three lines are like three final gasps of air before the poet sinks down into that Sea.

Those three perfect end rhymes of Sea/me/be seem cloying at first, almost lazy, but when given an emotional emphasis they begin to sound plaintive, almost like a dolphin cry: eee eee eee.

An Hour is a Sea

Dickinson morphs time into space. She was ahead of Einstein! E=MC2 and relativity are both at play here. Time, a mere hour, expands into the great distance and depth of an unfathomable sea.

Between a few, and me —

“A few” is a phrase that makes you wonder; not one, not many, but a few. For what it's worth, this poem was sent by Emily to her beloved friend and sister Susan Gilbert Dickinson. So who are the few? Maybe it was Sue’s family, including her brother Austin, that Emily was missing, but maybe it was just two, Emily and Sue.

With them would Harbor be  —

If the hour is a sea, then being with these few is a harbor from that seeming endlessness of time.

The startling thing here, to me, is the bareness. I think of that phrase from Dickinson’s poem about a snake, “zero at the bone.” This poem is zero at the bone. It’s as if it is all she could muster. 


    -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

A lovely piece of music called "An Hour is a Sea" by Dextro

P.S.  David Preest's notes on this poem are informative, "When Sue was staying with her sister, Martha Smith, in New York, Emily concluded a short letter (L312) to her with this poem. She led up to the poem with the words, ‘[I] turn my thoughts [to you] without a Whip – so well they follow you.’ An hour had also felt long in poem J781. The harbour is reminiscent of the last two lines of poem J249 and the last lines of poems J368 and J506."

P.P.S. Here is a heartfelt response to this poem from another blogger who just goes by Possibility.  

She sped as Petals of a Rose

She sped as Petals of a Rose
Offended by the Wind—
A frail Aristocrat of Time
Indemnity to find—
Leaving on nature—a Default
As Cricket or as Bee—
But Andes in the Bosoms where
She had begun to lie—


     -F897, J991, 1865


For this poem we are indebted to this note from David Preest: “Emily sent a copy of this poem to Sue on the death of her niece, also called Susan, at two years of age.”

This context adds gravitas. Let’s take it a few lines at a time.

She sped as Petals of a Rose
Offended by the Wind—

A two year old girl’s life is compared to rose petals, silky-soft, delicate and beautiful. But what is this Wind? And why does it offend? The Wind here probably refers to the illness that took the child’s life. But the way Dickinson framed it, as the flower being offended, makes it seem more like a soul peeped out into the world, looked around and was like, nope, this world with all of its storms of sorrow offends me, I’m out of here.

Notice how this poem grabs you right away with its imagery and music. The lines speed by, but they have such a beautiful sound as they go with those little detonations of D sounds studded through them. “She speD as peTals of a rose/ offenDeD by the winD.” The D sounds continue throughout the poem. I think that the D sound comes up often in poems about Death, echoing the sickening sound of "DeaD." (See Gwendolyn Brooks poem "the mother" for a powerful example of this).

A frail Aristocrat of Time

An aristocrat is a funny way to think of a child, but Emily was always inverting status words in this manner. Queens and Emperors are something wholly different in the spiritual realm of Dickinson’s lexicon. What does it mean to be an Aristocrat of time? An aristocrat is historically defined by hereditary rank, noble titles, and landed wealth. This child was born of wealth, but not the monetary kind. The fact that this child was an aristocrat OF time is the little tell here. Just being alive, it would seem, and taking part in time makes us rich. That’s what we inherit just by being born.

Indemnity to find—

“Indemnity” means a payment for loss. The child, in dying, is seeking some kind of compensation, perhaps spiritual peace, or maybe transcendence beyond time.

It’s almost as if Dickinson is hinting that the child is better off. She was offended by the Wind, so she quit time and looked for her treasure outside of it, in a place without all those cruel Winds. And yet those winds offend for a good reason. Look what they are preventing! Life, in all its potential beauty. 

Leaving on nature—a Default
As Cricket or as Bee—

Default is in the same realm of language as Indemnity, the legal language of money.

It implies a failure to fulfill an obligation, or something left undone. But here Dickinson implies that because Nature is so vast, this default can be compared to the loss of a cricket or a bee, something hardly noticed. But…

But Andes in the Bosoms where
She had begun to lie—

But the child is as large as the Andean mountains in the bosoms (hearts) of those where she had “begun to lie.” One can imagine the two year old still lying on the mother’s bosom, nursing. To that mother there is nothing larger than this child. Unlike the fragile rose petals, to the mother this child is as solid and large as an entire mountain range.

I think that “begun” is the most poignant word here for me. The child was just beginning, and like that she is gone.

I have a friend, the critic and poet Lytle Shaw, who says that Emily Dickinson's poems are weird in the right ways. This poem is a good example of what it is I think he means. It's an odd one, with its mix of natural imagery and legal financial terms, with its idea of a flower being offended by wind, or of being an aristocrat OF time, or of seeking compensation elsewhere for defaulting on life, or even the idea of the relative worth of a child to nature vs. man. And of course the language is always weird and sticky. "Andes in the Bosoms" is such an inimitable, and indelible, way to put it.  

But this is part of what makes the poem so affecting. Somewhere (somebody help me out here) Roland Barthes puts forward the idea that condolences have to be expressed in a unique way to be effective. A Hallmark card isn't going to cut it. So being weird, then, may be seen as an essential quality of being real, which is in turn an essential part of being felt. 

-/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Notes


1. I’d be willing to bet this poem was sent with roses.

2. I think this poem is influenced by and echoes Emily’s own feelings about the loss of a major love in her life, one which was so painful in the extreme for her that it seems to drive much of her poetry. It's not hard to read this poem as a love poem to Sue Sr. in disguise.

3. Judith Farr in a deeply-felt appreciation of this poem, remarks on the poignancy of the last line in a society where the rate of infant mortality was terrifyingly high.

Purple is – fashionable twice –

Purple is – fashionable twice –
This season of the year,
And when a soul perceives itself
To be an Emperor.

     -Fr896, J980, 1865

My first question is, what season of the year is fashionably purple? Spring? Autumn?

My guess is that it is spring. This poem is saying that purple is naturally fashionable twice, first in the spring, and then again when the soul perceives that it is an Emperor. 

Autumn could make sense too though. There is a tradition of reading the late year as a kind of earned sovereignty. August has a deeper purple: wine-dark harvest tones. 

But “Fashionable” doesn’t sound like autumn to me. Fall tends to carry a sense of august inevitability, not trendiness. “Fashionable” feels lighter, as if the purple is in vogue, not hard-won.

It also makes sense that this season would be spring because it is traditionally associated with rebirth, which aligns with that sudden sense of inner grandeur Dickinson is describing.

When the early purple flowers are blooming the soul suddenly feels grand as “an Emperor."

And maybe Dickinson is also letting us know that this feeling won't last forever. Normally one thinks of the soul as being beyond the the temporary. But here, it is reversed; feeling and soul are inextricably intertwined.

After all, Dickinson doesn’t say the soul is an emperor, only that it feels like one. It perceives itself so.  This feeling is seasonal and fashionable (temporary and subject to change) and self-perceived (possibly illusory).

Maybe the purple feeling of the soul is only temporary, and self-perceived, but it's still awesome. And just like Spring, it's bound to come around again. For a season at least the soul rules. 

     
    -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

My neighbor Quinn O'Sullivan took this video of spring purple in Sunnyside for Prowling Bee. 

The background song "Turned to Dust" is by Bonnie Prince Billy and Ronnie Bowman

Notes

1. David Preest agrees Dickinson must be talking about Spring: 

"'This season of the year’ is presumably spring. When she described the coming of spring in poem 140 Emily wrote that a ‘Tyrian light’ the village fills, ancient Tyre being famous for its purple dye. She also said in the same poem that spring was the season of ‘a purple finger [of the violet] on the slope.’"

2. I found a delightful paper on the subject, a deep dive the different moods and meanings of purple in Dickinson’s poems. 

3. From the above article I learned that Dickinson refers to purple in her poems more than any other color. It’s mentioned in 54 of her poems. That would make a good little book of poems if anyone's got the time and inclination. It would look fantastic too, with photos fitting every poem in all shades of purple.

The Earth has many keys –

The Earth has many keys –
Where Melody is not
Is the Unknown Peninsula –
Beauty – is Nature’s Fact –

But Witness for Her Land –
And Witness for Her Sea –
The Cricket is Her utmost
Of Elegy, to Me –


   -Fr895B, J1775, 1866

This blog is committed to following the Franklin order. But sometimes that presents problems. One of those problems is this poem. My source for the Franklin order is Wikipedia which gives both this poem and the one previous to it the number 895. Whereas the earlier numerical arrangement, by Thomas Johnson, gives the two poems separate numbers. 

Sometimes this poem is printed at the end of a longer poem. (More on this later.) Sometimes this poem is printed as two stanzas and sometimes as one. Without better source material I can't tell you which is correct. But whether it has two stanzas or one is essential to the reading of the poem. (The poem, perhaps, has many keys.) 

When the poem is in two stanzas, as it is above, then the phrase “But Witness..." appears to have the subject of Cricket sound. The cricket sound is the witness. But when the poem is in one stanza, then the word "Witness" appears to have the subject of the line immediately preceding it, "Beauty- is Nature's fact-" This second single stanza reading gives us a stunning idea: beauty as a WITNESS to the earth. It is an emblematic key.

Beauty is herein coupled with another way to unlock the earth, Melody. Beauty and Melody are both witnesses to something endemic to the earth; a spiritual order.

BUT that’s not the only key. The earth has many. Another one can be found where melody ISN’T. This is exemplified by the sound of the crickets.

This place that is unmelodic, which is to say, I think, without a pleasing order (and which is deemed later as an Elegy, making it about the chaos of death) can be heard in the late summer sound of the crickets. The cricket, in turn, is emblematic of all that is “out of tune.”

“What would you do if I sang out of tune, would you get up and walk out on me?” -John Lennon

I love the weird idea of the cricket song as a peninsula. A peninsula is part of Dickinson’s poetic lexicon and shows up in dozens of poems. It functions as a concept to her. It’s touching here how the peninsula is both reaching out of and into the land at once. A peninsula is not quite an island, but it’s apart from the crowd and juts out from the mainland. (Note that the poem before this one speaks of crickets as minor Nations and unobtrusive Masses. Here’s a good place to explain that this poem, and the one preceding it, Fr895A, appear together as part of a longer poem published later. The convoluted history of this poem, and a look extra stanzas, can be found here.)

Suffice to say, if you read this poem as a continuation of F895A, then it becomes even more apparent that the cricket is its subject. But wait, I’m getting ahead of the poem at hand. Can we just go back to the first line? It’s enough by itself:

The Earth has many keys –

It’s such a rich line. The earth, our fecund matrix, has many keys. There are many ways IN. We want to enter the earth! Sex! Death! There are many ways to plant seeds. Each seed is a key. What else is a key? Poetry?

Yes. Poetry and music are invoked by the word “Key,” especially when it is followed up with “Melody” in the subsequent line. The keys are in different melodies, and melodies themselves are keys. Dickinson has it both ways.

Where Melody is not

This is one of those poems where the sense of the syntax builds line by line. The first line “The earth has many keys” can be read as one sentence. But now we have two lines and together they say, “The earth has many keys/ Where Melody is not.” Okay, so we are being led down an alternative path now, an unmelodic one. We have a key where melody is not. But then you add the third line and another new sense emerges:

The Earth has many keys –
Where Melody is not
Is the Unknown Peninsula –

You see how the narrative of the poem unfolds as the syntax does? So now we have something like, "The earth has many keys. Where melody is not is the unknown peninsula." Hmm. And now that peninsula, in my mind, is one of the keys. A peninsula is shaped like a key, like Key West. It’s also a part of the earth, and one that is set apart from it in the sea. 

Now, the crickets, the sound of the crickets, is synaesthized here as being a peninsula, as if it were a peninsula of sound, set off from the rest of melody. Dickinson is mixing her metaphors here to wondrous effect. A key, a peninsula, a sea of cricket chirps, it all becomes one.

Okay, now we have a big statement:

Beauty – is Nature’s Fact –

This line comprises a whole philosophy. Is beauty in the eye of the beholder, yes or no? If beauty is a FACT, then it is not subjective, or maybe Emily is pointing to the idea that subjectivity and desire are facts.  Keats' insistence that Truth and Beauty are one in the same may be a premise here. Beauty and Truth are usually seen as separate, and sometimes incompatible, but here Dickinson is, like Keats, pointing to beauty as a fact. Dickinson’s mind was Nietzschean in its depth. (Just as Nietzsche's writing was Dickinsonian, especially in "Thus Spake Zarathustra.")

Anyway, you get the idea. But once you have absorbed this line about the fact of beauty, you still have to somehow loop it back onto the overall meaning of the poem. What does the fact of beauty have to do with the lack of melody? Are crickets seen as anti-melodic? Is their sound still beautiful, or do they fly in the face of beauty? It’s hard to tease out just exactly what Dickinson is saying here, though I think we’re getting closer all the time.

Audience: *CRICKETS*

But seriously, the sound of crickets is what this poem is rooted in. The cricket's chorus becomes a super dense metaphor, but one that is rooted in the actual sound.  

But Witness for Her Land –
And Witness for Her Sea –

The cricket sound, that minor Mass in the grass, is equated to a peninsula that goes out into the ocean to witness for the Land, and simultaneously goes into the land to witness for the ocean. It’s as if the ocean and land are holding hands. It’s a meet cute! The crickets are the sound-track to a gothic out-of-tune rom-com. 

The rhythmic hum of the late summer crickets lets us know that winter is on its way, a minor key without a melody.


    -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

I found this photo on a FB post about this poem 

by Marianna Erdei on a Shamanic Portal. 

I thought it was apt.

Further in Summer than the Birds –

Further in Summer than the Birds –
Pathetic from the Grass –
A minor Nation celebrates
It’s unobtrusive Mass.

No Ordinance be seen –
So gradual the Grace
A gentle Custom it becomes –
Enlarging Loneliness –

Antiquest felt at Noon –
When August burning low
Arise this spectral Canticle
Repose to typify –

Remit as yet no Grace –
No furrow on the Glow,
But a Druidic Difference
Enhances Nature now –


    -Fr895A, J1068, 1865


The subject of this poem is never named, but it’s easy enough to solve if you take your time.

Here are the clues. It’s something that comes later in the summer than the birds. And it comes from lower than the birds too, from the grass in fact. This is a nation, which means it's a group. And they are singing a mass. So... if it’s in the grass, it's probably insects of some kind? And if it is a group singing, it must be, by process of elimination, crickets? Okay, so we are talking about crickets here, right? Suddenly you hear them, and hearing them, in your imagination, is essential to feeling this poem. Feel the sound as you remember it, peaceful, and perhaps a bit melancholic.

Here’s the thing about riddles though: what they are pointing to is only a means to an end. It’s in the pointing where the poetry is taking place.

Let’s look at some of the pointing that Dickinson does in the first stanza:

“Further in the Summer”

"Summer," (and later in the poem “noon”) means, in the parlance of poetry, the middle of life. This is wrought with meaning for Dickinson. Summer is not always a happy occasion in her mythos. Often she speaks of it as an excruciating time of glaring light and overbearing heat. At any rate, "Further in the Summer" means we are edging nearer to death. So, to begin with, we are talking about the gravitas of death. 

“Pathetic”

Pathetic can mean small, lesser, as in “a pathetic attempt” or, in its original meaning, full of pathos. Emily means both here I am sure. But it's tricky because small in Dickinson’s world is often greater. Less is more. So pathetic has that connotation too. ("Pathetic from the Grass" is also evocative of graves).

“A minor Nation celebrates"

Here the whole nation of America is called into question. America is the Major nation, and its celebration is in the summer, the fourth of July. Now though we are into August. In this one move Dickinson celebrates something very different from the Power and Pomp of the Majority. Perhaps the minority is pathetic in comparison, but we, with Dickinson, are going low and inside; we are celebrating something small and secret, something akin to dying.

“unobtrusive Mass”

There is something holy here, a reverence, in the sound of these crickets. In the same way this minor Nation is held up in contrast to the Major one, the unobtrusive Mass is held up in comparison to another kind of Mass, one that is, perhaps, being pointed to as Obtrusive. A Catholic Mass, like Independence Day, is, often, showy and extravagant.

The mass we hear later is of a darker timbre. The bird sounds of spring are high and sweet, whereas the crickets' is more somber and low. In these descriptors the world of great matter, Church and State, is held against the pathetic, the humble, and the late.

This poem is a riddle of layers. The first level is literal "crickets," but the next level of the riddle is in the realm of metaphor. It’s about celebrating the pathetically minor.

The wonder is that Emily Dickinson can hear all of this in the sound of crickets, and makes us hear it too, as if it were a given truth.

Okay, let’s look at the signifiers (or pointers) in the next stanza.

Let No Ordinance be seen –

Now we have added another layer of social criticism, a reference to ordinances, or man-made-laws, and another difference too: there is no room for them in nature.

So gradual the Grace

Every one of these lines is about the alternative. The alternative to "gradual Grace," then, is sudden Grace. This calls into question any kind of grace that is NOT gradual. Which has more depth, the unearned Grace of youth, or the earned Grace of aging? This is where I think Dickinson is going with the word gradual here.

A gentle Custom it becomes –

Grace coming gently, as the sound of crickets, like a custom, is so rich with meaning. It reminds me of the famous lines, “Because I could not stop for Death/ He kindly stopped for me.” It’s customary to die and we become accustomed to it, but it happens so gradually, and with such grace, when in accordance with nature, that it is welcome. Death kindly stops for us.

Enlarging Loneliness –

On the literal level alone this is gorgeous; the feeling in the sound of crickets is of your own loneliness being enlarged in the echoing sound of nature. Chef’s kiss!

On the metaphoric level we are here with the little people, not with the pompous and self-aggrandizing winners. The lonely are enlarged in their loneliness by joining the chorus. We are all part of this “celebration” by dint of our own true loneliness.

I think of Christ’ words in Matthew 25, “As ye have done to the least of these, ye have done to me.”

Okay, on to the third stanza, which deepens the ideas further.

Antiquest felt at Noon –

At first I thought this word was anti-quest. I love the idea of an anti-quest, but, alas, the word is antique-est. As in oldest. We have a paradox, and a new a riddle. How can the oldest (antiquest) be felt in the height of youth (Noon)?

There is a sense given here of the ancient being felt in the heart of youth. You can be young and hear crickets and feel calmly mournful. You can feel the ancient eternal in the very sound of the summer dying.

When August burning low

There is that word “low,” which mirrors “pathetic from the Grass.” Here we have something different than a raging summer fire, we have a low heat, one that is still burning.

Arise this spectral Canticle
Repose to typify –

A “spectral Canticle” is a lovely Dickinsonian way of saying a ghostly song. The sound of this song “typifies” repose, meaning both sleep and death. Repose has the connotation of peace too. This ghostly cricket song is likened to the sound of resting in peace.

The final stanza builds on the last.

Remit as yet no Grace –
No furrow on the Glow,

In the poem we are still in the noon of our lives, even if we have moved on to the August side of that noon. There is no “furrow,” or wrinkle, on the “Glow” of our cheeks. We don’t quite have the “Grace” we are striving for yet. We are still gradually getting there.

But a Druidic Difference
Enhances Nature now –

But even though we are still young, we’re over the hill. Something has changed. We can feel the difference inside. “Druidic Difference” is so interesting. Google tells me, "Druidic" connotes a deep, mystical connection to nature, ancient Celtic wisdom, and esoteric knowledge, often relating to priests, sages, or magical practitioners. It evokes imagery of sacred oak groves, ritualistic practices, and an untamed, earthy spirituality.”

This lesser Mass is not Catholic then. It is Druidic. We are, through the eternal return of the crickets, aligned with the cycles of nature.

This Druidic difference is at the crux of this poem, in which the crickets, the answer to the riddle, are the signifiers of the opposite of the majority. They are champions of the pathetic, the minor, the unobtrusive and the aging. It’s closer to earth, low not high, and it's the song of the crickets, via the imagination of Emily Dickinson, that carries all of this in its sound.

    -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

3 hours of cricket sounds for your internalization

Notes

1. Compare this poem to Fr320,

 
But internal difference,
Where the Meanings, are—


2. Deeper dive. Try this link, which is the poet and critic Yvor Winters and other critics arguing about this poem in the 1950s.

The Overtakelessness of Those

The Overtakelessness of Those
Who have accomplished Death —
Majestic is to me beyond
The Majesties of Earth —
The Soul her "Not at Home"
Inscribes upon the Flesh,
And takes a fine aerial gait
Beyond the Writ of Touch.


     -Fr894, J1691, 1865


There is a great song on the new Jeff Tweedy album called “Lou Reed was my Babysitter” and the chorus goes,

The dead don't die, the dead don't die
The dead don't die, the dead don't die
Whoo!

That’s the gist of this poem. Once you are dead you can’t die. You can’t be overtaken. You have accomplished “Overtakelessness.” Whoo!

One might take “death” as metaphoric in this poem. Once you can “accomplish” an egoless state, the death of self, you cannot be overtaken because there is nothing to overtake. I think this is a valid reading. Dickinson does write a lot about death in life, like for instance in the poem which begins, “My life closed twice before its close.” However there is a line in this poem that takes it out of the realm of the metaphoric,

The Soul her "Not at Home"
Inscribes upon the Flesh,

Here we are reminded of that odd sense we get when we look at a body in the casket; the flesh is there, but the soul is gone. So this is actual death we are talking about here then, a body without an animating spirit.

What to make of the fact that Emily brings a light touch to all of this? A “Not at Home” sign? That’s practically cute. It would make a funny epitaph. And the rest of this poem is full of lively flourishes too, like the phrase, “a fine aerial gate.” There is nothing morbid in that line. It’s as if the poet, already free from her the weight of her flesh, is feeling giddy. Giddy up! 

The poem itself has a fine aerial gait. 

But at the same time there is, underlining the flourish and humor, a real sadness. First, Emily never quite had the Home she wanted (see the poem written about the same time as this one, Fr891, for a heartbreaking account of this). The soul is “Not at Home," which is another way of saying: homeless.

Also there is that ending,

Beyond the Writ of Touch.

A writ is a formal court order commanding a person to perform a specific action. It serves as a powerful legal directive, often used in emergency situations when no other adequate remedy exists. So "Beyond the Writ of Touch" is a way of saying, I think, beyond the excruciating demand of need. 

So this poem, like much of Dickinson's poetry, is double-sided. It has pain behind its lightness, but also a lightness which runs ahead of its pain. It reminds me of the ending of Fr372, "First—Chill—then Stupor—then the letting go—" It’s so hard to let go. It feels like dying. But once you do, you are free. Is this tragic or joyful? For Dickinson (“me”) it is Majestic.

Majestic is to me beyond
The Majesties of Earth —

There’s an irony here. If you look at the poem before this one in Franklin order, F893, she refers to Sue and herself as Sovereign People. They are Majesty. The reason that the majesty of death is better than the majesty of the earth is merely because the majesty of the earth can’t last, and that's painful. We can’t keep in “touch” with it, not even by writ of court order. And this is especially true if the other won't, or for some reason can't, return our affection. There is a constant tension in Dickinson’s poetry between her passionate love, which she felt so keenly, and the tremendous effort to let go. 

Meanwhile it's great to see Dickinson having...fun? 

      -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

P.S. The poet Peter Gizzi liked the word "Overtakelessness" so much that he used it as a title for a terrific poem.

P.P.S. And speaking of fun, give a listen to the Jeff Tweedy song I mentioned above, "Lou Reed was my Babysitter."

Her sovereign People

Her sovereign People
Nature knows as well
And is as fond of signifying
As if fallible -


    -Fr893, J1139, 1865


This poem is difficult to parse because what does it mean that Nature knows Her sovereign people “as well?” And why would nature be fallible for signifying these people?

It helps to know that this poem was given as a note to Sue Dickinson (L336) with a flower. The heading for the note was “Rare to the Rare.”

There are a number of ways to take this poem, but my best guess here is that Emily and Sue are the sovereign People, and that even Nature “knows” or recognizes them as such, but is fallible for signifying this. Nature should be impartial, but it appears to give special attention to certain people.

Beyond being a love poem, though, I think this poem can be read as cautionary. The key word here is fallible. It can be read as an admonition to not get too caught up in partiality. Emily may have seen herself as fallible for signifying the sovereign, yet also realized that to do so is in our "Nature."

It’s also worth mentioning the flower that came with the poem. 

When Emily sent a note with a flower, the accompanying poem most often pertained to the flower itself. Flowers, like Sue and Emily, are Nature’s sovereign people and we all may be fallible for "signifying them." We are drawn to them, seduced by their beauty and fragrance. I’m reminded here of Whitman from Song of Myself, where he pushes back against the fallibility of seduction:

“Houses and rooms are full of perfumes, the shelves are crowded with perfumes,
I breathe the fragrance myself and know it and like it,
The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it.

The atmosphere is not a perfume, it has no taste of the distillation, it is odorless,
It is for my mouth forever, I am in love with it,
I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked,
I am mad for it to be in contact with me."

Emily knew how special she and Sue were, and even though she wasn't wrong, and even Nature would have to agree with her, it still makes her fallible. She's susceptible to a hierarchy of preferences, which in this poem she seems to both accept and find fault with. Both signifying and sovereignty are suspect, and yet, who, besides Walt Whitman, can resist the perfume of the flower?

     -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

P.S. The Rare to the Rare. It's worth comparing this poem to the one just before it in Franklin's ordering, Fr892.

Fame's Boys and Girls, who never die
And are too seldom born—

     -

Fame's Boys and Girls, who never die

Fame's Boys and Girls, who never die
And are too seldom born—


    -Fr892, J1066, 1865


The amazing thing about this poem is that Emily herself could be one of the children of fame it refers to. The proof, as they say, is in the pudding. In a kind of mind-bending recursivity, the poem validates itself by still existing.

In the inscrutable mystery of her poems, in their Truth and Beauty, Dickinson, miraculously, seems to still be alive. And it's true that "seldom born" are the poets that have achieved her level of literary fame. 

The achievement of this poem is made even more remarkable in the sense in which it seems to know its own fate. It doesn’t surprise me that Dickinson knew this about herself, but it’s still uncanny. It’s like Babe Ruth pointing to the bleachers in the fifth inning of Game 3 of the 1932 World Series  before hitting the game winning home run to deep center field.

“Called Shot” by Robert Thom

Another intriguing thing about this poem is that we don't know if it is complete, or unfinished. Thomas Johnson describes it as being a ‘pencilled scrap, a jotting perhaps intended for future use.’ Was it? Or is it complete as is? What do you think? 

There are hundreds of Dickinson lines that would be remembered even if they just came down to us as fragments. Dickinson shares this in common with another of Fame's Girls, Sappho. Sappho's poetry has such an aura to it that the few fragments of it we have feel eternal. 

If it is a fragment, just a beginning, we are left are to wonder what's next.

I found an article online by David Lehman in which he talks about a poetry contest in which poets were asked to use these lines as the first two of a quatrain. Lehman writes,

"While this poem can be read as a complete work, the poet Mitch Sisskind acted on the assumption that it represents the beginning of a poem that Dickinson intended to finish but never did. When The Best American Poetry blog ran an “Emily Starts, You Finish” contest in 2008, Sisskind added these two lines:

Their epitaphs—memorialized—
Cut in water—frozen in stone."

That's a great image, Mitch Sisskind. Anybody else want to give it a try? (minus any help from AI, please.)

Here’s my try,

Fame's Boys and Girls, who never die
And are too seldom born—

Still can’t do what you can do
within some cloud of form.

Okay, now you.

      -/)dam l)eGraff

P.S. All that said about Emily's future fame, my best guess is that this poem was written to Sue and is a declaration of "eternal love" and an acknowledgment of its rareness. I get this idea, in part, because of the poem following this one in the Franklin order. See the next poem.

I learned—at least—what Home could be—

I learned—at least—what Home could be—
How ignorant I had been
Of pretty ways of Covenant—
How awkward at the Hymn

Round our new Fireside—but for this—
This pattern—of the Way—
Whose Memory drowns me, like the Dip
Of a Celestial Sea—

What Mornings in our Garden—guessed—
What Bees—for us—to hum—
With only Birds to interrupt
The Ripple of our Theme—

And Task for Both—
When Play be done—
Your Problem—of the Brain—
And mine—some foolisher effect—
A Ruffle—or a Tune—

The Afternoons—Together spent—
And Twilight—in the Lanes—
Some ministry to poorer lives—
Seen poorest—thro' our gains—

And then Return—and Night—and Home—

And then away to You to pass—
A new—diviner—care—
Till Sunrise take us back to Scene—
Transmuted—Vivider—

This seems a Home—
And Home is not—
But what that Place could be—
Afflicts me—as a Setting Sun—
Where Dawn—knows how to be—



     -Fr891, J944, 1864


I learned—at least—what Home could be—

In that first line we get a lot of information. We can guess from it that the poet met someone, and there was a deep connection, and because of that she at least learned what home could be, which also tells you, in Dickinson’s concise manner, that the relationship is, for whatever reason, over.  It also tells us that before she learned this she had no idea what Home could truly be. Home is a key word for Dickinson. Elsewhere Dickinson declared home to be "the definition of God," and a place of "Infinite power." 

How ignorant I had been

Of pretty ways of Covenant—

Until she met this person she was ignorant of "pretty ways of Covenant." The Home she is talking about is built upon a Covenant, which I take to mean Holy Matrimony. The word "pretty" there is a word that is laced. The picture is pretty, perhaps, because it is a fantasy. It's like that Hemingway line, "Wouldn't it be pretty to think so?"

How awkward at the Hymn

Round our new Fireside—but for this—
This pattern—of the Way—

She just barely got the hint at what the pattern of the relationship would’ve been like if it had continued, just long enough to see that the hymns, which are sung awkwardly at first, would eventually come to be sung in divine harmonies “Round our new fireside.” That line is hot. I think of St. Francis and St. Clare. The legend goes that when the two future saints met and spoke together in the valley, the villagers up above in Assisi could see the smoke of a great bonfire down below.

I like that word “Round” too. By abbreviating “around” into “round,” we have the idea of fullness.

Then she goes on to tell us that the memory of This pattern—of the Way—

…drowns me, like the Dip
Of a Celestial Sea—

Whew. What a dizzying image. The Celestial Sea has dipped down from the sky above and drowned the poet. It’s as if exposure to Paradise killed her by making everything that was “not the Way” suffer in comparison. The image is particularly striking in how it reverses the normal death by drowning. Normally you dip down into the sea to drown. Here the sea of heaven dips into the poet, even as she is reaching up to it.

What Mornings in our Garden—guessed—

The Pattern is spelled out. First, mornings in our garden. At least that’s the guess at what married life with this person would’ve been like. It does sound like an ideal way to start a day.

What Bees—for us—to hum—

Dickinson gives us a twist in nearly every phrase that makes it fresh. One way you could take the syntax here is that the Bees are humming for the lovers. “What bees for us to hum.” But because Dickinson disrupts the syntax from the normal "What bees to hum for us” to “What bees for us to hum,” you also get the sense that it is the lovers who are causing the bees to hum. To make the “bees hum” has a sexual vibrancy to it. It’s as if all of nature has come alive and is humming due to this great love affair.

With only Birds to interrupt
The Ripple of our Theme—

The theme the two lovers are conversing upon ripples along as easily and merrily as a stream, and the only thing to interrupt it is the birds. The word “Theme” is also a musical term resonating with “Hum,” and “Hymn” before that, and so the birds’ singing to interrupt the lovers’ harmony is almost absurdly over the top.

And Task for Both—
When Play be done—

Another thing interrupting the flow of the morning’s musical conversation is that there are tasks to do. Though I love that the first thing to do is to “play” in the garden. In this ideal world we are playing in the garden in the morning and singing round the fire at night. I'm in.

But what about those tasks? What is this work?

Your Problem—of the Brain—

Well, the task of this ideal lover is a cerebral one. The “brain” descriptor makes you really want to know who Dickinson is talking about. I mean who is more of a brain than Dickinson?! Well, Sue was perhaps. She was supposedly a brilliant mathematician. It could be a math "Problem" we are talking about. Emily once wrote to Sue that the only person she learned more from was Shakespeare. Charles Wadsworth, another possibility here, was a brainy one too. We know Emily was taken with the brilliance of his sermons. Or maybe it was someone else, someone she never wrote about? I feel like this is a mystery which The Prowling Bee, and biographers, will never fully solve. But whoever it was, they really lit Dickinson’s wick, that’s for sure.

If you make “Problem” the object of the sentence instead of the subject, then there may be a little light ribbing in the line, “Your Problem—of the Brain—” Being too brainy might be a problem. Not enough “feeling.” Perhaps we could even say that this is where the "Problem" of the relationship is, why it didn't work out. 

And mine—some foolisher effect—
A Ruffle—or a Tune—

My task, says the poet, is something less brainy, something foolish like a ruffle or a tune. Emily along with her sister Lavinia were known, when they were young, as fashionable, so the ruffle of a dress could be what is meant here, but of course sewing is often a metaphor for poetry too. A ruffle could just as well be a pretty turn of phrase. "A Tune" could be a lyric. This is what Emily does for work. Her poetry, often in common hymn meter, is ripe for music. 

Then after work?

The Afternoons—Together spent—
And Twilight—in the Lanes—

After work, the two come back together and then spend the last of the daylight strolling together down the lanes of the village.

The purity of love on display as the paramours walk the lane becomes…

Some ministry to poorer lives—

Those who are suffering will be lifted up by seeing the two together. The word “ministry” here, along with “covenant,” does put me in mind of Charles Wadsworth, who was a minister. It’s as if the glowing love of the two together is ministering to the lonely souls of the town.

Seen poorest—thro' our gains—

There is a double meaning here depending on how you read the syntax. The most obvious reading is that the people they see along the way appear to be poorer to the lovers because they don’t have what they have, which is each other.

But I think you can take this line another way. The poorest way to see the poor is through gains. Seen poorest—thro' our gains— In other words, to see the poor is harder to do when you are rich. Though this is a secondary reading of the line, I think it is actually closer to Dickinson’s thought. There is an underlying theme in much of Dickinson’s poetry about meeting the poor better through being poor one’s self; we are closer to each other, more Christ-like, in our poverty. (In that sense one could say that Dickinson is actually a better minister for having been miserable, an irony of which I think she was all too aware.)

And then Return—and Night—and Home—

This line is powerful set off by itself, almost breathless: And then Return! And Night! And Home!

It’s so heart-rending as an unfulfilled wish. And so are these next lines...

And then away to You to pass—
A new—diviner—care—

The lovers come together. “And then away to You to pass” sounds awkward at first, but it packs in a lot. First there is the idea of passing to the other person through consummation, but also “away…to pass” gives a sense of dying into one another, to “pass away” into one another. It’s quite breathtaking when the layers reveal themselves. They pass into one another’s “diviner” care just as death brings us into the diviner care of heaven. Dickinson is so sly the way she brings the earthly and heavenly, the sacred and profane, together into one. It’s just beautiful poetry at the end of the day.

They will make love and sleep together in each other’s arms and then they will wake up to start the "pattern of the Way" again the next morning:

Till Sunrise take us back to Scene—
Transmuted—Vivider—

There is a pun in “Scene.” You are back in the scene of life, back in the "play," but also your eyes are open again, you are back to “Seen.” This sets up the idea of “Vivider.” You see, after the night spent together, more vividly in the morning. Also, you are transmuted by sleep and love. Transmuted is a term that largely comes out of the world of alchemy. The idea here is that the two have been transmuted in each other’s arms from base metal into gold.

This seems a Home—
And Home is not—

This turn is heartbreaking. This Home is what Emily wants, and she wants it with this person, but Home is not. There is no real Home for Emily, except for her childhood home, which she never left. But it's not the same thing.

But what that Place could be—
Afflicts me—as a Setting Sun—
Where Dawn—knows how to be—

It could be a golden morning always with love, but instead the poet can only fade into darkness like the setting sun. 

     -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

P.S. Sometimes I put a tune to a poem before I try to understand it. I find a melody that fits that “pattern of the way” (to borrow a phrase from this poem) and sing it over and over again, a dozen times or so, honing in a little more each time to the rhythm, hewing a little closer to the pattern.

That’s what I did with this poem and the way it unfolded was, every time, more and more achingly beautiful. By the time I was done I felt transmuted. Vivider. And I began to truly feel the immensity of Dickinson’s loss.

When you lock in to the “pattern,” the meaning behind the pattern begins to unlock.