There is an arid Pleasure—

There is an arid Pleasure—
As different from Joy—
As Frost is different from Dew—
Like element—are they—

Yet one—rejoices Flowers—
And one—the Flowers abhor—
The finest Honey—curdled—
Is worthless—to the Bee—


       -Fr884, J782, fascicle 39, 1864


Pleasure is under the microscope here. There seems to be two, or really three, kinds of pleasures at hand here, all of them elementally different from one another. These three are like the three states of water. There is dry air, wherein the water is evaporated, water in the form of dew, and, finally, frozen ice. 

One kind of pleasure is “an arid” one. It is distinguished from Joy. 

There is an arid Pleasure—
As different from Joy—

As Frost is different from Dew—

Pleasures are shown to be both “arid” like a desert, and icy cold, like frost. Joy, though, is something between the two, something connected to water and life, like morning dew.

The difference between these states of desire is tremendous. Heated desires, the temperature turned up, wants to burn you, and to burn others. Have you ever seen Hedda Gabler? That’s the kind of heat I'm talking about. (The new version adapted by Nia DaCosta is very good by the way. Rent it or see it on Amazon Video if you can.) The other kind of pleasure though, the third kind, is the kind that freezes you. It shuts sense out and numbs itself to the world. This is the pleasure of the addict.

I’m thinking now about that famous Robert Frost poem, Fire and Ice.

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Suffice to say, both kinds of pleasure are terrible. 

As Frost's frosty poem shows us, being burned by fire may seem preferable to being frozen, but when it is repeated again, the pain felt the first time leads one to prefer instead the numbness of the frost. That's when you lose yourself in cold pleasures. Candy Crush anyone?

Joy, though, like dew, has the power to slake the thirst of those in the desert. Joy is like morning’s revitalizing elixir that is quenching the thirst of the grass and flowers. Dew is like Frost that has melted. It’s the water of life, coursing in streams through the meadows, neither too hot nor too cold.

So there are two kinds of pleasure. You can tell the difference because one nurtures life and one destroys it. 

Yet one—rejoices Flowers—
And one—the Flowers abhor—

In the second scene of Nia DaCosta’s "Hedda" you see Hedda preparing for a party by getting rid of all of the flowers that have already been laid out by the servants. Hedda, her heart broken past the desire to keep living, wishes for all the flowers to be dead.

On the other hand, Joy rejoices. It makes the flowers of poetry grow. 

The finest Honey—curdled—
Is worthless—to the Bee—

Wait, does Honey curdle? Let's do some research. Yes, says the internet, "if you freeze it it, honey "curdles" (crystallizes) because it is a supersaturated solution of glucose and fructose, causing the glucose to naturally separate and form solid, gritty crystals over time. This process is accelerated by cold temperatures."

Hmm, what happens if you overheat it, internet? "Heating also degrades honey’s nutritional value, destroys beneficial enzymes like invertase, and changes its flavor. While not acutely toxic, high heat turns honey into a bitter, caramel-like substance and reduces its antioxidant properties."

Hey, this poem doubles as a primer on keeping honey. 

If kept at room temperature, however, honey has an infinite (!!!!) shelf life. Just like the joy of a great poem. "A thing of beauty is a joy forever.”  -John Keats

I think this poem is reminding us to notice from where it is we are deriving our pleasures. If we look close we can see that there is an elemental difference between life giving and life destroying pleasures. Which of your pleasures are arid? Which are too cool? And which are perfect for keeping honey?

      -/)dam Wade I)eGraff

To wait an Hour—is long—

To wait an Hour—is long—
If Love be just beyond—
To wait Eternity—is short—
If Love reward the end—


   Fr884, J781, fascicle 39, 1864


The basic idea of the poem is that the promise of love makes a long time feel short, and the lack of it makes a short time feel long. That’s not such an original thought, but it's one worth, perhaps, preserving in a poem, a reminder of the absolute value of love.

There are some cool things that make this poem stand out. The first line, for instance, is made longer with that little dash. It doesn’t need to be there. But putting it there makes you stop and sigh. To wait an hour— (sigh)—is long—.

Then you get your “if” statement. It’s only long "if love be just beyond." "Beyond" here means "beyond one's grasp," but the word, when paired with the introduction of Eternity in the third line, adds a new dimension to the poem. Are we talking about “the great Beyond” here, as in, “the afterlife?” If that's the case, then this poem has a new meaning, one which takes it into the anguished anxiety that can be felt in a crisis of faith. When seen in this light the poem becomes fraught with doubt.

Another slick form/content move is that the third line, the one with "Eternity" in it,  is 4 poetic feet (8 syllables) long, whereas the rest of the lines are 3 poetic feet (6 syllables). It goes on an extra measure than the rest of the poem does, stretches out like eternity itself.

The dash in the third line repeats the placement of the dash in the first one, but this time it doesn’t signal time so much as SURPRISE! To wait Eternity—(surprise!)—is short—. Eternity feels like nothing when you’re working toward love that is certain.

There are paradoxes to consider here. If love is "just beyond," then is there really any waiting for it at all? You are waiting…for nothing? That isn’t really waiting. Or rather, you are just waiting for the end of your misery. So the subtle implication here may be that there's always hope. 

The second paradox is in the third line. To wait an eternity means NEVER getting to the end, so, in the fourth line, the reward of love becomes a kind of joke. The implication here might be not to wait.

The rub of these paradoxes is considerable, but the emotional gist here is that without love life can feel like an endless hell, but with love it can go by in a zip. So therefore try to find yourself true love, in whatever way you can. Sometimes just a dog’ll do.

This great painting of Emily and her dog Carlo 

is by Nate B. Hardy. It's the cover image of his album 

of terrific song versions of Dickinson poems, "Down, Carlo!"

You want to reach through time and tell Emily to get out of the house more. And yet, if you could, would you? Insufferable waiting sure can make room for some timeless poetry.

Maybe it's the other way around, though, and in this poem Emily is reaching through time to remind you to get out of the house. Take the dog for a long walk. Maybe you'll meet someone worth the risk?

     -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

A South Wind — has a pathos

A South Wind — has a pathos
Of individual Voice —
As One detect on Landings
An Emigrant's address.

A Hint of Ports and Peoples —
And much not understood —
The fairer — for the farness —
And for the foreignhood.


    -Fr883, J719, fascicle 39, 1864


One intriguing pattern I’ve noticed in Dickinson’s poems is the reversal of signified and signifier. For instance, in this poem, what is it that is signified? Is it the South Wind or the Emigrant? At first it seems to be the South Wind that’s the subject and the Emigrant, the metaphor. But it’s the other way around. Once you make that turn-around, then you realize it’s the Emigrant that carries “a pathos of individual voice,” not the wind. 

So when you get to that line “And much not understood,” the pathos becomes clear. 

In the last two lines of the poem the poet shows her affinity for the foreigner:

The fairer — for the farness —
And for the foreignhood.

By tying the F R N sounds of "fairer— for the farness—" to "foreignhood," Dickinson makes it all seem like a natural fit. The next word would have to be "friend." 

Also she coins a term here, "foreignhood," which has the advantage of making a solid rhyme in both sound and meaning with "understood." 

Here the poet leads us from the pathos of separation toward an attitude of welcome and acceptance, a message as necessary today as it was back then. 

    -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

The Truth—is stirless—

The Truth—is stirless—
Other force—may be presumed to move—
This—then—is best for confidence—
When oldest Cedars swerve—

And Oaks untwist their fists—
And Mountains—feeble—lean—
How excellent a Body, that
Stands without a Bone—

How vigorous a Force
That holds without a Prop—
Truth stays Herself—and every man
That trusts Her—boldly up—

      Fr882, J780, fascicle 39, 1864

Dickinson was not only an extremely perceptive philosopher, but she could put her thoughts down so perfectly that they have the inevitable ring of Truth.

Keats wrote “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all/ Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”

Dickinson proves that argument here in a poem that purports a truth about Truth itself in such a beautiful way that it seems to be undeniable.

It’s like a riddle poem. What is the one force that doesn’t move? What stands without a bone? What holds us up without a prop? 

The answer is given to us. Truth.

The real riddle though is...what is Truth? And the answer to this riddle is the questions themselves.

By logical inversion, if what we find gives us confidence, and holds us up, that’s how we know it is the Truth.

What is it that does that for you? Inquiring minds want to know.

One thing that does this for us is Beauty:

First there is the beauty of the music in the sounds of the poem. You are subtly swayed by the internal slant-rhymes in the first stanza: Stirless, force, this, best, confidence and oldest. There is another set in the end-rhymes of Move and swerve.  

Along with the consonance and rhyme, there is also an intricate rhythm at play here. The poem has pushed the beat of the poem forward in a number of ways. The first line is iambic trimeter but it’s a half beat short. That missing beat springs us into a line double the length. That long second line sets us up for an iambic pattern that is then disrupted by the two emphatic single-syllable spondees in the third line.

The poem continues its rhythmic brilliance. The next three lines are strict iambic trimeter which sets us up for a seventh line that’s tetrameter (4 beats). The push of a beat past trimeter in that line sets us to resolve with one more trimeter in the 8th line.

The meter set-up of this poem is one of a kind. If you read it through and pay attention to JUST the meter you will hear and feel how the rhythm propels you forward.

There is also great beauty in the concrete images. 

oldest Cedars swerve—

And Oaks untwist their fists—
And Mountains—feeble—lean—

These images are essential. This poem would be purely abstract without them. Oldest Cedars swerve. What a verb swerve is here. To think of a cedar tree swaying, and perhaps falling, as a swerving presents a fantastic image to our eyes. But then we get the oaks untwisting their fists, which is an even more remarkable image. It feels as if the oaks are letting go of their pent-up anger, releasing their tension, unknotting their knottiness. You can see the fist of the tree in your mind literally twisting up into a fist as it grows and then untwisting as it dies. 

UN

The last image is of mountains leaning feebly. Can you picture that? It's a funny image, a wink at the muscle-bound man. 

Paradoxically, the concrete, like the mountain, is what is ephemeral while the abstract, Truth, is what lasts. Truth is abstract because it must be. Anything that is described must, by its nature, fade away.

So the poem ends as it begins, in the pursuit of something beyond names, to something Truer than the transient.

We are left with little else in the end but to take comfort in poetry. That's one kind of Truth. Maybe that's what Keats was getting at. 

     -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

P.S. One subtle thing about this poem is the question of what "boldly" refers to. At first it seems to be point to the reader. If we are bold, Truth holds us up. But the lack of a dash between "boldly" and "up" means, I think, that "boldy" qualifies Truth. 

Truth stays Herself—and every man
That trusts Her—boldly up—

In other words, Truth, that "vigorous Force," is what is bold. There is a will to it. It IS what is holding us up, the life force itself.