For Thee a Bee do I become
List even unto Me.
Because the Flowers unafraid
May lift a look on thine, a Maid
Alway a Flower would be.
Nor Robins, Robins need not hide
When Thou upon their Crypts intrude
So Wings bestow on Me
Or Petals, or a Dower of Buzz
That Bee to ride, or Flower of Furze
I that way worship Thee.
-F909, J869, sheet 9, 1865
This poem grabs you right away with the sound of its bee phonics, its buzz and hum. First of all there is that bold triple B of Because/ Bee/ blameless, which sounds to my ear a little like an engine idling. Both “because” and “blameless” have a buzz sound in them too. Then there is the "hum" sound, that triple M in the first line which continues through the stanza: may/ blame/ hum/ become/ Me. The whole stanza fairly hums along. In other words, Dickinson is turning herself into a bee, which is exactly what the stanza is about,
Because the Bee may blameless hum
For Thee a Bee do I become
Dickinson, in her poem, has become pure delight of sound and being. Beeing.
List even unto Me.
“List” carries a wonderful double meaning here. It’s primarily an antique way of saying “listen.” I will become a bee so you will want to listen to my buzz. But “list” also means to lean. The image I get is of the flower listing toward the bee so it can be nearer to it. Isn’t that what we are always doing when we read a poem by Emily Dickinson? We lean into the music of it.
There is a sexual innuendo, perhaps, of bees and flowers that is at play in this poem, and one senses desire in the listing of that flower. Usually the flower is seen as passive, but here it’s leaning in toward the bee.
The construction “Even unto” has biblical connotations: “Even unto death...” Psalms 48, and “Even unto the end of the world..." of Matthew 28. This combined with the Thees and Thous in this poem give it the tone of the sacred.
Because the Flowers unafraid
May lift a look on thine, a Maid
Alway a Flower would be.
In the second stanza we have switched to the perspective of the listing flower. Who in the relationship is the flower and who is the bee? Both are both. The flower here is portrayed as unafraid, just as the bee was depicted as beyond blame. To follow the sexual subtext, we have the idea of desire being followed fearlessly and beyond society’s blame.
The flower is lifting up, unafraid to look "on thine.” "Thine" is curious here. It’s a possessive form so it begs the question: unafraid to look on thine…what? Thine…desire? Thine…pollinator?
A “Maid,” in the old sense of the word, means a young unmarried woman, a virgin. Because of the way Dickinson wields syntax you can switch the subject and object of “a maid always a flower would be.” This can mean the maid is always going to be a flower, but also that a flower will always be a maid. So, if I’m getting this correctly, the flower is not afraid of being visited by the bee, because it knows it is still just as much a flower after the conjugal visit, that it will stay as pure and blameless as a maid. It’s a beautiful notion.
Nor Robins, Robins need not hide
When Thou upon their Crypts intrude
Dickinson spins this poem a whole different way with the intrusion of those “Crypts” there. The flower, being visited upon by the bee in the first stanza is now the “Crypt” of the Robin being intruded upon in the second. It’s a weird parallel. It’s hard to read “Crypt” without the sense it has of “grave,” but perhaps Dickinson must mean it more in the older sense of the word. Crypt comes from the Greek word for “hide” and became the Latin "crypta" which means vault or cavern. Dickinson seems to be playing off of this here. The Crypt then is the hidden nest of the Robin, and in that sense it’s the opposite of death. it's the place where eggs are protected. It’s amazing to me that Dickinson is able to get a sense of both birth and death into one word like that.
So why is “Thou” intruding on this crypt/nest? If Thou is the flower in the first stanza, and then becomes the bee in the second stanza, who or what is it now? What is trying to get into the nest, or the grave? What is intruding? Both the word "crypt" and the word "intrude" throw a complicating shadow on the poem.
This poem grabs you right away with the sound of its bee phonics, its buzz and hum. First of all there is that bold triple B of Because/ Bee/ blameless, which sounds to my ear a little like an engine idling. Both “because” and “blameless” have a buzz sound in them too. Then there is the "hum" sound, that triple M in the first line which continues through the stanza: may/ blame/ hum/ become/ Me. The whole stanza fairly hums along. In other words, Dickinson is turning herself into a bee, which is exactly what the stanza is about,
Because the Bee may blameless hum
For Thee a Bee do I become
Dickinson, in her poem, has become pure delight of sound and being. Beeing.
List even unto Me.
“List” carries a wonderful double meaning here. It’s primarily an antique way of saying “listen.” I will become a bee so you will want to listen to my buzz. But “list” also means to lean. The image I get is of the flower listing toward the bee so it can be nearer to it. Isn’t that what we are always doing when we read a poem by Emily Dickinson? We lean into the music of it.
There is a sexual innuendo, perhaps, of bees and flowers that is at play in this poem, and one senses desire in the listing of that flower. Usually the flower is seen as passive, but here it’s leaning in toward the bee.
The construction “Even unto” has biblical connotations: “Even unto death...” Psalms 48, and “Even unto the end of the world..." of Matthew 28. This combined with the Thees and Thous in this poem give it the tone of the sacred.
Because the Flowers unafraid
May lift a look on thine, a Maid
Alway a Flower would be.
In the second stanza we have switched to the perspective of the listing flower. Who in the relationship is the flower and who is the bee? Both are both. The flower here is portrayed as unafraid, just as the bee was depicted as beyond blame. To follow the sexual subtext, we have the idea of desire being followed fearlessly and beyond society’s blame.
The flower is lifting up, unafraid to look "on thine.” "Thine" is curious here. It’s a possessive form so it begs the question: unafraid to look on thine…what? Thine…desire? Thine…pollinator?
A “Maid,” in the old sense of the word, means a young unmarried woman, a virgin. Because of the way Dickinson wields syntax you can switch the subject and object of “a maid always a flower would be.” This can mean the maid is always going to be a flower, but also that a flower will always be a maid. So, if I’m getting this correctly, the flower is not afraid of being visited by the bee, because it knows it is still just as much a flower after the conjugal visit, that it will stay as pure and blameless as a maid. It’s a beautiful notion.
Nor Robins, Robins need not hide
When Thou upon their Crypts intrude
Dickinson spins this poem a whole different way with the intrusion of those “Crypts” there. The flower, being visited upon by the bee in the first stanza is now the “Crypt” of the Robin being intruded upon in the second. It’s a weird parallel. It’s hard to read “Crypt” without the sense it has of “grave,” but perhaps Dickinson must mean it more in the older sense of the word. Crypt comes from the Greek word for “hide” and became the Latin "crypta" which means vault or cavern. Dickinson seems to be playing off of this here. The Crypt then is the hidden nest of the Robin, and in that sense it’s the opposite of death. it's the place where eggs are protected. It’s amazing to me that Dickinson is able to get a sense of both birth and death into one word like that.
So why is “Thou” intruding on this crypt/nest? If Thou is the flower in the first stanza, and then becomes the bee in the second stanza, who or what is it now? What is trying to get into the nest, or the grave? What is intruding? Both the word "crypt" and the word "intrude" throw a complicating shadow on the poem.
The last two stanzas are fused together as one long one. If I had to guess, I'd say Dickinson did this to subtly pick up speed, to give the poem a feeling of escalating excitement. Taking the stanza break away is like taking one’s breath away.
So Wings bestow on Me
Or Petals, or a Dower of Buzz
This poem becomes a kind of prayer here. Make me one with nature is the plea. Bestow wings on me, or petals, or dower of buzz. Dower of buzz is a great line. A dower is a dowry. The buzz, the energy, the life-sound of the poet is her dowry.
A dower of Buzz
The bee to ride,
If you enjamb and fuse these two lines together, as the lack of punctuation after "Buzz" asks you to do, then you get something like, "The bee rides on its own dower (gift) of buzzing." Dickinson is buzzing on her own poetic prowess.
So Wings bestow on Me
Or Petals, or a Dower of Buzz
This poem becomes a kind of prayer here. Make me one with nature is the plea. Bestow wings on me, or petals, or dower of buzz. Dower of buzz is a great line. A dower is a dowry. The buzz, the energy, the life-sound of the poet is her dowry.
A dower of Buzz
The bee to ride,
If you enjamb and fuse these two lines together, as the lack of punctuation after "Buzz" asks you to do, then you get something like, "The bee rides on its own dower (gift) of buzzing." Dickinson is buzzing on her own poetic prowess.
or Flower of Furze
Flower or Furze is a such a pleasing rhyme for “dower of buzz" that it just lifts the poem right off of the ground, gives it wings so to speak. Furze is a bush, more commonly known as Gorse. (According to Christanne Miller’s notes on this poem there was a saying in Dickinson’s day, “When the furze is in bloom, my love is in tune.”)
Flower or Furze is a such a pleasing rhyme for “dower of buzz" that it just lifts the poem right off of the ground, gives it wings so to speak. Furze is a bush, more commonly known as Gorse. (According to Christanne Miller’s notes on this poem there was a saying in Dickinson’s day, “When the furze is in bloom, my love is in tune.”)
I that way worship Thee.
Dickinson becomes fluid with nature itself in order to worship "Thee," which may refer to Lover, God, Nature or take your pick. Her way of becoming is through poetry’s mimesis. It buzzes and hums. It's floral. It has wings. We list even unto it.
_/)dam Wade l)eGraff
P.S. Dickinson loved Emerson’s poem about The Humble-Bee, and said of it, “Emerson's intimacy with his 'Bee' only immortalized him." That poem, incidentally, is like the experience of riding on the back of a bee.
P.P.S. My daughter drank a cup of tea today and I noticed that hanging out of the cup was an Emily Dickinson quote, “Beauty is not caused. It is.” Because I was thinking about this poem, this quote came to life. Did Emily "cause" the beauty of this poem to happen? Or did she just tune into the hum and buzz of what already is?
Such a great commentary. I loved this poem when I first read it (and have looked forward to it coming up on the Prowling Bee). To me both the sense and sounds of this poem (flowers, at ground level, lifting looks on something, ahem, unstated, as the beloved walks by; a “Dower of Buzz / That Bee to ride”; a “Flower of Furze”; and so on) evoke desire. This is a poem about desire as absolute delight. Desire as a form of worship.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Tom. Flower of furze. Yowza.
ReplyDeleteED could be addressing her future reader in this poem as I believe she does in, for example F313 " You see I cannot see—your lifetime— ". This would explain the Crypt.
ReplyDeleteThat's a facet of the diamond I hadn't considered. We are the Thou looking into her Crypt there, and she is flying out in the guise of poetry?
DeleteExactly.
Delete