Autumn — overlooked my Knitting —

Autumn — overlooked my Knitting —
Dyes — said He — have I —
Could disparage a Flamingo —
Show Me them — said I —

Cochineal — I chose — for deeming
It resemble Thee —
And the little Border — Dusker —
For resembling Me —


      FR786, J748, Fascicle 37, 1863

Let’s "overlook" that opening line:

Autumn — overlooked my Knitting —

The word "overlooked” is misleading here, because it has the connotation of "looking past” or "ignoring," but in the context of the rest of the poem, it merely means “looked over.”

Autumn, in poetry parlance, is the season of reflection, both a remembrance of the youth of summer, and a preparation for the winter of old age and death. It is also the time of harvest.

Another parallel with Autumn is Dusk, a word which appears in the second stanza of this poem. Dusk is to Night as Autumn is to Winter and as Old Age is to Death.

“Knitting,” in the context of this poem, is self-referential. It is one way to speak of the writing of poems. I’m sure there have been some terrific essays written on Dickinson’s use of this analogy. (You can see this motif on display in one of her earliest poems, which parallels this one in more ways than one, F21.)

So, we might say that, figuratively, old age is looking over the poet’s shoulder as she writes her poem. He offers her a better, richer color palette:

Dyes — said He — have I —
Could disparage a Flamingo —

There is word play in “Dyes” here, a homonym with "Dies." This is apropos, since this poem, at heart, is about the acceptance of the richness and beauty of death.

Autumn’s Dyes would disparage a flamingo. A flamingo carries the color of pink, of spring, of newness. It's a tropical, exotic bird. The word flamingo carries the word "flame" in it too. It reminds us of the heat of summer. Pink is the color of newborns, and of little girls.

 

Autumn’s Dyes "disparage" all of this. According to the Dickinson Lexicon, disparage means to “dishonor by a comparison of greater value.”

Flamingo pink is hot, says august Autumn, but I’ve got something even better than that.

Show Me them — said I

The Poet looks into the face of death and bravely demands to see these dyes. “Show Me them.” She chooses one.

Cochineal — I chose — for deeming
It resemble Thee —

Autumn shows the poet colors of a richer, deeper hue and the poet chooses, from among them, Cochineal. If spring’s pink is red with a dab of white, Autumn's cochineal is red with a dab of black.

Cochineal is notable, also, for being almost the exact color of blood.

Cochineal bugs are used to make carmine dye. Billions

are thoughtlessly killed every year to color everything 

from Nerds candy to rouge and lipstick. (Natural Dye #4)

The poet says she chooses this color because it resembles “Thee,” her beloved. Perhaps it reminds the poet of "Thee" because cochineal is the blood-red color of the heart, of life. There is also a flowering cactus called a Cochineal. Could it be that Dickinson was making a pointed joke about the prickly nature of this love?

cochineal cactus

Then for the coup de grâce we get these final lines:

And the little Border — Dusker —
For resembling Me —

Just by adding that word "Dusker" here Dickinson conjures up a sunset to accompany the deepening red of this poem. 

What is Dickinson knitting here? A scarf? A blanket? Surely it is something to keep her beloved warm, and perhaps even to cover them both.

I always read myself (and, by extension, all readers) into the role of “Thee” in Dickinson’s poems. She is knitting this poem for us, too, to keep us warm in the chilly depths of winter.

She has woven herself into the “border” of this blanket. The blood-red color of “Thee” takes up the bulk of this blanket. The poet is just visible at the blanket's edge. What color is dusker than cochineal? What color is a little closer to the darkness of midnight black? A deep maroon perhaps? It might look something like this.

The blanket your cool goth grandma might knit for you

Perhaps this poem was given to Sue with an accompanying blooming cochineal cactus plant? Dickinson often gave poems with flowers. Or maybe it was given as a note with an actual blanket she knitted herself?

Now this blanket poem, like a precious heirloom, is passed along to Thee, the reader. May it keep you warm when the temperature drops.



       -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

It dropped so low — in my Regard —

It dropped so low — in my Regard —
I heard it hit the Ground —
And go to pieces on the Stones
At bottom of my Mind —

Yet blamed the Fate that flung it — less
Than I denounced Myself,
For entertaining Plated Wares
Upon My Silver Shelf —


          -FR785, J747, fascicle 37, 1863

Some Dickinson poems function as generic parables. In this one you can plug X in for “It.” X is anything that you once fell for, but has now fallen.

You could try, as many have, to apply the situation to Dickinson’s life. You could plug in for X some friend or lover who has fallen in Emily’s esteem. Or perhaps “publication” could be plugged in here, since there is another poem in this same fascicle which begins “Publication is the auction of the mind of man.”  But really it would all be guesswork. The poem could be applied to any disillusionment

How does it land for you? That is the important question I think.

There was a guy back in HS who I thought was the coolest guy ever. How amazing, I thought back then, that this guy doesn’t care what others think of him. He was the quarterback of the football team, handsome, well-dressed and wealthy. He had a sexy indifference that I deeply envied. But all of that surface show turned out to be like the silver plating over a base metal. Many years later this friend imploded in a spectacular way and the baseness was revealed on the craggy rocks of reality. It turns out, in retrospect, that my social anxieties were less a defect, and more a sign of a desire to connect with others. It was my own self-doubt that turned out to be a foundation for building a Shelf. (My own Shelf is made of recycled wood, but we can't all be Emily Dickinson.) 

The parable of this poem may be compared to another from the bible, the one about not building your house on sand, from Matthew 7. “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”

There is a parallel between the two parables even in that rock the house is built on. In Dickinson’s poem she hears, in her fertile imagination, this once esteemed thing hit the ground “And go to pieces on the Stones/ At bottom of my Mind —”

The bottom of Dickinson’s mind turns out to be as solid as the rocks in Jesus’ parable. But here we have an added element. If the bottom of her mind is like rock, the top is a silver shelf. What a wonderful rhyme with  "myself." She takes the parable to the next level. Make the thing where you keep your valuables the more valuable thing. The invaluable things will fall on their own accord, when... “the rains come down, the streams rise, and the winds blow and beat against that house,” but the silver shelf built in that house upon the solid rock will be inviolate.

For me, the idea of this poem being about publishing, and Dickinson's own poetry, makes some sense. I find the clue for this in that word “entertaining.” Dickinson is not here to entertain us with easy poetry, she’s here for those more rare and durable metals that belong on her shelf.

It’s fascinating to me that, in light of Dickinson’s aversion to publishing, in poems such as this one she seems to be writing for the general public. A parable, by its generic nature, has a public purpose, and yet what was Dickinson’s plan for making these poems available to this general readership? Did she expect that the same fates that threw the plated wares to the ground (according to this poem) would assist in leaving her finely wrought Silver Shelf for future generations? And doesn't it appear as if the fates have done their part? Here we are now, reading the poem, her letter to the word, that is sitting still upon her silver shelf.

-

Notes: 

1. I think it is meaningful that this poem and the one proceeding it in the fascicle both begin with something being dropped. If you read the poems in order, you can hardly help notice this. She drops this word "drop" here as if it were a hint. In the previous one, FR784, Dickinson wants to drop her burden of responsibility for a quick fix, and in this one what drops is something false. There is a progression between these two poems then. The desire for the quick fix in the previous poem is, in this poem, perhaps, the false thing that is dropped. In other words, in the previous poem, she wants to drop the burden, but in this poem Dickinson decides to drop her desire instead. 

2. There's a guy on YouTube that breaks down some Dickinson poems. He can get pretty histrionic when he gets worked up about the poems which I appreciate. There's a moment in his breakdown of this poem where he gets so worked up he throws his head back for a moment and then brings it forward and says  Wawawooey. It's around 7:45 mark in this video. I just thought I'd share this great hidden moment with the greater Prowling Bee community. 

I sometimes drop it, for a Quick –

I sometimes drop it, for a Quick –
The Thought to be alive –
Anonymous Delight to know –
And Madder – to conceive –

Consoles a Wo so monstrous
That did it tear all Day,
Without an instant’s Respite –
‘Twould look too far – to Die –

Delirium – diverts the Wretch
For Whom the Scaffold neighs –
The Hammock’s motion lulls the Heads
So close on Paradise –

A Reef – crawled easy from the Sea
Eats off the Brittle Line –
The Sailor doesn't know the Stroke –
Until He’s past the Pain –


    -FR784, J708, fascicle 37, 1863


This one gets me immediately with that first line. What is being dropped? Woe itself, assuredly. Though it could also be a goal. I dropped the drudgery of my goal for a Quick (blank.) Quick could be a noun, in which case it means “Life’ or it could be an adjective without a referent. In other words, something gets dropped before the sentence even comes to an end. It gets dropped quickly!

What else could you say is being dropped? The Martyrdom? The Renunciation? (This idea comes from the poem about renunciation preceding this one in the fascicle.)

The “it” being dropped in that first line stands for something difficult, something painful.

Drop it for a "Quick." A quick what, Emily? A quick fix? A quickie? A quick thought of being alive. It’s almost like she’s talking quickly out loud here, jumping ahead of her own thoughts, the way she elides the object of the sentence and picks it up in the next line. You can imagine it as spoken dialogue. If this were dialogue then the dashes might function as little questions in the pattern of speech: “I sometimes drop it, for a Quick (a quick what?) The Thought to be alive (why?) Anonymous Delight to know (but) and madder to conceive (What even is life? It seems crazy.)"

Each line is so redolent with meaning. But the basic gist is, you feel like dropping something difficult and painful for some quick fix, some easy way out.

Just have a quick little fix of whatever drug you need. Whatever diversion. What is your drug of choice?  Emily uses...

The Thought to be alive -

This line stands on its own, as a complete thought. You really can’t ever get past it completely. The thought to be alive. To be alive is the “quick,” if we take the definition of quick as a noun. Life.

I mean, really stop and think about that line. It's heady. 

Now feel that line in counterweight to what it is that is dropped: Woe. Whoa.

Anonymous Delight to know–

That word anonymous there is so packed. Why is Delight anonymous? Think of it as opposed to Woe. If delight is anonymous, then Woe is personal. If anonymous Delight is heady, then Woe is hearty.

Why is Delight anonymous? Because delight doesn’t care. When I am in a state of pure delight I am disconnected from the suffering of my fellow beings. I’m anonymous. It's wonderful in its way. And perhaps even necessary from time to time. But it's ultimately empty. It’s only in relation with other that we become Somebody. But in relation comes, by necessity, Woe.

What is the Delight? There are probably as many forms as there are types of people. But in this case, it is the mere thought of being alive. Being alive is an experience being translated into feeling, and then into thought, and then, perhaps, into words on a page.  

And Madder – to conceive –

Look at this line in isolation. It’s mad to conceive. What does it mean to conceive? Conceive may refer to "Thought," as in the line before it, but it also has the sense of "Birth." (It's strange that birth and thought share the same word, no? That thought itself is a strange conception!) The two senses of the word "Conception" seem to come together here. Dickinson ties the two ideas, of thought and life, into this one word.

And Madder – to conceive –  There is something a little mad about this line. It’s almost Shakespearean the way it turns in on itself. The thought of what life really is will drive you mad. Why? It makes you really question why.

The madness also points AWAY from the sanity, because sanity seems to be found in the woe. Woe is found in our connection with others.

(I was having a conversation with students today over the way people bond through complaining. I was reminded of this poem, and an earlier one in this fascicle, FR780, which is about two women who are wed through the bond of their grief.)

 Now we are now set up for the second stanza. This quick diversion consoles...

Consoles a Wo so monstrous
That did it tear all Day,
Without an instant’s Respite –
‘Twould look too far – to Die –

To have anonymous delight in being alive consoles us. We need it. Because the monstrous woe, which would be the loss of the beloved, can be so great that without an “Instant’s respite” we would want to kill ourselves, because “‘Twould look too far to die.”

I like that word “Instant” in there. Instantaneous gratification. As opposed to the work of woe, which is part of the drudgery, part of thing you wish to drop.

Delirium – diverts the Wretch
For Whom the Scaffold neighs –
The Hammock’s motion lulls the Heads
So close on Paradise –

Delirium is that mad happiness, that drug high, that gives some instant respite to the wretch "For Whom the Scaffold neighs–" I hear the line “For whom the bell tolls,” by John Donne here. (I would guess Emily was familiar with that poem.)

But for whom the scaffold neighs is…nightmarish. The scaffold, which is murdering the self for…being a murderer! sounds like a horse neighing, a horse rearing before galloping to hell. It creates a disturbing and surreal image. Neigh also sounds like Nay. The scaffold nays.

But remember, in this poem the neighing scaffold appears to be a punishment the poet wishes to willingly face! It’s akin to the cross. The mad delirious fun is a diversion from what really matters, which is the damned who are dying in distress.

The Hammock’s motion lulls the Heads
So close on Paradise –

The Quick fix is like the hammock’s motion lulling the Heads. It’s hard to know what those hammocks are doing there at first read, but the association is with boats. This is a sailor lying in the hammock. The waves are rocking him to sleep. The motion lulls. If the sailor was not lulled to sleep, he would be able to navigate the shoals and get to land. He let himself be lulled (drugged) to his own demise, and that of his crew.

The poem flips here I think. The first half of the poem seems to say, you need a diversion now and then to keep from killing yourself. The final stanza though, says to get back on watch! Don’t let your fellows be sacrificed on the gallows. Don’t let the ship be wrecked.

A Reef – crawled easy from the Sea

Eats off the Brittle Line –

At first I thought the first line meant that a sailor or someone to save the sailor is crawling up onto the reef. And the brittle line was a rope that was being eaten by the coral. 

But upon further reading I’m inclined to think that the Reef is personified as something that so easily can crawl up and cause us to wreck. Perhaps a fling?  Is it an affair we are “dropping” our burden for? It is some kind of addiction. That's the the reef that crawls so easily from the sea.

“Eats off the brittle line” is, itself, a brittle line. The brittle line in the context of this poem, as I read it, is the line reaching of safety being offered from the shore, but also the line between life and death. The coral gnaws through this fragile life-line, and the sailor dies in the wreck, which, of course, could have been avoided if he kept on his watch.

 The Sailor doesn't know the Stroke –
Until He’s past the Pain –

The sailor doesn’t know the stroke (of death) until he’s past the pain. I imagine him drunk, happily swaying in his cot as the ship hits the coral, dreaming of the pleasures of the South Seas. He relaxed his guard and now the whole crew is lost. 

Heavy.

      -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Guillou’s Adieu! (1892)

Waterhouse's Miranda (1916)

Demont-Breton's Stella Maris (1894)

Check out the terrific blog post on paintings

 of shipwrecks from which I found these images. 

Never for Society

Never for Society
He shall seek in vain—
Who His own acquaintance
Cultivate—Of Men

Wiser Men may weary—
But the Man within
Never knew Satiety—
Better entertain

Than could Border Ballad—
Or Biscayan Hymn—
Neither introduction
Need You—unto Him—


      -FR783, J746, Fascicle 37, 1863


The syntax on this one is a little tricky, but once unraveled it is pretty straightforward. Here's a prose translation for the lines below, as I understand them.

Never for Society
He shall seek in vain—

One (who is wise) shall never vainly seek for the society of others.

Who His own acquaintance
Cultivate—Of Men
Wiser Men may weary—
But the Man within

Never knew Satiety—

If you are wise and cultivate an acquaintance with the One in yourself, then you may grow weary of others, but the One within to whom you acquaint yourself, you will never become satiated with his/her company.

Better entertain
Than could Border Ballad—
Or Biscayan Hymn—

The One inside that you become friends with will entertain you better than any Scottish border ballad or Biscayan (Basque) hymn.

Neither introduction
Need You—unto Him—

Unlike the people in society, you need no introduction to this Friend inside of you.

 
Of course, understanding this poem syntactically and understanding this poem internally are two different things.

It’s hard to know for sure who this “Man” inside is meant to be. It could possibly be Christ, with that capital M “Man” and capital H “His.” It could also be read as higher/deeper Self, with that adjectival indicator “own” in the line “He shall never seek in vain/ Who His own acquaintance/ Cultivate.” 

This poem goes some way toward explaining Emily Dickinson’s increasingly reclusive nature. She was vastly entertained by her own ballads, and by her own hymn-like poems. Even the most compelling external distractions cannot rival the richness of self-discovery.

This is a model for the reader. A majority of the poems written before this one in Dickinson’s oeuvre exhibit a painful yearning for a Beloved. In this one the Beloved has been internalized as Self.

It is instructive to pair this poem with a very similar one from earlier in this fascicle, FR773, which begins, "Conscious am I in my Chamber –/Of a shapeless friend –"

Compare, for instance, these lines from the earlier poem,

Weariness of Him, were quainter
Than Monotony
Knew a Particle – of Space’s
Vast Society –

To the lines from this one,

Of Men
Wiser Men may weary—
But the Man within

Never knew Satiety—

Read together you get a a growing sense of this "shapeless Friend" within. In this poem you get the added idea that this Friend is...entertaining! To find this entertaining Self within is a challenge worth taking up. 

      -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Write your own Border Ballads and Biscayan Hymns!

Renunciation—is a piercing Virtue—

Renunciation—is a piercing Virtue—
The letting go
A Presence—for an Expectation—
Not now—
The putting out of Eyes—
Just Sunrise—
Lest Day—
Day’s Great Progenitor—
Outvie
Renunciation—is the Choosing
Against itself—
Itself to justify
Unto itself—
When larger function—
Make that appear—
Smaller—that Covered Vision—Here—


      -F782, J745, Fascicle 37, 1863


This is what David Preest refers to as “a definition poem of an abstract idea.” There are two more of them in this fascicle, FR775, "Suspense—is Hostiler than Death—" and FR781, the poem before this one in the fascicle, "Remorse—is Memory Awake—"  Together, they comprise a kind of series.

This one is difficult and esoteric, but its truth is a correspondingly deep one. 

Renunciation—is a piercing Virtue—
The letting go
A Presence—for an Expectation—

If you let go of your expectations, you are left with Presence. I find this axiom to be very meaningful. It reminds me of William Blake’s poem “Eternity”:

He who binds to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy
He who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in Eternity’s Sunrise

The adjective “piercing” here is rich. Piercing implies pain. Renunciation hurts. But piercing also implies depth. Piercing is an adjective and verb at once, and it sums up the paradox of the poem; in the piercing pain can be found the piercing Presence. (Compare this with the previous poem about "Remorse" in the fascicle, which may be summed up, "when you burn you learn.")

"The letting go" is an echo from one of Dickinson's most famous lines, from FR372, "First—Chill—then Stupor—then the letting go—" 

You see this line anew. It's not a letting go. It's THE letting go. 

I love that two word stand-alone line following this opening:

“Not now—”

Forget your expectation of immediate gratification, sir! Not now!

The putting out of Eyes—
Just Sunrise—

These lines are a puzzle. On a surface level, you could say that the putting out of eyes, the putting to sleep of eyes, leads to Sunrise the next morning. But I think, in the context of the rest of the poem, they mean something like; the shutting of the eyes to desire leads us to the opening of a greater vision, the Sunrise. 

Lest Day—
Day’s Great Progenitor—
Outvie

Here, I think, Day represents the self, and the Great Progenitor is equivalent to Presence and Sunrise. If we close our eyes to the day, then that day does not attempt to “outvie” (compete) against the Source of that day. We close our eyes to our desires, and we come into Presence with the Source of the desire itself.

Renunciation—is the Choosing
Against itself—
Itself to justify
Unto itself—

What?! This is difficult to untangle because we don’t quite know what the “it” refers to here. It seems at first that “it” refers back to renunciation, but that doesn’t quite gel. Put into prose it would be; renunciation is the choosing against renunciation to justify renunciation unto renunciation? That’s doesn’t make sense to me. But if “it” refers to the object of desire, then I think we are getting somewhere. Renunciation is the choosing against the desired object, justifying the desired object unto itself. In “letting go” you are also “letting be.” The object of desire is free to be. You have "justified" it. 

When larger function—
Make that appear—
Smaller—that Covered Vision—Here—

Larger function = the Presence, the Great Progenitor, the Sunrise. (Notice Dickinson’s avoidance of the fraught word "God" here, even though she dances all around it.) When the shutting of the eyes allows that larger function, then that larger function makes the renounced object of desire appear smaller, and, then, paradoxically, that covered vision appears... “—Here—”

"Here" is set off between dashes, full of portent and Presence.

Here!

I find this poem especially poignant during this season of Lent.


     -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Buddha's 7th Great Deed: Renunciation

Notes: 

1. It would be remiss not to talk about the form of this poem, with its wildly fluctuating meter, and its heavy use of dimeter. The only poem that seems in line with this one so far in the first 782 poems of Dickinson's oeuvre is the one a few poems back in this fascicle, FR778. This one feels wholly experimental to me, but I’d love to know if there is an antecedent for it. Perhaps it is worth noting that the poem starts out with iambic pentameter and ends with trochaic pentameter, but all the lines between are seemingly random. Still though, the rhythm and rhyme have a satisfying flow and finish. It's disjointed, but feels right. Perhaps this is in line with Renunciation itself.

2. I recently learned that Dickinson’s library contained a volume of William Blake. I’ve always wondered about that, since there are so many similarities between the two poets. Not only is the Sunrise in this poem reminiscent of Blake's Eternal Sunrise, but I can feel Blake's epigrammatic concision in, "The putting out of eyes/ Just Sunrise." It just occurred to me that Blake, himself, may have been alluding to Alexander Pope’s “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.”

Remorse — is Memory — awake —

Remorse — is Memory — awake —
Her Parties all astir —
A Presence of Departed Acts —
At window — and at Door —

Its Past — set down before the Soul
And lighted with a Match —
Perusal — to facilitate —
And help Belief to stretch —

Remorse is cureless — the Disease
Not even God — can heal —
For 'tis His institution — and
The Adequate of Hell —

        -FR781, J744, Fascicle 37, 1863


This might have been written by Lady Macbeth just before she killed herself, burning with remorse for her part in killing King Duncan. It’s that dark.

Remorse — is Memory — awake —
Her Parties all astir —

Who are these Parties? Parties to what? Parties to some terrible act?  “Parties” here is short for “Participants” so it seems to imply that the fault was shared. Or maybe the memories themselves are being personified as Parties, and these memories are all astir. The mind is being stirred up, going crazy.

A Presence of Departed Acts —
At window — and at Door —

The idea of a presence of an absence, and, conversely, an absence of a presence, is one I’ve seen before in Dickinson, though I can’t quite recall where. The word departed leads one to wonder if perhaps the remorse here is because some beloved has departed over a disagreement, or a slight. And in that "Door," the one through which the lover “departed,” there is now a stoppage. It’s like the one who was left behind is now trapped in the house and cannot, themselves, leave.

Note that the word “Acts” here could be read as both a noun and a verb. The idea of the Presence of the Departed acting at the door and window has a ghostly quality to it.

Its Past — set down before the Soul
And lighted with a Match —
Perusal — to facilitate —
And help Belief to stretch —

The Match, first and foremost, is helping (facilitating) the remorseful in going over (perusing) the fault. But there is more than just light coming from the Match, there is also heat. That Match may be helping us to “read” the cause of our sin, but it is also starting a fire. There is a burning quality to remorse. And this becomes reified with the mention of Hell in the following stanza. Remorse is the spark that starts the fire of Hell in which we burn. In that burning we can "see." 

Also, there is another possible connotation to Match. If we are going with the remorse here being over the departure of a loved one, then the Match also alludes to what was lost, the Match between two souls.

What does it mean that this remorse “helps belief to stretch?” Does that mean it “stretches belief?” In other words, that it makes it hard to believe? Or does it mean that it helps us believe, it helps us stretch toward belief. So tricky with her syntax that Emily D!

The next stanza does not help resolve this conundrum.

Remorse is cureless—the Disease
Not even God—can heal—

Christian “Belief” would point to a cure, which would be forgiveness of sins through Christ’s sacrifice. But Dickinson isn’t accepting that. “Not even God—can heal—” It’s also tricky what Dickinson does with syntax here. It seems at first like she is saying God is impotent in the face of remorse, but the next line puts a twist on it:

For 'tis His institution — and
The Adequate of Hell —

God can’t heal, because remorse is from God. I think this is pointing to the idea that we must live with remorse, with our sins, because that’s how we can learn from them. If we were merely forgiven, how then would remorse work on us? It is hell, and therefore it is adequate for the situation. We need to burn to learn.

Like Shakespeare does with his treatment of Macbeth, Dickinson doesn’t let herself, or us, off the hook with easy Grace. Rather, she is saying, we should face the hell we create.



        -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Ugolino by Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux

Notes

1. David Preest points out, “This is a definition poem of an abstract idea, like poems FR775 and FR782. Indeed all three poems come from the same fascicle, and their opening lines are syntactically similar.” This is a great insight. The other two poems begin, “Suspense is hostiler than death” and the one directly following this one in the fascicle, “Renunciation is a piercing virtue.” Preest also points out that Remorse, like the continual resurgences of Suspense in the earlier poem, will never end.

2.  Dickinson provides “Complement” as an alternative word for “Adequate.” Remorse is the complement of hell. She also provides, “Of its condensed despatch” as an alternative for “And help Belief to stretch.” Remorse as a condensed dispatch from God is quite a thought!

3. I like what writer Jamison Dove has to say, 

"The second stanza is a beautiful act of self-examination. “Its Past—set down before the Soul / And lighted with a Match—” is powerful reverb, or we could say an echo of how our “Soul” can transmute the “Past” into a more useful form. Implied by Dickinson is the process of self-examination leading to our growth of a better self. The “Match” acting as a spark towards “Belief” in a better self.

“His institution” is a marker of our folly, which reminds me of the lines from Homer’s Odyssey:

This is absurd,
that mortals blame the gods! They say we cause
their suffering, but they themselves increase it
by folly.

-Book 1, Lines 32-35, Emily Wilson translation

The Birds reported from the South —

The Birds reported from the South —
A News express to Me —
A spicy Charge, My little Posts —
But I am deaf — Today —

The Flowers — appealed — a timid Throng —
I reinforced the Door —
Go blossom for the Bees — I said —
And trouble Me — no More —

The Summer Grace, for Notice strove —
Remote — Her best Array —
The Heart — to stimulate the Eye
Refused too utterly —

At length, a Mourner, like Myself,
She drew away austere —
Her frosts to ponder — then it was
I recollected Her —

She suffered Me, for I had mourned —
I offered Her no word —
My Witness — was the Crape I bore —
Her — Witness — was Her Dead —

Thenceforward — We — together dwelt —
I never questioned Her —
Our Contract
A Wiser Sympathy


     -FR780, J743, Fascicle 37, 1863

This poem gets at the idea that when one is grieving, beauty is not always welcome, but sympathy is. 

Let's take it stanza by stanza.

The Birds reported from the South —
A News express to Me —
A spicy Charge, My little Posts —
But I am deaf — Today —

On the surface meaning of this poem, these birds are heading north for the summer, and the reports are the songs they bring. But the idea of something being “reported from the South,” a “News express,” suggests to me the Civil War. And the “spicy Charge” as well as the"report from the South" makes me think of the charge and report from a gun. Even “Posts,” perhaps, carries a hint of the posting of soldiers. The “I am deaf” at the end could be from refusing to hear, but it could also be from the report of guns!

I think it is possible that the woman dealing with “her dead” late in the poem is meant to be a mother or wife who had lost someone in the Civil War, which was raging when this poem was written. One of Emily and her brother Austin’s good friends, Frazer Stearns, had been killed in March of 1862. My guess is that Dickinson wrote this in the summer of 1862, as she was grieving for Frazer.

The Flowers — appealed — a timid Throng —
I reinforced the Door —
Go blossom for the Bees — I said —
And trouble Me — no More —

This stanza seems to me to be about the rejection of romance. I’m reading these lines as saying that suitors appealed to the author, timid as they were, but that she firmly shuts the door to them. Go blossom for someone else! Don’t bother me. The idea of shutting the door to love interests, and then reinforcing it (!) seems to be the impetus of this stanza. It's hard not to think of Dickinson's increasingly reclusive nature when you read those lines.

The Summer Grace, for Notice strove —
Remote — Her best Array —
The Heart — to stimulate the Eye
Refused too utterly —

The pain felt in the “Heart” will not let the eye enjoy beauty, or the flourishing of “Summer Grace.” The dearth of winter would be a more appropriate setting. That word “Grace” here is loaded and you can see why in the poem just previous to this one in the fascicle, “The Grace—Myself—might not obtain—” That line can be read as Dickinson refusing Grace, which is a motif we see in much of Dickinson’s poetry. But, paradoxically, by refusing Grace, Dickinson is able to confer it, through empathy, to the mourning woman. 

At length, a Mourner, like Myself,
She drew away austere —
Her frosts to ponder — then it was
I recollected Her —

In the fascicle, Dickinson provides an alternative to “I recollected Her,” which reads, “I rose to comfort Her.” I like this alternative, as it gives reason for the the fellow mourner to “suffer” the author. There is something touching about Dickinson reaching out to comfort the mourner. Why she goes with “recollected” instead, I’m not sure. Maybe because recollecting is a kind of remembering. It’s almost as if Dickinson is remembering herself. It’s a truer sympathy. To comfort someone has just a hint of condescension, but to "recollect" has none.

She suffered Me, for I had mourned —
I offered Her no word —
My Witness — was the Crape I bore —
Her — Witness — was Her Dead —

"I offered her no word —"  Wise advice. When someone is grieving, listening goes much further than any words could.

Crape is a black fabric often used for mourning dresses. An alternative to “Crape” provided by Dickinson in the fascicle is “Black.” I like that you can read this line as saying that the witnessing itself is the sign of mourning. My Witness — was the Black I bore —  Just witnessing someone else's pain, bearing witness, is meaningful. 

I think of Johnny Cash, the Man in Black, here. When asked why he wore black, Cash said he did it "on behalf of the poor and hungry, the prisoner who has long paid for his crime, and those who have been betrayed by age or drugs. With the Vietnam War as painful in my mind as it was in most other Americans, I wore it 'in mourning' for the lives that could have been' ... Apart from the Vietnam War being over, I don't see much reason to change my position ... The old are still neglected, the poor are still poor, the young are still dying before their time, and we're not making many moves to make things right. There's still plenty of darkness to carry off.” Dickinson was sensitive in this poem to the horrors of the Civil War just as Cash was to the Vietnam War.

Ironically, Dickinson, a few years after this poem was written, began to dress only in white, so that now she is as famous for wearing white as Cash became for wearing black. Make of that what you will.

Thenceforward — We — together dwelt —
I never questioned Her —
Our Contract
A Wiser Sympathy

The idea that somehow “thenceforward" these two women dwelt together is powerful. There is a kind of marriage that happen here, complete with a “Contract.” The contract is a sympathy, sadder, perhaps, but wiser. Still, that dwelling together itself is a “bond,” and in that bond is a kind of transcending love that lifts this poem into a place of healing.

The “I never questioned Her” line is also worth noting. There is something private about grief. Adults sharing parallel but private grief reminds me of way toddlers share parallel but private play, only it’s the other end of the spectrum.

I take from this that it is best to show the sign of our grief, without talking about it, or asking another to discuss theirs. It’s ironic because Dickinson scholars spend so much time “questioning” the particulars of Dickinson’s life. There is so much grief in her poems. Perhaps the “Crape," or "witness” the poems bear is enough. No need to know the particulars. Dickinson’s poems understand our pain, and that is a large part of why so many of us “suffer them,” and, indeed, why we love them. “Thenceforward — We — together dwelt —”

      -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Victorian crape mourning dress

The Grace—Myself—might not obtain—

The Grace—Myself—might not obtain—
Confer upon My flower—
Refracted but a Countenance—
For I—inhabit Her—


     - FR779, J707, Fascicle 37, 1863


This poem is a good example of a phenomenon familiar to readers of Dickinson: meaning is unfurled line by line in a way that keeps syntactically shifting. We must first grapple with the intricate process of reading the poem before we can truly understand it.

The first line of this poem, for instance, says something very different the first time you read it than it does the last time you read it.

The Grace—Myself—might not obtain—

If that were a fragment, if you read it as a discrete unit by itself, closed off with that ending dash, it would mean something like, “I might not ever obtain grace.“

You could ALSO read it as, “Grace may not ever obtain me,” which is a very Dickinsonian twist.

And while both of those readings fit the deeper meaning of the poem, the final sense of this line changes again dramatically as we come to understand it is meant with the reader as the object: “You might not obtain my grace, in person, but you can find me reflected in the flower I'm sending you.”

All of these meanings work together to form an overall argument, one that is about transcending our limited ideas of Grace. That flower is where the “I” resides, not “Grace,” which is too often defined as something like, God's special favor. (“There but for the grace of God go I” has always struck me as an arrogant and odious thing to say.)

It reminds me of the Buddha’s great lesson to his acolytes. The story goes that instead of speaking any words, he merely held up a flower. There's your Grace. Look no further. 

Likely this poem was sent to its original recipient with an actual flower. There is a whole subcategory of poems by Dickinson that would have originally been sent to the receiver with a flower. Many of these poems describe the flower itself. If anyone out there has time on their hands, a collection of these poems would make a great book, to be sold in florists shops everywhere.

This poem is aligned with the great transcendentalists that Dickinson was surrounded by, Emerson, Whitman and Thoreau, to name a few, all of whom were equally apt to see themselves in flowers. Keats, a big influence on Dickinson, had this propensity too. “Here lies one whose name was writ on water” reads the epitaph on his gravestone.

While the reader today has neither Dickinson in the flesh, nor the original flower, we do have the poem, which we can see as a kind of flower made of words. Poetry is, essentially, the flowering of the poet's mind into beautiful language and, like a flower, pressed and preserved between the leaves of a book.

We see Dickinson’s countenance refracted in the poem, which is where we can still find Her Grace. And, really, she is telling us, we can find Her in any flower, just like Whitman tells us to look for him in the grass.

There is also something of the exchange of lovers in this poem. The flower is "possessed" by its giver, who calls it "My" flower, but then, after it is given, the giver inhabits the flower. Who possesses whom? Who belongs to whom? It is in the gift that the possessor becomes one with the possessed.  

        -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Pansies by Joe Brainard