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.
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 – 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.’"
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 – 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.
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
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 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 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— 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.
