'Twould ease — a Butterfly —

'Twould ease — a Butterfly —
Elate — a Bee —
Thou'rt neither —
Neither — thy capacity —

But, Blossom, were I,
I would rather be
Thy moment
Than a Bee's Eternity —

Content of fading
Is enough for me —
Fade I unto Divinity —

And Dying — Lifetime —
Ample as the Eye —
Her least attention raise on me —


      -Fr888, J682, fascicle 39, 1864


This is a very slippery poem. Who is the flower in this equation and who the bee and butterfly? What "capacity" does the bee and butterfly have, in representational human terms, that the blossom doesn't? Who is Her at the end of the poem? Is it the Ample eye that of the bee and butterfly or of the flower? Does that ample eye belong to the adorer or adored? There is a lot to work out. How you work it out will color your reading of the poem, which will in turn reflect you.

Here’s my reading, this time.

In the first stanza we have the idea that a flower eases and elates the bee and the butterfly, but does not have their capacity, which I take to mean, cannot fly away.

I think of Emily at home, able to ease and elate (relating to the two ends of poetry, Truth and Beauty) through her poetry, but self-restricted to her home. 

In the second stanza she says she would rather be “Thy” singular moment, meaning the blossom's, than that of the eternal prowler, the bee. There are some sexual politics here perhaps; the feminine is often depicted as rooted, while the bees, and the butterflies, root around.  Who does "Thy" refer to? David Preest thinks Emily is talking to herself here, and that makes the most sense to me too. But there are other possibilities.

By the third stanza the poet has become the blossom, accepting that she is fading and that her glory is behind her.

Content of fading
Is enough for me —

The next line is a beauty:

Fade I unto Divinity

There is an acceptance of death here in the satisfaction of knowing that you were, for a moment, that full blossom visited by the nectar-seeking bee, and, for a time, could be the easeful place to rest for the butterfly. Being content with this, one can fade into the divine, which means, I suppose, resting in peace.

And Dying — Lifetime —
Ample as the Eye —
Her least attention raise on me —

In dying, though, there’s the memory of a Lifetime, ample as the eye that saw it all. And in that ample eye, what is most precious is just the least moment of attention from “Her” ample eye.

It’s a poem that accepts that the one glance is not only "enough," it's more than enough, it's "ample." The flower as it is fading is all gratitude.

    -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

P.S. This Tanya Tucker song comes to mind:

Delta Dawn, what's that flower you have on?

Could it be a faded rose from days gone by?

And did I hear you say he was a-meetin' you here today

To take you to his mansion in the sky?

Severer Service of myself

Severer Service of myself
I—hastened to demand
To fill the awful Vacuum
Your life had left behind—

I worried Nature with my Wheels
When Hers had ceased to run—
When she had put away Her Work
My own had just begun.

I strove to weary Brain and Bone—
To harass to fatigue
The glittering Retinue of nerves—
Vitality to clog

To some dull comfort Those obtain
Who put a Head away
They knew the Hair to—
And forget the color of the Day—

Affliction would not be appeased—
The Darkness braced as firm
As all my stratagem had been
The Midnight to confirm—

No Drug for Consciousness—can be—
Alternative to die
Is Nature's only Pharmacy
For Being's Malady—


    -Fr887, J786, fascicle 39, 1864
 
I saw a musical last night at my daughter’s school called PROM. One of the characters had a mother who was a control freak. The daughter, tired of feeling controlled, says to her mother, “making your life perfect isn’t going to bring Dad back.”

That’s what I imagine the first stanza of this poem is getting at:

Severer Service of myself
I—hastened to demand
To fill the awful Vacuum
Your life had left behind—

When I stop to realize that writing poetry is the “severer service” that a poet would demand of herself, I’m reminded, once again, that these poems are meant to be a service. Dickinson was writing these poems as a service to the reader. (She couldn't possibly have foreseen just how far her service would extend.) It would follow then that this poem itself is meant to be of service. The question is, how?

Let's circle back to that question. Suffice to say, she was serious about it, severe. This helps explain why she was so prolific during the early 1860s. The general thought is that the uptick in poems during this time was a kind of therapy for the poet, a way of working through a painful trauma she experienced in 1862. And that must be true, no doubt, but there are less exacting ways to do that. You can write it in prose for one thing. Poetry is work meant for the ears of others. The take-away here, though, is that the processing of pain and work are one in the same. It's all one art. (See Elizabeth Bishop's masterpiece One Art for another beautiful example of this axiom at work.)

Taking the wisdom gleaned from her process and wrapping it up in beautifully-constructed aphoristic poems is what Emily Dickinson decides to do to be of service. This is what she feels she has left in the wake of her loss. It is her "single spade" (to borrow the image from the poem before this one in the fascicle). The deeper she reaches into the recesses of her own mind and heart, the deeper she reaches into ours, revealing us to ourselves through her hyper-specific lens. A poem like this one extends beyond aphorism though. It is more cri de coeur. 

The next stanza, which stays in the same vein, gets a little more esoteric.

I worried Nature with my Wheels
When Hers had ceased to run—
When she had put away Her Work
My own had just begun.

The idea of "worrying nature" is abstract, but I get what it means. But the idea of Nature’s wheels no longer running leaves me perplexed. Nature’s wheels are always running, right? So what does Dickinson mean by Nature here? It says Nature had put away its work. Okay well we know someone (a lover?) has left the poet bereft, in an "awful vacuum." So is it the poet’s own Nature that has stopped Work? And if so, then what happens when Nature is gone? Who, or what, is running the self? Who is writing the poem? What's the causal relationship in "When she (Nature) had put away Her Work/ My own had just begin"? Does the loss of Nature enable and fuel the work of the poet? 

The further question this begs for me is whether or not the art feeds the pain or the pain feeds the art? 

(See what just happened to me there? Dickinson's idea of Nature putting away its work is so charged it got my wheels spinning. Suddenly I’m thinking about questions that get down to core beliefs. She's wily like that.) 

Let's move on:

I strove to weary Brain and Bone—
To harass to fatigue
The glittering Retinue of nerves—
Vitality to clog

This stanza lets us know that her desire to serve is not just out of a kindness, but also out of the need to wear herself out, so she can disappear more quickly. She’s killing two birds with one stone, so to speak. 

This poem, and the one before it in Fascicle 39, are among Dickinson’s darkest. It would even seem this poem was written to exacerbate the dark, “to harass to fatigue”.

Note the lack of the normal dash in that line. Sometimes Dickinson puts a dash where you would least suspect it. This time though she doesn’t put one where you would most expect it. In this case the lack of a dash shows us that the poet isn’t giving herself pause. She’s trying to over-work herself to quiet the “glittering retinue of nerves.” What a phrase that is. We know that these nerves are feeling great pain, but that adjective “glittering” gives us a sense of the shining brilliance that comes from this pain. That brilliance can be seen in the very line itself.

To some dull comfort Those obtain
Who put a Head away
They knew the Hair to—

The “head” the poet puts away is her both her lover's and her own. She doesn’t want to think anymore. The startling and heartbreaking part is that the head the poet is putting away is attached to the “hair" that "They knew." Suddenly the abstraction of “head” becomes very concrete with that “hair.” 

A lock of Emily's hair

That hair is the once living symbol of the physical intimacy between the poet and the beloved. 

And forget the color of the Day—

Since the lover has gone away, the dead hair may keep its hue, but the color has drained from the poet’s day. Not just gone, but she’s forgotten it.

Affliction would not be appeased—
The Darkness braced as firm
As all my stratagem had been
The Midnight to confirm—

There is no appeasement here. This line starkly says it, "affliction would not be appeased." The darkness is so firm and secure that every stratagem, every cure, every piece of friendly advice followed, every avenue tried, only confirms that it is an absolute midnight of the soul. Here in this midnight darkness there is, presumably, not even the light of moon and stars. The thing that confirms the hopeless state is the fact that every strategy has been tried. 

No Drug for Consciousness—can be—
Alternative to die
Is Nature's only Pharmacy
For Being's Malady—

It's slightly difficult to follow the syntax here, but I think it goes something like this, "No drug for (putting us out of) consciousness can be (an) alternative to die (because to die) is nature's only pharmacy for Being's Malady." 

That idea is intense because it makes Being itself seem like the blame here, as if it were an inherently deadly disease which no drug could cure. But wait. Elsewhere Dickinson writes of Being as ecstasy, and in fact she has done so in this very fascicle (Fr874). The reason why Being and Consciousness are absolute hell, now, in this moment of expression, is because of grief. When you are in great psychic pain the whole world is colored by it, or, as the case may be here, discolored. If it is bad enough, only death can take the pain away.

These last two poems in the fascicle are painful. If you love Dickinson, then you hate seeing her at rock bottom, and, even, perhaps, suicidal. 

This brings us back to the question of the poem's worth to the reader. I think there is worth in an honest reckoning of despair. It is oddly reassuring to us. She feels us, at our lowest, and because she is so naked and blunt in her own hopelessness, we feel sympathy with her. This poem brings us into sympathy. There is something useful in that. It's severe, but it's of service. 

      -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

 

P.S. The final stanza reiterates the message of drugs being of no use that we saw in Fr886, the poem immediately preceding this one in fascicle 39:

I tried...
In Cups of artificial Drowse
To steep its shape away —

P.P.S. I happened to be listening to the Rolling Stones' song "Dear Doctor" as I wrote this. The lyrics echoed this poem neatly. The jar is the poem:

"Oh help me, please doctor, I'm damaged
There's a pain where there once was a heart
It's sleepin', it's a beatin'
Can't ya please tear it out, and preserve it
Right there in that jar?"

Bereaved of all, I went abroad —

Bereaved of all, I went abroad —
No less bereaved was I
Upon a New Peninsula —
The Grave preceded me —

Obtained my Lodgings, ere myself —
And when I sought my Bed —
The Grave it was reposed upon
The Pillow for my Head —

I waked to find it first awake —
I rose — It followed me —
I tried to drop it in the Crowd —
To lose it in the Sea —

In Cups of artificial Drowse
To steep its shape away —
The Grave — was finished — but the Spade
Remained in Memory —


        -Fr886, J784, fascicle 39, 1864


The poet is utterly bereft. “Bereaved of all.” 

“All” here may mean, possibly, the loss of a great love. Sometimes you feel all meaning drain from you when a relationship ends. Though there are other things that can leave one feeling completely bereft, like trauma. 

Ultimately, we don’t know what may have left the poet bereft. Once again Dickinson brings us into her overwhelming pain by leaving the "why" unanswered and thus letting us entertain our own reasons.

Let’s look for a moment at the little word “of” in the first line. Chris Stroffolino wrote recently about the “quasi-tragic pathos” in the word “of.”  Chris was writing about Clark Coolidge's poem "Polaroid," but one might say the same of Dickinson’s “of” here in this first line. Bereft of all.

So what can one possibly do to get away from all that you are bereft of. Well, you can try travelling, but the poet doesn't think that will work in her case. That's how bereft she feels. The only thing to look forward to in a foreign land it would seem would be the same grave, which has followed the poet overseas. The grave, given agency, hounds the poet down. 

This is dramatic. There is a part of me that wants to say, come on Emily, give it a try. Go abroad. Go to Tuscany or Santiago and then tell me you are feeling bereft of all. But I don't want to diminish the level of anguish here. What do I know?

Traveling might not have worked for Emily. She was a homebody. That’s where I think the tragedy of this poem secretly lies. Dickinson loved her home, but her home had become a kind of grave due to some tragedy, one that remains a mystery to us. (We have our theories). Home is gone for good, and no other will do.

You see this homeless theme throughout Dickinson’s oeuvre, and in particular in this fascicle, #39. In Fr881, for instance, the poet writes, "To wander now is my abode."

Traveling doesn't work, but neither does being social:

I tried to drop it in the Crowd —

 Even drugs and alcohol don't help:

I tried...in Cups of artificial Drowse
To steep its shape away —

This is grief, it would seem, beyond remedy.

The most chilling part of this poem is the end. The poet, who can now do nothing else but lay down in her grave, still remembers the spade that dug it. What, or who, dug this dire grave? What made the poet lose herself? It must have been devastating. whether caused by a lover or assailant. 

...but the Spade
Remained in Memory —

You want the spade to remain "in Memory," so the poet can use it to dig herself back out of the grave. She's being buried alive. But maybe escape is too easy. Maybe the value of this poem is just to acknowledge and feel the depths of an unnecessary and overwhelming loss for those who are feeling it.

In Victorian America, the most significant figurative usage of "spade" was in the phrase "call a spade a spade," meaning to speak plainly, even bluntly, even if the truth was unpleasant. There is something blunt about this poem. It offers little relief for absolute grief other than death. 

This escape from bereavement, this death-wish, is counteracted, somewhat, in the idiosyncratic beauty of the language. But poetry must've seemed like cold comfort at the time. 

       -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

P.S. This poem reminded me of the Hemingway line, “you can't get away from yourself by moving from one place to another.” I disagree with that though. You can't get away from yourself that way, but sometimes you can find yourself.

There is an arid Pleasure—

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

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


       -Fr884, J782, fascicle 39, 1864


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

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

There is an arid Pleasure—
As different from Joy—

As Frost is different from Dew—

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

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

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

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

Suffice to say, both kinds of pleasure are terrible. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

      -/)dam Wade I)eGraff

To wait an Hour—is long—

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


   Fr884, J781, fascicle 39, 1864


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This great painting of Emily and her dog Carlo 

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

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

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

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

     -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

A South Wind — has a pathos

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

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


    -Fr883, J719, fascicle 39, 1864


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

The Truth—is stirless—

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

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

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

      Fr882, J780, fascicle 39, 1864

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

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

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

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

The answer is given to us. Truth.

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

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

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

One thing that does this for us is Beauty:

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

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

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

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

There is also great beauty in the concrete images. 

oldest Cedars swerve—

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

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

UN

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

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

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

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

     -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

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

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

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

I meant to find her when I came;

I meant to find her when I came;
Death had the same design;
But the success was his, it seems,
And the discomfit mine.

I meant to tell her how I longed
For just this single time;
But Death had told her so the first,
And she had hearkened him.

To wander now is my abode;
To rest, —to rest would be
A privilege of hurricane
To memory and me.


     -Fr881, J718, 1878


When you read an Emily Dickinson poem line by line, as of course you must, then the meaning may unwind in the wiliest of ways. Take this one:

I meant to find her when I came;

This is what we “find” when we enter the poem. Her. The writer whom we meant to find. It's her poem after all. But the "her" we meant to find in turn meant to find a "her." Notice the lower-case “her,” which is unusual for Emily. Why? There is something in the lower-case pronoun for me that is intimate. "I meant to find her, who I knew as a girl" is what the line suggests to me. The poem immediately sweeps me up into the regret of irretrievable loss.

Of course, as an Emily Dickinson lover you naturally want to know who she is talking about. She did attend a few girlfriends’ death beds in her life that we know of, including Sophia Holland's. She wrote beautifully about this scene in a letter to her friend Abiah Root. (See note #2 below.)

It is easy to read this poem’s death as metaphoric for the loss of a great love, such as the one she had with her friend and sister-in-law Sue, or Charles Wadsworth, or whatever your theory is, people who were still very much alive when this poem was written. But I don’t think so. Death is TOO present in this poem to be metaphorical. You can see this played out in the following lines,

Death had the same design;
But the success was his, it seems,

Here the poem takes a twist. This Death is almost predatory. “Design” is a funny word. I asked my friend, an opera singer named Eric Jones, if he had designs on a waitress we both knew and liked. He bristled at the word “design.” No, he said, I don’t have any designs on her. I don't think of it like that.” I knew what he meant and why he rejected the word. But hey, they ended up getting married a year later. Was that by design? I leave that answer up to the floor.

Does death have a design? That’s an awesome question, Emily. Death is the law of life, no doubt, but does it have to be? Was it someone in the upper office's design decision?

“Make it work!” -Tim Gunn, Project Runway.

Like Project Runway, this is a competition, between the poet and Death. Death was faster with his “design” and so "the success was his, it seems." 

IT SEEMS. I love when Dickinson slips an "it seems" in her poems. It throws everything into question. Does death really win?  

“One day you’re in, and the next day you're out.” -Heidi Klum, Project Runway.

Anyway, that’s where design gets you I guess. And death, like Michael Kors himself, is sitting there at the end and smirking. Chilling!

That leaves the one left behind, who is berating herself for not coming faster to the aid of the dead girlfriend with a potential salvation for both of them.

But the success was his, it seems,
And the discomfit mine.

According to David Preest, in the Johnson version of this poem, the one actually written in the fascicle, 15 years before this one, the word for “discomfit” is “surrender.” This is worth noting. Emily made the change from "surrender" to "discomfit" some 15 years later! That’s quite a turn of temperament, one that is perhaps befitting.

"Surrender," the word she used in 1864, would’ve been more dramatic, and it also would've played more into the idea of competition with death. "Discomfit" is less histrionic and, at the same time somehow, more resigned and sad.

I meant to tell her how I longed
For just this single time;

My best guess for this poem is that Dickinson went to see the body of a friend on her death bed, one whom she admired, and perhaps had even had a crush on, and (dun dun DUN) designs for. Here she is now, in despair, regretting the love affair that could never be. That “single time” is, as all lovers know, all you need. One day and night can feel like an eternity in a love affair.

There is something romantic, in the newer sense of the term romantic, about “For just this single time.” It’s slightly suggestive of something transcendent and fulfilling.

Only imagine if Emily had gotten there first, had beaten death to the maiden? What a difference it might have made! But the danger and the risk of making any such move both psychologically and socially would've been intense for Emily, and so perhaps she wavered. In the end, she didn’t make a move. She got there too late and it still haunts her years later. She’ll never know. But maybe, just maybe, if she at least writes a cautionary poem about it, future readers might get prodded by the poem's sharp point and not be so timid themselves. Such a tragic ending might yet be averted. 

Death is your enemy, and the enemy of your beloved too, so don’t delay, says Aunt Emily.

But Death had told her so the first,
And she had hearkened him.

At this point the poem goes full goth. Death had already seduced "her," is how I’m reading it. She “hearkened him," as if following the call of a lover.

The woman, to whom Emily wishes she had reached first, was seduced, instead, by the ease of death; she listened to it as if following a siren’s song. In other words, it was her own doing. But why? She must have been destitute, right? And so the question remains, what if Emily had arrived there first? Would the troubled girl have been mollified? Would the draw of death have been nullified? Would the poet's friend's life have been saved? Those are the stakes of this poem, and the cause of the hurricane to come.

To wander now is my abode;

In the earlier Johnson version of this poem, “abode” is “repose.” I have to say I like "repose" better here. The tension between "wandering" and "repose" is haunting. It means never resting, which sets up the next line,

To rest, —to rest would be

The tension comes to a peak in between those two “to rest”s. You can feel the poet falter here emotionally (though perfectly prettily of course, in full rhythmic control).

To rest, —to rest would be
A privilege of hurricane
To memory and me.

It's tricky grammar in that last stanza. I believe Dickinson is saying that rest would be a privilege to a hurricane. That makes most sense, in the context of this poem. It lets you know that the thoughts that she wishes to quiet are powerful and cyclical, looping through her head with mad emotion. This loss, and possibly her role in not preventing it, is like a tempest in her heart. (Maybe this is the terror she spoke of when she wrote to T.W. Higginson the year before that she had had a terror she could tell to no one?)

But there are other ways I can see for taking those lines, grammatically. If you take the line “A privilege of hurricane” by itself, there is a different idea that emerges. What is the privilege of a hurricane? Well, for one, it is to be wild and out of control. But two, there is the eye of calm in the center. I think Dickinson may be subtly getting at this idea between the lines; the necessity to allow emotional release, yet keep a cool inner eye.

But the foremost meaning here is that rest would be a privilege to the hurricane-like restlessness of...

The memory and me.

We might ask here, why is "memory" separate from "me?" (Is the memory a symbol for the "her" of this poem? Or is Dickinson emphasizing that memory and self are one and the same by presenting them together? Or is she suggesting that memory and self are quite different, yet the loss of the friendship affects both. I find it hard to get a precise reading of this decision.) But the general feeling is that the self would be relieved of its heartbreaking memory if only it too could rest, like the beloved. 

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The poet, like the deceased before her, is now being seduced by the promise of rest in death.

The narrative arc of this poem is intense. It goes from a kind of competition with death to see who can get to the beloved first, to a deep regret over not being quick enough to get there first, to having to wander for eternity in the restlessness of guilt and lost love, hoping for death. It's got a Romeo and Juliet level of tragedy.

No wonder Dickinson changed the word from “surrender” to “discomfit” 12 years after it was written. "Surrender" suggests giving up, surrendering. "Discomfit" is just...temporary.

Maybe by 1878 the hurricane of Emily Dickinson’s heart and soul had finally begun to quiet down. We only half hope so.

       -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Notes: 

1. compare this poem to Fr813, which has the same idea as this one, in miniature.

How well I knew Her not
Whom not to know has been
A Bounty in prospective, now
Next Door to mine the Pain.


2. From Marco Ordonez's Facebook page:

Three months after her fifteenth birthday, Emily recalled this loss when writing a note of condolence to Abiah Root.

Yesterday as I sat by the north window the funeral train entered the open gate of the church yard, following the remains of Judge Dickinson's wife to her long home. [The Amherst cemetery could be seen from the second story of the Dickinsons' house on North Pleasant Street.] His wife has borne a long sickness of two or three years without a murmur. She relyed wholly upon the arm of God & he did not forsake her. She is now with the redeemed in heaven & with the savior she has so long loved according to all human probability. I sincerely sympathise with you Dear. A. in the loss of your friend E. Smith. Although I had never seen her, yet I loved her from your account of her & because she was your friend. I was in hopes I might at sometime meet her but God has ordained otherwise & I shall never see her except as a spirit above. . . . I have never lost but one friend near my age & with whom my thoughts & her own were the same. It was before you came to Amherst. My friend was Sophia Holland. She was too lovely for earth & she was transplanted from earth to heaven. I visited her often in sickness & watched over her bed. But at length Reason fled and the physician forbid any but the nurse to go into her room. Then it seemed to me I should die too if I could not be permitted to watch over her or even to look at her face. At length the doctor said she must die & allowed me to look at her a moment through the open door. I took off my shoes and stole softly to the sick room.

There she lay mild & beautiful as in health & her pale features lit up with an unearthly─smile. I looked as long as friends would permit & when they told I must look no longer I let them lead me away. I shed no tear, for my heart was too full to weep, but after she was laid in her coffin & I felt I could not call her back again I gave way to a fixed melancholy.

I told no one the cause of my grief, though it was gnawing at my very heart strings. I was not well & I went to Boston [to visit Aunt Lavinia] & stayed a month & my health improved so that my spirits were better.*

Sophia Holland had died on April 29, 1844, when Emily Dickinson was thirteen years old. To a twentieth-century reader, unaccustomed to the presence of death in the home, Dickinson's persistence and curiosity may seem morbid, but the vigil over Sophia Holland constituted a part of Emily Dickinson's training for womanhood in mid-nineteenth-century Amherst; and if the confrontation with death inspired horror, as it seems to have done in this case, there was no adequate remedy. Dickinson's parents sent her away to Boston so that she might put the episode out of mind; however, death knew no boundaries of city or town, and she understood as much. Thus the event lingered in her imagination, crying out for redress or at least explanation.

Emily Dickinson, by Cynthia Griffin Wolff, Part One, III, «School: Faith and the Argument from Design», pp. 76-77; Perseus Publishing, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1988.