What shall I do when the Summer troubles—

What shall I do when the Summer troubles—
What, when the Rose is ripe—
What when the Eggs fly off in Music
From the Maple Keep?

What shall I do when the Skies a'chirrup
Drop a Tune on me—
When the Bee hangs all Noon in the Buttercup
What will become of me?

Oh, when the Squirrel fills His Pockets
And the Berries stare
How can I bear their jocund Faces
Thou from Here, so far?

'Twouldn't afflict a Robin—
All His Goods have Wings—
I—do not fly, so wherefore
My Perennial Things?


    - F915, J956, Sheet 11, 1865

This poem presents a classic trope. The sun is shining in the summer, but for the broken-hearted it might as well be midnight in the dead of winter. I can think of many poems (including a few others by Dickinson) that deal with this theme. I can think of a few great songs too, including this one.

Dickinson adds her own spin, and in the meantime she regales us with music from her Maple keep. One reason this poem feels so alive is that Dickinson doesn't merely describe summer, she invents a language that seems to behave like summer:

What shall I do when the Summer troubles—
What, when the Rose is ripe—
What when the Eggs fly off in Music
From the Maple Keep?

You can spend some time looking at the effect Dickinson achieves by the interweaving of those W and R sounds in the first two lines, the way she wields the vowels, the way the lines flow so mellifluously and then end on those hard Ps. It’s so rhythmically perfect and in keeping with the subject. One swoons with summerness.

The eggs are flying off in music from the Maple Keep. "Keep" is a medieval word for the fortified tower of a castle. Suddenly the maple is a fortress. (See F912, where trees are “sentinels.”) The nestlings are escaping into the world, flying off in Music, as though music is the air they travel through. 

But in the midst of this music we know that there is trouble. The phrase “Summer troubles” is one of a few in this poem that is memorable. It would make for a good title.

What shall I do when the Skies a'chirrup
Drop a Tune on me—

Another memorable phrase, “Skies a’chirrup.” Like the eggs flying off in music, the atmosphere itself seems to be made up of bird song. But this doesn’t cheer the poet. Rather the skies “drop” a Tune on her head as if it were a piano falling from a building. (I think of F597, “The emperor with Rubies pelteth me.”) Happiness is an assault to one who is unhappy.

When the Bee hangs all Noon in the Buttercup
What will become of me?

"Hangs" is perfect. The word captures the lazy suspension of a summer afternoon. The line stops, again, on that P sound at the end of Buttercup, and you are, for a moment, hanging in the air, before the painful question returns, "What will become of me?" 

Oh, when the Squirrel fills His Pockets
And the Berries stare
How can I bear their jocund Faces
Thou from Here, so far?

It’s such a simple phrase, “the Berries stare,” but much is going on there. We’ve seen a similar idea in Dickinson before, the most famous example being, “We passed the fields of gazing grain," from F479.

The berries are imagined as having “jocund faces.” They're little cheerful people, but also, the poet feels exposed by their happiness. Everything around her seems to be looking at her loneliness, cheerfully insensitive, obliviously happy.

The berries are staring because the poet is staring at them so intensely. A stare is persistent. It won't leave the poet alone. The berries confront her with beauty, and therefore with absence.

'Twouldn't afflict a Robin—
All His Goods have Wings—

A robin would not suffer like the poet because it can fly to where it needs to. Everything the robin values, its “Goods,” is mobile. The poet, however, is bound to one place. This is especially poignant with Dickinson who famously never left her home in the last 15 years of her life. 

I—do not fly, so wherefore
My Perennial Things?

("Wherefore" is an antiquated poetic word for "why.")

"If I cannot fly," she seems to be saying, "why do I keep having these recurring (perennial) attachments and hopes?"

"Perennial Things," I think, can mean recurring emotional needs that return year after year, just as the seasons do. The poet is questioning why she has been given desires and attachments that reach toward someone distant when she lacks the freedom to follow them. But, conversely, perhaps, she is admiring those who can live life on the wing. It reminds me of the William Blake 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.

Well, Dickinson may feel out of season with summer, but her poetry gets her as close to it as can be. It's interesting to see the trochaic pattern in the stanzas. 4343 4343 4343 3343. The loss of the expected beat in the last stanza adds a plaintive feeling when you are reading it out loud. 

     -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

A Door just opened on a street -

A Door just opened on a street  —
I — lost — was passing by  —
An instant’s Width of Warmth disclosed -
And Wealth — and Company.

The Door as sudden shut — And I  —
I — lost — was passing by —
Lost doubly — but by contrast — most -
Informing — Misery.

     -F914, J953, sheet 10, 1865


The speaker is lost out in the cold. Then she gets a glimpse into a warm home through an open door. When that door is shut (in her face presumably), she feels even worse than before, "Lost doubly." Why? Because she had a brief glimpse of home, of “Wealth - and Company,” and now she knows what she is missing.

This idea, of being worse off after a glimpse of joy than you would have been if you had never gotten it in the first place, is a common one in Dickinson’s poetry. Usually this idea is about lost love, which always makes me wonder: is it true that "it is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all," or would it actually be better to have never loved at all? Dickinson wavers, but she generally seems to fall on the side of better never to have loved at all.

The poem may be read as a metaphor for love lost, but the words “Wealth” and “Warmth” makes one think of those who are poor and cold; the homeless.

The heart goes out. One wants that door to open all the way. But will it? 

The “I” in this poem is mentioned three times, with a kind of doubled-up emphasis in the second occurrence:

The Door as sudden shut — And I  —
I — lost — was passing by —

The poem is iambic, but that second "I" there is trochaic, the beat on the first syllable. This rhythmic hiccup stands out. You are forced for a moment to reverse the beat. It creates a kind of stutter effect. You falter under the weight between those two “I”s. 

...And I —
I — lost — ...

There is a pregnant pause between the two stanzas and in the drama of that moment is born a bitterness. 

There is another potential “I” in this poem, the one who is hidden in their wealth and warmth behind that door. Perhaps that is us. The poet, then, aligns us with the downtrodden, with the nobody. "I'm nobody - who are you?" Dickinson always sides with the poor.

Dickinson wasn’t poor, not financially. She lived all of her life in a warm and wealthy home. So the “I” here is, at some level, "another," a projection. As Dickinson says in a letter to a friend, "When I state myself, as the Representative of the Verse - it does not mean-me - but a supposed person."

Perhaps this poem is, then, designed to be a way for the poet, and the readers of the poem, to feel for those outside of her (our) comfort zones.

The poem accomplishes this in a couple of striking ways. First of all it begins in medias res. We are suddenly in the moment. “The door just opened on a street—” We are there, on the street, standing in front of the opened door. 

Secondly, the first person perspective allows us to inhabit the role of the narrator and therefore empathize with the anguish. What would it be like to be homeless? What would it feel like to be cold and hungry and have that “instant width of warmth disclosed." What would it be like to be so all alone. What would feel like to be in such a forlorn state and then have a little taste of warmth and Company? And finally, what would it feel like, then, to have the door shut on us? The more we try to imagine this situation, the more our hearts, like doors, open up.

     -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

 

P.S. I found the following on FaceBook from a writer named David Mosey. It is insightful: "For some reason this poem always seems to remind me of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, probably because of the contrast of the “Width of Warmth” of the festivities inside with the cold snow-blown street outside. But it is a salutary reminder that Dickinson’s selection of her “Own Society” was not without cost. It is as elegant, concise and heartrending a self-examination as she ever confided to paper."

 

A Man may make a Remark —

A Man may make a Remark —
In itself — a quiet thing
That may furnish the Fuse unto a Spark
In dormant nature — lain —

Let us deport — with skill —
Let us discourse — with care —
Powder exists in Charcoal —
Before it exists in Fire.

  

     -F913, J952, sheet 10, 1865


Slowly going through Dickinson’s poems feels like being adrift in an endless sea of surprises. Every poem has hidden aesthetic pleasures. Every one has secrets to reveal.

This one begins with one of those small aesthetic pleasures, the way the M and K sounds work together:

A Man may make a Remark —

The M is the softest of syllables, the K is the sharpest. Concentrated together they sound remarkable.

A Man may make a Remark —
In itself — a quiet thing

There is a short story I love by Haruki Murakami called Cream. In this story a boy gives up playing the piano because of a quiet remark:

“When we played that piece together, she gave me a sour look every time I hit a wrong note. She was a better pianist than I was, and I tended to get overly tense, so when the two of us sat side by side and played I bungled a lot of notes. My elbow bumped against hers a few times as well. It wasn’t such a difficult piece, and, moreover, I had the easier part. Each time I blew it, she had this Give me a break expression on her face. And she’d click her tongue—not loudly but loud enough that I could catch it. I can still hear that sound, even now. That sound may even have had something to do with my decision to give up the piano.”

I think that is what Dickinson is getting at here. One very quiet line can change a person’s life for better or worse.

a quiet thing
That may furnish the Fuse unto a Spark
In dormant nature — lain —

If one quiet remark can cause someone to “give up music,” it can also cause them to take it up. The spark that lays dormant in nature can be ignited by others.

My wonderful mother-in-law, Ada George, likes to say about teaching that you can only give students flammable material, but they have to provide the spark. But here Dickinson puts it the other way around. The flammable material is already inside, “in dormant nature — lain —,” and we can help provide the spark.

I love that “lain” set off there in between dashes. It highlights that the dormant spark has been "lain" there, by God or nature or what have you. For better or for worse we have the power to set that powder keg off. So...

Let us deport — with skill —
Let us discourse — with care —

“Deport” as Dickinson uses it here does not carry its contemporary meaning of sending someone out of the country. It means “to behave or comport (oneself) especially in accord with a code.”

The practice of this “skill” is a life-long pursuit. You could say that all of Dickinson’s poetry is an extremely careful discourse. 

The stakes are great. One “wince” as someone sings out of tune can be enough to stop them from ever singing again. One laugh at someone else's dancing, even if the laughter is meant to be in delight, can keep them off the dance floor. On the other hand one quiet remark may also be enough to keep them singing and dancing for life.

As a teacher, parent and friend, I don't think these words could be more meaningful.

Powder exists in Charcoal —
Before it exists in Fire.

Dickinson ends the poem with a tight little aphorism, dense as charcoal. Charcoal is an interesting metaphor because it is made by heating wood in the absence of oxygen. This process allows it to burn hotter, cleaner and with a longer duration than regular wood.

Goals.

      -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

a fascinating history of Charcoal

To my quick ear the Leaves—conferred—

To my quick ear the Leaves—conferred—
The Bushes—they were Bells—
I could not find a Privacy
From Nature's sentinels—

In Cave if I presumed to hide
The Walls—begun to tell—
Creation seemed a mighty Crack—
To make me visible—


    -F912, J891, sheet 10, 1865

There’s a crack in this poem. You can hear it in the very word, which comes at the climax of the poem, not just any crack, but a mighty Crack. It’s a great word. First of all, the word is onomatopoeic. It sounds like what it is, so you feel it in the body. The word has power. It winds up with CCCRRR then sails through AAA and ends on a resounding CKCKCK. I’m exaggerating to make the point felt, but if you say the word out loud, you can feel its power for yourself. Dickinson amps up this power even more by giving us an extra CR in the word “Creation,” which kickstarts the line.

 
Creation seemed a mighty Crack—

There’s also another Crack in this poem; the stanza break. The poem appears as if it has been rent in two. (There are other Dickinson poems that make a similar move, but I can’t currently recall them. If you do, please let me know.)

Like the audible Crack, this visual one serves a purpose. There are no words in that stanza break. There is only the white of the page (the screen), only silence. It reminds me of Leonard Cohen’s line, “There is a crack in everything/ that's how the light gets in." 

Notice that the poem begins with a hint of this mighty climactic "Crack" in the sound of “Quick.” 

To my quick ear the Leaves—conferred—

(See how quick Dickinson’s ear is? She heard the Crack even before it came. It was there in the quick.)

"Leaves" here might be read as the leaves of books. To read the leaves of a book of great poetry, such as Dickinson was attuned to, is to have a quick ear.

But the primary source of imagery here is nature itself, the leaves of the trees. Nature comes alive to speak to Dickinson, to confer to her ear. To confer can mean to exchange ideas, or seek advice, or to formally bestow an honor. All of this do the leaves confer to Emily.

The Bushes—they were Bells—

What a juicy line. How does Dickinson do it? The lines sing, each and every one, just as the landscape does, the very bushes themselves.

I could not find a Privacy
From Nature's sentinels—

The first question here is why would you want privacy from conferring leaves and ringing bushes? It reminds me a little of the line from F597, “The emperor with Rubies pelteth me.” It’s like being protected from being overwhelmed. The idea of these bushes and trees being “sentinels,” watching over the poet, adds a wrinkle too. Why would you want privacy from the thing that is watching out for you? Nature is presented, in this first stanza as wholly good: conferring, ringing, and protecting.

I think “privacy,” in this first stanza at least, is meant to be ironic. There can be no privacy when all of nature rings and sings along with us.

But after that visual Crack between stanzas the tone changes a bit. The need for privacy, the hiding, takes one into the darkness.

In Cave if I presumed to hide
The Walls—begun to tell—

The self wants to hide, puts itself in a cave. But even the cave walls begin to tell. One thinks of Plato’s cave here. (I wonder if Emily did?) Plato’s cave is a metaphor telling us that we can’t know outside reality from within our own mental caves. We can only see shadows on its walls that hint at the truth. In Dickinson’s cave it’s more like the walls themselves are dissolving into light. The “walls began to tell.” Maybe those cave walls are echoing the poet's song back to herself?

The idea of nature “telling” is a revelatory one. We see this idea play out often in Shakespeare. The line "stones have been known to move and trees to speak" is spoken by Macbeth after seeing Banquo's ghost, suggesting to us that nature itself exposes the truth behind his hidden actions.

Creation seemed a mighty Crack—
To make me visible—

This idea of the poet becoming visible in the “crack” is resonant on many levels, though we can start with hearkening back to that Leonard Cohen line: the "visible," the light, gets through the Crack in the stone of the cave. The truth comes through in the very place where there has been violence and injury.

A certain level of irony can be seen in this poem when we know a little about the poet. She was famously reclusive. I think in this poem she may be calling herself out for this tendency. She’s admitting to herself that it is in her vulnerability that she sings as a poet. Her poems are often the result of heart-break.

The tell is also in the scars. This poem is the second one written on “sheet 10” (as Miller numbers them.) If we look at the first poem Dickinson wrote down on that sheet, F911, then we see the result of this crack. It is presented there as a permanent"gash," a "crease" and a "stain."

When you read these two poems together you get a bigger picture. You see the reason for wanting to hide in the first one, whereas this subsequent poem presents the problem with hiding. 

     -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Yellowbells: Harbingers of Spring

As Frost is best conceived

As Frost is best conceived
By force of its Result —
Affliction is inferred
By subsequent effect —

If when the sun reveal,
The Garden keep the Gash —
If as the Days resume
The wilted countenance

Cannot correct the crease
Or counteract the stain —
Presumption is Vitality
Was somewhere put in twain.


     -F911, J951, Sheet 10, 1865


The Lexicon of this poem is largely in latin. The result is a dry and academically abstract tone. This cold legalistic language seems to be part of the freezing effect of the subject in the poem. Frosty words for a frosty poem.

The wonder is the way she makes these sharp-angled words flow so smoothly within the confines of the common hymn meter.  

This poem is a cold counter-example to the aphorism, “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.” Where there are wilted flowers, there’s been frost. 

This is a gardening metaphor, and it is understood that the frost in question is one that is out of season. It’s one of those late unexpected frosts that destroy the early bloomers. 

Frost is best conceived
By force of its Result —

When we see that plants aren’t making it, we can understand the full import of the reason, we can then  “conceive of the force” of frost.

The metaphor is, I think, meant to tell us that when we see someone who is depressed, who has a “wilted countenance,” drooping like a frost-damaged dahlia, there is a “force” behind it. We didn’t fully understand the strength of this force until we saw the “subsequent” damage.

Affliction is inferred
By subsequent effect —

The garden (and all that word implies) cannot be completely healed. It “keeps the gash.” The wilted countenance (face) of the damaged person cannot correct the crease created by the damage, nor counteract the stain. Gash, crease and stain here are violent words. Notice that they are all both verbs and nouns. When you gash, crease and stain, you are left with a permanent gash, crease and stain. Perhaps Dickinson is alluding to emotional cruelty, but there may be something even worse implied here, a physical effect of violence that far outlasts the emotional intensity of the moment.

Presumption is Vitality
Was somewhere put in twain.

In other words, we presume there is a real reason, some invisible frost, that has caused a person’s Vitality to weaken. The depression is a symptom of real, or perceived, violence. PTSD.

I think of all that icy imagery in Dickinson’s poetry here, like in the famous poem that ends, “As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow –/ First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go –.”

I also think of those tragic lines from F841, “Sun—withdrawn to Recognition—/ Furthest shining—done—”

Our actions can effect serious permanent damage upon the growth of others. Have patience with those who are having trouble thriving. Take care of your people and your plants, and take care of yourself. Grow indoors when the temperatures threaten to take a downward spike.


      -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

tips on how to handle a late frost

P.S. Aside from the deft handling of the latinate, there are some other shining moments of Dickinson's craft that are worth noticing in this poem. 

There is the way that the steady iambic tri-meter (3 beats) in the first 10 lines sets up the push into tetrameter (4 beats) in the 11th, creating extra emphasis on that word “Vitality,” and then, the way this tension resolves back to tri-meter in the final line, “Was somewhere put in Twain.” It’s like the breath was held a bit longer at the climax of the poem and then released.

Another impressive moment is in the consonant cluster of C T N and R sounds in “countenance/ Cannot correct the crease/ Or counteract.” 

P.P.S. The subtle use of the word "force" here reminds me of Sylvia Plath's poem, "The Rabbit Catcher" which begins, ominously, with a very Dickinsonian line of iambic tri-meter, replete with a dash, 

It was a place of force—

Finding is the first Act

Finding is the first Act
The second, loss,
Third, Expedition for
The "Golden Fleece"

Fourth, no Discovery —
Fifth, no Crew —
Finally, no Golden Fleece —
Jason — sham — too.


      -F910, J870, sheet9, 1865

Our guest poster for this poem is Nate B Hardy. Nate is a frequent commenter on the Prowling Bee and has subsequently become a friend. Here's Nate's take on this poem:

As far as Emily sticking the knife in goes, this is one of my favorites:

Finding is the first Act 

The second, loss, 

Third, Expedition for 

The “Golden Fleece” 

 Fourth, no Discovery — 

Fifth, no Crew — 

Finally, no Golden Fleece — 

Jason — sham — too.


Cold!

It reminds me of a Tom Waits spoken word number called Children’s Story, which is apparently taken directly from a granny in the Georg Büchner play Woyzeck:

Once upon a time there was a poor child 

With no father and no mother 

And everything was dead 

And no one was left in the whole world 

Everything was dead 

 And the child went on searching day and night 

And since nobody was left on the earth 

He wanted to go up into the heavens 

And the moon was looking at him so friendly 

And when he finally got to the moon 

The moon was a piece of rotten wood 

 And then he went to the sun 

And when he got there 

The sun was a wilted sunflower 

And when he got to the stars 

They were little golden flies 

Stuck up there like the shrike 

Sticks ‘em on a blackthorn 

 And when he wanted to go back down to earth 

The earth was an overturned piss pot 

And he was all alone 

He sat down and he cried 

And he is there till this day 

All alone

When I read this, what I feel is elation. It’s one delightful surprise after another.

I get that same electric feeling from Emily’s poem. It’s just as fresh and savage.

Maybe Tom Waits would make it a polka, like a wry grin. My ear was saying we needed space. So I aimed the mic at the wall behind the piano, and the crickets behind the guitar. I thickened the crickets with tambourine, and whacked on toms. I sang the poem, and let the harmonica have the last word. It’s like a resigned shrug.

The song

Nate

Because the Bee may blameless hum

Because the Bee may blameless hum
For Thee a Bee do I become
List even unto Me.

Because the Flowers unafraid
May lift a look on thine, a Maid
Alway a Flower would be.

Nor Robins, Robins need not hide
When Thou upon their Crypts intrude
So Wings bestow on Me
Or Petals, or a Dower of Buzz
That Bee to ride, or Flower of Furze
I that way worship Thee.

    -F909, J869, sheet 9, 1865


This poem grabs you right away with the sound of its bee phonics, its buzz and hum. First of all there is that bold triple B of Because/ Bee/ blameless, which sounds to my ear a little like an engine idling. Both “because” and “blameless” have a buzz sound in them too. Then there is the "hum" sound, that triple M in the first line which continues through the stanza: may/ blame/ hum/ become/ Me. The whole stanza fairly hums along. In other words, Dickinson is turning herself into a bee, which is exactly what the stanza is about,

Because the Bee may blameless hum
For Thee a Bee do I become

Dickinson, in her poem, has become pure delight of sound and being. Beeing.

List even unto Me.

“List” carries a wonderful double meaning here. It’s primarily an antique way of saying “listen.” I will become a bee so you will want to listen to my buzz. But “list” also means to lean. The image I get is of the flower listing toward the bee so it can be nearer to it. Isn’t that what we are always doing when we read a poem by Emily Dickinson? We lean into the music of it.

There is a sexual innuendo, perhaps, of bees and flowers that is at play in this poem, and one senses desire in the listing of that flower. Usually the flower is seen as passive, but here it’s leaning in toward the bee.

The construction “Even unto” has biblical connotations: “Even unto death...” Psalms 48, and “Even unto the end of the world..." of Matthew 28. This combined with the Thees and Thous in this poem give it the tone of the sacred.

Because the Flowers unafraid
May lift a look on thine, a Maid
Alway a Flower would be.

In the second stanza we have switched to the perspective of the listing flower. Who in the relationship is the flower and who is the bee? Both are both. The flower here is portrayed as unafraid, just as the bee was depicted as beyond blame. To follow the sexual subtext, we have the idea of desire being followed fearlessly and beyond society’s blame.

The flower is lifting up, unafraid to look "on thine.” "Thine" is curious here. It’s a possessive form so it begs the  question: unafraid to look on thine…what? Thine…desire? Thine…pollinator?

A “Maid,” in the old sense of the word, means a young unmarried woman, a virgin. Because of the way Dickinson wields syntax you can switch the subject and object of “a maid always a flower would be.” This can mean the maid is always going to be a flower, but also that a flower will always be a maid. So, if I’m getting this correctly, the flower is not afraid of being visited by the bee, because it knows it is still just as much a flower after the conjugal visit, that it will stay as pure and blameless as a maid. It’s a beautiful notion.

Nor Robins, Robins need not hide
When Thou upon their Crypts intrude

Dickinson spins this poem a whole different way with the intrusion of those “Crypts” there. The flower, being visited upon by the bee in the first stanza is now the “Crypt” of the Robin being intruded upon in the second. It’s a weird parallel. It’s hard to read “Crypt” without the sense it has of “grave,” but perhaps Dickinson must mean it more in the older sense of the word. Crypt comes from the Greek word for “hide” and became the Latin "crypta" which means vault or cavern. Dickinson seems to be playing off of this here. The Crypt then is the hidden nest of the Robin, and in that sense it’s the opposite of death. it's the place where eggs are protected. It’s amazing to me that Dickinson is able to get a sense of both birth and death into one word like that. 

So why is “Thou” intruding on this crypt/nest? If Thou is the flower in the first stanza, and then becomes the bee in the second stanza, who or what is it now? What is trying to get into the nest, or the grave? What is intruding? Both the word "crypt" and the word "intrude" throw a complicating shadow on the poem. 

The last two stanzas are fused together as one long one. If I had to guess, I'd say Dickinson did this to subtly pick up speed, to give the poem a feeling of escalating excitement. Taking the stanza break away is like taking one’s breath away.

So Wings bestow on Me
Or Petals, or a Dower of Buzz

This poem becomes a kind of prayer here. Make me one with nature is the plea. Bestow wings on me, or petals, or dower of buzz. Dower of buzz is a great line. A dower is a dowry. The buzz, the energy,  the life-sound of the poet is her dowry.

A dower of Buzz
The bee to ride,

If you enjamb and fuse these two lines together, as the lack of punctuation after "Buzz" asks you to do, then you get something like, "The bee rides on its own dower (gift) of buzzing."  Dickinson is buzzing on her own poetic prowess.

or Flower of Furze

Flower or Furze is a such a pleasing rhyme for “dower of buzz" that it just lifts the poem right off of the ground, gives it wings so to speak. Furze is a bush, more commonly known as Gorse. (According to Christanne Miller’s notes on this poem there was a saying in Dickinson’s day, “When the furze is in bloom, my love is in tune.”)

A terrific essay on the poetic history of Furze.

I that way worship Thee.

Dickinson becomes fluid with nature itself in order to worship "Thee," which may refer to Lover, God, Nature or take your pick. Her way of becoming is through poetry’s mimesis. It buzzes and hums. It's floral. It has wings. We list even unto it.

     _/)dam Wade l)eGraff

P.S. Dickinson loved Emerson’s poem about The Humble-Bee, and said of it, “Emerson's intimacy with his 'Bee' only immortalized him." That poem, incidentally, is like the experience of riding on the back of a bee.

P.P.S. My daughter drank a cup of tea today and I noticed that hanging out of the cup was an Emily Dickinson quote, “Beauty is not caused. It is.” Because I was thinking about this poem, this quote came to life. Did Emily "cause" the beauty of this poem to happen? Or did she just tune into the hum and buzz of what already is?

They ask but our Delight—

They ask but our Delight—
The Darlings of the Soil
And grant us all their Countenance
For a penurious smile.


     -F908, J868, sheet 9, 1865


Emily Dickinson loved flowers. She famously grew them both indoors and out, including a few rare ones that were notoriously difficult to maintain. Sometimes these flowers accompanied poems she would send to her friends. These poems were often about the flowers themselves. My guess is that this poem was of that nature.

Flowers are perfects hosts. They ask nothing of us, except that we delight in them. That's not asking much, just that we accept the gift. After all, they give us all of their beauty, all of their “countenance.” But we, poor creatures that we are, can barely manage a “penurious smile” in return for all of this providence. The least we can do is give our full countenance back to the flowers, give as good as we get.

That notion itself is enough to make this a great poem. It reminds me of the ancient Sufi poem by Hafez which goes, "Even after all this time, the sun never says to the Earth , 'You owe me.' Look what happens with a love like that... It lights the whole sky."

But Dickinson's flower poems always have another layer to them.

Here are the clues. The first one is “Darlings of the soil.” The word "darling" comes from the Old English word deorling, which literally translates to "little dear one." "Darling of the soil" then can also be read as a young child that has died and been buried. To equate this child with a flower is already meaningful, but there's more going on here. The poem unfurls in a profound way when you replace flower with child.

Just as the flowers grant us all of their "countenance," a child granted us all of theirs. The old sense of the word “countenance” is face. We got to know this darling face, and now that there is nothing further to do, we are asked only to delight in having gotten to know it. Yet all we can seem to muster is a penurious smile. The penurious smile here takes on a different meaning when you replace flower with child.  Penurious is a word with a double meaning. It can mean "stingy," which is the way we read it in the primary "flower" reading of this poem, but it can also mean "destitute" which is how we read it in relation to "child." In the first case, the smile is poor because it is in comparison to the flower's, but in the latter case, the smile is poor because we are grieving.

Once you work out the two simultaneous meanings of the poem a kind of alchemy takes place wherein the dead child becomes the flower. We are reminded that all of nature, including the child, is there to delight us, and that we may find comfort in its countenance. 

Like the double meaning of the word "penurious," both meanings of "countenance" come into play in this poem. The way this poem is semantically arranged, "countenance" may be both a noun or a verb. The verb "to countenance" means to give one mental composure and moral support.  The flowers countenance us from the very place in the earth where the countenance of the darling has been laid to rest.

The death of children was extremely common in Dickinson’s time. The survival rate for children was around 50%. I wonder if this poem might have been sent as a note of condolence to a grieving family, along with a bouquet of flowers. This context would’ve made the double nature of this poem very poignant.


        -/)dam Wade l)eGraff