I learned—at least—what Home could be—

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


The poet met someone special, someone with whom she would have liked to have lived the rest of her life. She was only given a glimpse of what a home with this person could have been, but at least she got that.

I learned—at least—what Home could be—
How ignorant I had been
Of pretty ways of Covenant—

In that first line we get a lot of information. We know 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." Here we see that it is tied in with a Covenant, a sacred bond, Holy Matrimony.

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.

What Mornings in our Garden—guessed—

Here 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 than her 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, he/she 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 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 only fade into darkness like the setting sun. Oh, Emily.

     -/)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.

A Coffin — is a small Domain

A Coffin — is a small Domain,
Yet able to contain
A Citizen of Paradise
In it diminished Plane.

A Grave — is a restricted Breadth —
Yet ampler than the Sun —
And all the Seas He populates
And Lands He looks upon

To Him who on its small Repose
Bestows a single Friend —
Circumference without Relief —
Or Estimate — or End —


    -Fr890, J943, 1864

The first stanza is pretty straight forward, though it is made complicated by the word "Paradise." Does Paradise refer to the once living body’s time on earth, or does it point forward to a heavenly Paradise afterward? That’s one of the poignant puzzles of this particular poem. 

Another one is to ask who "He" is in the second stanza? Is it the "Sun" or the "Son" that populates the Seas and looks upon all the Lands? In other words, Christ of Paradise to come? Or is the literal sun of Paradise lost? 

One more problem to solve. Who is the Him in the third stanza? Is it the Sun/Son from the second stanza who is looking upon all of the earth? Or is it the one, the poet, who “Bestows a single friend” upon the grave’s “small repose?” Because of the enjambment (the lack of punctuation) between the second and third stanza, I read it is the latter: the one burying the body sees their friend as more ample than all that the Sun/Son looks upon. In other words, this one in the grave meant more to the poet than all of kingdom-come does.

The lack of “relief” in the penultimate line, then, is the lack of relief from grief felt by the friend mourning the loss. There is no estimate to the love. And there is no end for it, except the grave.  

It’s worth noting that this poem is one of the many that explore the word “circumference” in Dickinson’s poetry. It may be her favorite word. She tells T.W. Higginson in a letter, “My business is Circumference.”

reaching the Circumference in this poem would be a relief because at least it would be an end to the grief. Compare this to the end of the poem preceding it, Fr889, which sees the misery of Being itself, minus love, as infinite. The circumference of our lives, the little grave, we realize, is not an unwelcome one.

On the other hand, look at the largesse of Paradise! This leaves the reader with a pertinent question. Is Paradise lost, or is it yet to be gained? 

     -/)dam Wade l)eGraff


P.S. When researching this poem I came across the following video essay about it by Adrian Fort. I got a kick out of Adrian’s perspective so I transcribed the video for your pleasure here. 

"I am Adrian Fort, and we are here for another poetry discussion. This poetry discussion comes to us by way of Emily Dickinson. This is not one of the better-known, more widely read Emily Dickinson poems. This is somewhat of a niche in the field of Dickinson, but we are going to do it anyway because it’s Emily Dickinson.

Before getting into the discussion, I want to define a key concept: paradox. A paradox is a statement that contradicts itself or that must be both true and untrue at the same time. Paradoxes are quirks in logic that demonstrate how our thinking sometimes goes haywire, even when we use perfectly logical reasoning to get there. But a key part of paradoxes is that they at least sound reasonable. They’re not obvious nonsense, and it’s only upon consideration that we realize their self-defeating logic.

This poem, I think, is a paradox that does not have self-defeating logic, and I’ll get into a little bit about what I mean by that. But when we look at this poem, Emily Dickinson is at times completely impenetrable for a reader, so if this poem doesn’t mean a whole lot to you, don’t worry about it. Get a coffee, grab yourself a cookie, and eventually this poem will make sense to you—at least insofar as it does speak to you.

Here is what I will tell you I believe the poem is talking about. A coffin is a small domain, yet able to contain a citizen of paradise in its diminished plane. Here we’re talking about a coffin being a small thing, but what it contains is vast, is large—it is the actual thing which was alive. People. It contains a person. A coffin contains a person, right?

People are all we really have. People are our entire reality, for the most part, right? Some of us are hermits, but even a hermit like Emily Dickinson is able to talk about a citizen of paradise—paradise being the next world. That citizen of paradise is contained in this little box.

Then we get: a grave is restricted breadth. It’s a small thing, a restricted breadth, yet ampler than the sun and all the seas he populates and lands he looks upon. To him who on its small repose bestows a single friend, circumference without relief or estimate or end.

So this part of the poem, as opposed to the first part of the poem, is talking about the great big thing that a grave is. A grave contains a coffin. A coffin is a small thing. A grave is dug exclusively for a coffin—it is meant to fit the coffin. It is a small thing that contains a large thing. The grave is a small thing that contains the large thing.

That is the paradox here. But I don’t think it has to be self-defeating logic, because it is literal versus idea, right? The literal thing—the literal coffin, the literal grave—is a small thing, but what it contains is so very large, is so very important. The grave, the coffin—they are small little things. The grave, the coffin contain everything that matters. The grave, the coffin contain everything there is to be had.

So this is a paradox, but it is not necessarily self-defeating, and this is the brilliance of Emily Dickinson.

So what is a paradox? A paradox is self-defeating, but if you include that self-defeating mechanism in a completely different type of reading, then you contain the original thesis. So a paradox is essentially thesis and counter-thesis in one idea, right?

Here we have the thesis that a grave and a coffin are both small things. We have the counter-thesis that the thing inside that little bitty thing is a great big thing. But when you dichotomize literal from literary—literal little thing, literary great big thing—the paradox can stand.

Emily Dickinson is my favorite poet. Emily Dickinson is able to do these things because these things exist in almost an astral plane, right? Emily Dickinson is able to create an entire world that is the literary. Emily Dickinson creates an entire existence outside of life.

It is difficult, I think, to reconcile this type of genius in today’s world. So one of the examples that I always like to give when speaking about true genius: Isaac Newton. Brilliant guy, right? Sort of a loner, kind of crazy.

Isaac Newton lived in a world where the plague was breaking out, and he had gotten into an argument with his friend over whether or not you could really try—I think it was track, don’t call me out on it, I’m not a math guy—track where the moon would be. The plague breaks out, both of these gentlemen are confined inside their own places, and basically on a dare, on a whim, on a “oh yeah, I bet I can,” Isaac Newton invents differentiated calculus—maybe that’s not the right term, again, I’m not a math guy—but decides yeah, you can figure that out with equations, and I’m going to invent a math. And he did it.

That type of brilliance, that type of genius, is something that is difficult for us in today’s world to really grapple with.

Emily Dickinson exists in that same space. Now, Emily Dickinson did not revolutionize physics, did not single-handedly craft a math, okay, I get it. What I mean is that everything Isaac Newton would have done to create a math was so mystifyingly cerebral that I don’t think many people have those tools. I think we are entering a world where fewer and fewer people will have those tools, because of what is necessary there.

It is so necessary to create that astral plane in your mind. Basically, each time you sit down to do that work, you have to invest some parabolic number of minutes or hours re-entering that space. So Isaac Newton starts making this math, has to take a sleep, wakes up, and in order to refine his place, to re-establish where he left off, he doesn’t just sit down and do it. He doesn’t just walk through the door. One does not simply recreate math.

He has to go through his notes and retrace those mental steps. Einstein was very good at this as well. Einstein, however, used what were known as thought experiments as shortcuts. So when he was thinking about the speed of light, one of the things he did was imagine he was on a train traveling at the speed of light—Jesse James style, hanging onto the top of the train—and he turns on a flashlight. What happens?

That’s a really useful shortcut. You still have to get back in that place, and that is what is, to me, so mystifying about 1,775 poems from Emily Dickinson.

Now, I started this off by saying maybe this poem won’t make any sense to you the first time you read it. That’s fine. It is sort of like Shakespeare and William Faulkner in the way that it helps to read Emily Dickinson out loud—but for different reasons. With Faulkner and Shakespeare, it’s the employment of the language itself. With Emily Dickinson, it is all of those dashes that screw you. Some of the line breaks screw you. A lot of what’s going on in Emily Dickinson screws you.

So to reclaim the place, reading it out loud is sort of like Einstein’s thought experiments, in that it is a cerebral shortcut. You are undermining the work it takes to silently read the words on the page, and you are short-circuiting the mental fatigue it takes to get there.

And here’s the thing: I might be absolutely wrong about what this poem is about. It might be that one of these line breaks that I’ve misinterpreted, one of these dashes that I sped right through, changes the entire composition of one or more of these stanzas. So I could be completely wrong here. I don’t know. I can’t say."

Such is the Force of Happiness—

Such is the Force of Happiness—
The Least—can lift a Ton
Assisted by its stimulus—

Who Misery—sustain—
No Sinew can afford—
The Cargo of Themselves—
Too infinite for Consciousness'
Slow capabilities.

     -Fr889, J787, Fascicle 39, 1864


This is the last poem of the 40 fascicles that Emily Dickinson left behind.* We (mostly Susan) have commented on every one of the 800 plus poems in these 40 fascicles, a feat that has taken 15 years. It’s quite an accomplishment I think, and yet the blog is still only half way through the 1775 poems of the oeuvre. We have another 900 non-fascicle poems to go. Diving this deep into the poems really makes clear just how prolific, and awesome, Emily Dickinson was, and still is. 

It's worth noting that there hasn't been a poem yet that we couldn't find plenty to write about. Sometimes I still don't get it, but trust her so much as a source of poetry that I know it's my problem, not hers. 

So many gems.

Part of the wonderful advantage of the fascicles is being able to watch the development from poem to poem as Dickinson laid them out in books she sewed together herself. For instance, in this poem we have the word “capability,” which is, since we have just recently read it, reminiscent of the word “capacity” in the poem previous to this one, Fr888. She's thinking about the capacity and capability of consciousness itself. (No cap, as the kids say.) You can watch the ideas develop when you read the fascicles, see words get picked up and looked at from all sides.

This poem is the end of a fascicle that has been wrestling with selfhood in the midst of tragic loss. The conclusion appears bleak. The last few poems have the poet questioning Being itself. Fr887 sums it up: “to die/ Is Nature's only Pharmacy/ For Being's Malady—”

This final poem in the fascicle starts off with a seemingly optimistic claim. The least bit of happiness can lift a ton. A little goes a long way. We see this idea played out in Dickinson’s poems often. In the poem before this one, Fr888, for instance, we get this: “Content of fading/ Is enough for me —/ Her least attention raise on me —”

The first stanza of this final poem is, like the lover's attention, short lived:

Such is the Force of Happiness—
The Least—can lift a Ton
Assisted by its stimulus—

Another reading of this poem, by the poet Alex Cory, is that with the stimulus of happiness the least of us can lift a ton.  This reading gets at "As you do unto the least of these, you do unto  me" idea. In other words, the happiness you spread to the least will lift them up a ton.

Though that's a lot of happiness, a ton is still finite. There was a finite amount of happiness, even if it was a whole ton. But the other side of the equation, in the more heavily-weighted second stanza, is the "Misery" of self alone. The weight of this Misery feels... infinite. 

The Cargo of Themselves—
(is) Too infinite for Consciousness'
Slow capabilities.

The misery felt in the weight of the “cargo” being carried by the self feels infinite. There's an overwhelming feeling of futility. Consciousness is bottomless, and, without love, endlessly painful.

But there is a catch of sorts. Dickinson writes,

Who Misery—sustain—
No Sinew can afford—

First of all, note that it doesn’t say “who sustains misery.” It’s “who Misery sustain.” There is something about misery that sustains poetry. We saw this idea play out in Fr887: "When she (Nature) had put away Her Work/ My own had just begun—"

Likewise in Fr706 Dickinson writes of the “white sustenance Despair.” Misery and despair can help sustain an artist, but, ironically, it’s not sustainable. “Consciousness’ slow capability” can’t handle it. "No sinew can afford" to take on all that weight. What's a girl to do?

Buckle down. With steel-eyed resolve and the diligent work of her poetry, Dickinson was able, through her misery, to sustain herself. The poems, seen in this slant light, are all the more remarkable for existing at all. Their presence, and the force of their beauty, are a living proof that all is not lost. Dickinson doesn't just sustain herself through a Herculean battle against depression, but, by doing so, in an act of service, helps sustain us. In Fr887 Dickinson writes, 

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

     -/)dam Wade l)eGraff


*Mabel Loomis Todd ordered these fascicles, and this fascicle, according to her system, is number 39. But, according to Franklin’s ordering this one would be the 40th. The problem is Franklin didn't reorder the fascicles, just the poems. So we have two different tracking systems. According to Franklin though, this is the last poem in the last fascicle, and, therefore, this poem the final one preserved in this way. It’s all guess work.)

'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