Search This Blog

22 June 2011

When Roses cease to bloom, Sir,

When Roses cease to bloom, Sir,
And Violets are done—
When Bumblebees in solemn flight
Have passed beyond the Sun—
The hand that paused to gather
Upon this Summer's day
Will idle lie—in Auburn—
Then take my flowers—pray! 
                                                           - F 8 (1858)


This poem was sent to Samuel Bowles, editor of the Springfield Republican and long-time friend of the Dickinsons. He and his wife Mary were recipients of many of Emily's letters and poems. 
     In this one she is making a statement similar to that of Herrick's "gather ye rosebuds while ye may": take the offered flowers now, for life passes soon enough. "Auburn" probably refers to a cemetery in Cambridge.
     It is likely she included flowers in the same letter that held this poem, and it's a lovely bit of verse.
     The poem equates Summer with life: after the roses and violets are spent and the bumblebees retired for the year, the poet, too, will pass on. But there is a continuity here. Death isn't the end of everything. the bumblebees pass beyond the sun--there is a place for them to go. And the deceased poet isn't cold and lifeless but simply idling.

7 comments:

  1. I did not realize that there is a cemetery called "Auburn" in MA...thank you for this! I always just assumed that she was referring to the color of Autumn.

    See, this is why I read your blog. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes! Thank you for the detail of your analysis!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Dickinson is referring to Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Mass. When she was sixteen, she visited Mount Auburn during a trip to Boston and wrote the following to a friend: "Have you ever been to Mount Auburn? If not you can form but slight conception - of the "City of the Dead." It seems as if Nature had formed the spot with a distinct idea in view of its being a resting place for her children, where wearied & disappointed they might stretch themselves beneath the spreading cypress & close their eyes "calmly as to a night repose or flowers at set of sun.""

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It seems unlikely that ED is addressing God as 'Sir' and much more likely that 'Sir' is Samuel Bowles. Given her obsession with death, she assumes that she will die before Bowles and would appreciate it if he would publish her poems in the Springfield Republican.

      Or is 'Sir' a camouflaged reference to Susan, and ED is asking her to cherish her poems?

      Delete
    2. I also assume 'Sir' is Samuel Bowles

      Delete
  4. Neither Johnson nor Franklin identifies a recipient of this poem. If anyone knows of such documentation, please let us know. Mabel Todd changed “Sir” to “dear” in her 1896 edition of ED’s poetry; she also changed “flowers” to “flower”. Perhaps she knew something we don’t, given her direct access to many of ED’s friends and family, especially Susan D. The ”Sir” in Line 1 could very well be a gender switch to disguise the true recipient of the poem, if any.

    For some poems that were sent with a flower, or flowers, the manuscript shows evidence of an attachment, but the one extant manuscript in ED’s handwriting shows no such evidence (F8A), which is not proof that another (lost) manuscript did not show such evidence.

    At age 27, when ED composed this poem, she hadn’t chosen her final resting place, but Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, MA, seemed perfect, with its emphasis on Nature: “It seems as if Nature had formed the spot with a distinct idea in view of its being a resting place for her children, where wearied & dissapointed [sic] they might stretch themselves beneath the spreading cypress & close their eyes calmly as to a nights repose or flowers at set of sun." (Johnson L13, ED to Abiah Root, September 8, 1846, when ED was in Boston visiting her favorite aunt, Lavinia Norcross Norcross (the name and the reson for the visit are long stories).

    The similarity of the endings of this poem (F8) and the previous one (F7), which we know was sent to Susan, leads me to think both were given to Susan, not Samuel Bowles:

    F7
    “For thee to bloom, I'll skip the tomb
    And row my blossoms o'er!
    Pray gather me—
    Anemone—
    Thy flower—forevermore!”

    F8
    “The hand that paused to gather
    Upon this Summer's day
    Will idle lie—in Auburn—
    Then take my flowers—pray!”

    Whether the recipient, if any, is Susan or Samuel, the ending is ED’s plea to them and future generations to read and enjoy her poetry. We are!

    ReplyDelete