That
passed the mouldering Pier –
Just
as the Granite Crumb let go –
Our
Savior, by a Hair –
A
second more, had dropped too deep
For
Fisherman to plumb –
The
very profile of the Thought
Puts
Recollection numb –
The
possibility – to pass
Without
a moment's Bell –
Into
Conjecture's presence –
Is
like a Face of Steel –
That
suddenly looks into ours
With
a metallic grin –
The
Cordiality of Death –
Who
drills* his Welcome in – *nails
J286, Fr243
(1861) 286
It’s
interesting that in this poem as well as in F238, “How many times these low
feet staggered,” Dickinson uses machine imagery to represent death. In F238 the
dead body itself was referred to as a “rivet,” its ribcage “hasps of steel.” In
this poem it is Death who has the “Face of Steel” and a “metallic grin” that “drills
his Welcome in.” This isn’t surprising as so much of Dickinson’s poetry
celebrates earthly beauties such as robins, flowers, bees, sunsets, etc., as
paradisical. Paradise itself she has likened to a beautiful May day. Metallic,
mechanical objects are obvious opposites. If you transpose the once living form
into a machine, that is a horror. If you animate a mechanical thing as Death,
that is even a greater horror.
Modern
readers have only to think of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings books, and the movies
based on those books, to see the ravages and hell many pastoralists saw in the
Industrial Age. Imagine Hobbiton tucked into sunny, peaceful hills, a little
Eden, against Mount Doom in the corrupt and corrupting realm of Gondor. Here,
as in Dickinson, Industrialization represents the forces of death while the
natural world means life.
The
poem examines a near-death experience. Dickinson complicates the reading by
leaving out enough words that it takes some close reading to follow some of
what happens. I’ve put some words in to flesh out what she (successfully and
poetically) elides; I’ve also paraphrased some of the imagery:
That
Horror after death – that was us (my soul and I [see previous poem for Dickinson
representing her soul as a person within a person]) that passed the rotting
Pier of the flesh just as the granite rock anchoring the pier was about to
crumble. But then Our Saviour rescued us by a Hair. A second more and we would
have dropped too deep into death – for Fishermen to pull us out. The very
outline of the Thought makes the recalling of it numb. The very possibility of
dying without a marker such as a tolling Bell into the presence of what can
only be conjectured is like a Face of Steel that suddenly looks into our face
with a metallic grin. This is the Cordiality of Death who drills his ‘Welcome’.
In
the second stanza Dickinson recalls Jesus’ words to his soon-to-be disciples
Simon (Peter) and his brother Andrew as they were fishing along the shore of Lake Galilee. “Come, follow me,"
Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men" (Matthew 4:19). The stanza expresses the
narrator’s fear that she might fall too far for rescue even by the church
(founded by Jesus’ disciples, particularly fisherman Simon Peter). Her use of
the singular “Fisherman” may imply that the greatest Fisherman, Jesus himself,
might have been unable to save her had she fallen a bit further.
Dickinson
captures something of the terror of such a moment not by saying the dying soul
would soon face either God or the Devil without sufficient warning, but “Conjecture.”
She doesn’t know, can only form conjectures about what might lie ahead. It is
this possibility that – far from offering the comfort of even the light at the
end of a tunnel that numerous near-death survivors have described – presents
itself to her as a leering figure with drills. Perhaps this horror explains her
despair expressed in other poems and in some letters over not being with the
dying to offer hope and comfort (see “I should not dare to leave my friend,”
F234).
The
poem anticipates “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,” written the following
year where the consciousness or perhaps soul lingers in the dead body for a
while, experiencing excruciating sensations until her “mind was going numb.”
Eventually “Space – began to toll, / / As all the Heavens were a Bell,” and
then the soul is “wrecked, solitary.” The poem ends as “a Plank in Reason,
broke,” and the narrator plunges “down
and down.” There is no salvation “by a hair” in that poem. “Because I could not stop for
Death,” written within a year, takes a far more benign look at death. There is no pain, nor
horror in that poem. Death is courteous and civil and takes the narrator on a leisurely ride to what
seems to be eternal rest. It is certainly a welcome turn for the better in
Dickinson’s imagery – and perhaps her life.
Dear Susan,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your kind blog which has helped me understand this poem.