My Noon had Come – to dine –
I trembling drew the Table near –
And touched the Curious Wine --
'Twas this on Tables I had seen –
When turning, hungry, Home
I looked in Windows, for the Wealth
I could not hope – for Mine --
I did not know the ample Bread –
'Twas so unlike the Crumb
The Birds and I, had often shared
In Nature's – Dining Room --
The Plenty hurt me – 'twas so new –
Myself felt ill – and odd –
As Berry – of a Mountain Bush –
Transplanted – to a Road --
Nor was I hungry – so I found
That Hunger – was a way
Of Persons outside Windows –
The Entering – takes away –
F439 (1862) J579
This allegorical poem has a sadder-but-wiser feel compared to “Victory comes late” (F195) where the speaker bitterly complains about dining on crumbs. There the table of plenty is Victory and it is God who keeps it out of reach. That table is “spread too high,” and so those yearning for its bounty must “dine on tiptoe.” Even then it is unclear if they ever obtain more than crumbs. “How sweet [Victory / success] would have tasted,” Dickinson writes. Even if “Just a Drop.”
Here, about 240 poems later, when her “Noon had Come” and she can finally sit at the table, she discovers that the “Curious Wine” and “ample Bread” are so foreign to her that they make her ill. “The Plenty hurt me,” she writes. She felt “odd.” Part of the displacement, I think, is that a loaf is very “unlike the Crumb” in a deeper sense than that it has more bread in it. It represents a different world, one organized by different priorities. The loaf would be as startling to a person accustomed to crumbs as a waterfall would be to a person who knew only the slightest trickling rivulet. The plenitude of something regarded as precious, as desirable, would almost be painful. The realization of a dream would reveal it for something less interesting than the dream itself.

Dickinson wisely doesn’t tell us what the allegorical meal refers to, but she doesn’t need to. It might be fame, marriage, freedom from household duties, wealth – or maybe even heaven. It’s a universal lesson and what she’s saying applies to any sort of hunger. The last stanza, the lesson, bears a bit of thought. Hunger is something those on the outside experience. Hunger is for something on the other side of the window. Enter through the door, however, sit at the table, and that hunger disappears. It is not the eating that dispels the hunger, but the lack of barrier, the seeing things clearly for what they are. It is the longing that makes the desired object desirable; it is the heaven out of reach that we yearn for. Dickinson said as much in “Heaven – is what I cannot reach” (F310):
"Heaven"—is what I cannot reach!
The Apple on the Tree—
Provided it do hopeless—hang—
That—"Heaven" is—to Me!
I love this poem. In a funny way it reminds me of the very different poenm -- "Eyes of the Poor" from Baudlaire's Paris Spleen.
ReplyDeleteThe "Curious Wine" (such a wonderful phrase) and "ample Bread" recall communion. There is a thread of meaning related to spiritual hunger -- and not simply satisfaction, but a change in a state of being where desire no longer exists.
The contrast between the civilized and natural worlds is very powerful -- but the conclusion of this poem is beyond that. Often ED expresses her contentment with the natural world -- she once said that "consider the lilies of the field" is the only commandment that she ever obeyed. There is an element of that humble communion -- the "last communion in the haze" in the bird and the "Mountain Bush".
But here, she is considering a surfeit of spiritual wealth as her "Noon" comes to dine -- like a meeting with god -- an embarrassment of wealth where desire can no longer exist -- amazing poem!
Thank you for bringing out the spiritual hunger and the bread and wine imagery that points to it. The corollary, that the opportunity to actually partake of spiritual sustenance negates the desire, is ... Dickinsonian.
DeleteThe whole sense of changing states to one where "desire can no longer exist" is fascinating. Yet it seems there might be an endless series of windows demarking desire.
thanks for share...
ReplyDeleteFor me this poem echoes f430, Charm invests the face, where the unobtained elicits the greater richness of the imagination.
ReplyDeleteI also see the image of the 5 of Discs from the Rider Waite tarot deck, where two beggars stand in the cold night looking into the lit window of a church.
For some reason I missed this when you posted it -- sorry! I hadn't thought of the F430 reference but I totally agree. Charm is good -- and by extension, Hunger. Both elicit desire -- a better state than satiation or complacency.
DeleteI know that tarot card you refer to. Perfect!
In Buddhist thought, the highest spiritual state is to have extinguished desire. I’m beginning to visualize her as the Buddha of Amherst!
ReplyDeleteYou might like two books by retired humanities prof. and transcendentalist RC Allen: Emily Dickinson: Accidental Buddhist, and Shatter Me with Dawn: The Transcendent Experience of Emily Dickinson
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