A Night — there lay
the Days between —
The Day that was Before —
And Day that was Behind — were One —
And now — 'twas Night — was here —
Slow — Night — that must be watched away —
As Grains upon a shore —
Too imperceptible to note —
Till it be night — no more —
The Day that was Before —
And Day that was Behind — were One —
And now — 'twas Night — was here —
Slow — Night — that must be watched away —
As Grains upon a shore —
Too imperceptible to note —
Till it be night — no more —
F609
(1863) J471
Dickinson depicts a sleepless night using a
rather numbing repetitive structure in the first stanza and a very slow pace in
the second. The first stanza could be
paraphrased as "It was night." Dickinson stretches the notion out
every which way, expanding on the notion of "night" as if counting
sheep. The night is between two days: there is one Before and one Behind. It
all seems one with the endless night.
 |
| painting, Lois Lang |
Dickinson
sprinkles various rhymes throughout the stanza, increasing the repetitiveness.
There are the repeating Day/Days and Night, plus two "and"s and four
uses of "was". "Lay"
rhymes with "Day" and all the whispery "w" sounds seem to
beg for drowsiness to take over: between, was, was, were, One, now, 'twas, was.
There's not an active verb in the entire stanza. One imagines the poet lying in
bed making a little chant about the situation.
The second stanza creeps along in a wearier
voice. "Slow – Night – " is a very slow spondee with its long vowels
and dashes. Long vowels predominate: slow, night, away, grains, shore, too, note,
night, no, more. Watching the night away is as tedious as trying to discern the
individual grains of sand on the beach. The moments seem endless.
I feel sleepy just studying this poem.
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ReplyDeleteI believe the poem depicts suicidal tendencies. The second stanza seems to allure to the monotonous nature of life awaiting the escape of death. Night no more
ReplyDeleteInteresting. Perhaps life is Night; at life's blessed end there is light once again.
Delete"Dickinson stretches the notion out every which way, expanding on the notion of "night" as if counting sheep." and "all the whispery "w" sounds seem to beg for drowsiness to take over: between, was, was, were, One, now, 'twas, was. There's not an active verb in the entire stanza."
ReplyDeleteTerrific insights.
Yes, a good poem before bed.
"Watched away" is a great phrase to contemplate and is emphasized as a result of the pile up of all the W sounds. The past and future being all one at night is a rich insight here. And it would be wonderful, that forgetfulness, if only one could sleep. But this is an insomniac's poem. Here the night is long and seems to await the day.
ReplyDeleteThanks for that Lang painting too. It's perfect.
One might read 'Watched away" as "Washed away" to add yet another slow and sleepy 'w' image.
DeleteOMG! Au Contraire!
ReplyDeleteHow could anyone torture line structure into such powerful words of love? A comma clarifies Line 1, but I’m glad ED left it out: “A Night — there lay, the Days between —”
Shakespeare would be proud had a sleepily anxious Juliet said Lines 5-8, especially that last one: “Till it be night — no more —". To paraphrase Anonymous (F605, 6/16/2015), “The poem ends with exact rhymes ("Before", "shore", "more") -- almost like the end of a scene from Shakespeare where exact rhymes signal the transition to a new scene.”
Reading Stanza 2, we want to hear “Washed away” as grains of sand slowly vanish, one-by-one, night-by-night, out to sea. Instead, we get “Watched away”, an active/passive verb that reassures the poet; when the last grain is gone, Heaven’s light will flood Earth’s night, and she will meet and marry the man she loves, Charles Wadsworth. Until then, time slowly passes,
ReplyDelete“Too imperceptible to note —
Till it be night — no more —"
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteAn interpretation of F609:
ReplyDeleteFor ED, the first “Day” of this poem began in March 1855, when she heard Wadsworth preach in Philadelphia. That day ended for her on May 1, 1862 when Wadsworth “abandoned” her by sailing from New York, bound for San Francisco. She thought he had left her for the rest of her life. She hoped the “Night” between his “abandonment” and her death would end their separation and that Wadsworth would meet and marry her in Heaven, as he promised. The second “Day” of the poem presumably would begin when she died (May 15, 1886) and last for eternity.
When ED composed this poem in 1863, the looming real days between May 1, 1862 and her death (8780 days) would feel like “Grains [of sand] upon a shore”, too numerous to count. But then, like Dante, she would emerge from her dark “Night” of abandonment into the bright “Day” of Heaven.
Of course, Dante and Virgil emerged from Hell at night and “looked up at the stars". ED would emerge from her long “Night” of abandonment into Heaven’s eternal “Day”. Also, she wrote this poem in 1863, so she did not know when Wadsworth or she would die, but he had promised to meet and marry her on the day the last one died.
In ED's vivid imagination, the two “Days” in the poem merged to become “One” (Line 3).