Widths out of the Sun —
And look — and shudder, and block your breath —
And deem to be alone
In such a place, what horror,
How Goblin it would be —
And fly, as 'twere pursuing you?
Then Loneliness — looks so —
Did you ever look in a Cannon's face —
Between whose Yellow eye —
And yours — the Judgment intervened —
The Question of "To die" —
Extemporizing in your ear
As cool as Satyr's Drums —
If you remember, and were saved —
It's liker so — it seems —
F619 (1863) J590
I can say quite a bit about this poem: its Gothic qualities, the pivot from Cavern to Cannon, the dark and frightful imagery for Loneliness, the extemporizing moment when facing death; I can discuss the ballad meter and how it works with the gothic, the spondees of "Widths out" – and all sorts of things. But, Reader, what I cannot discuss with any confidence at all are the last two lines.
If I read carefully, tracing back the sentence structures, it would seem Dickinson is saying that if you remember looking at death in a 'Cannon's face' than it is likely that it happened. But I am not convinced that is what Dickinson is getting at. So let's take a closer look – and maybe you can help out.
The poem begins with asking the reader if they were ever terrified by something deep within a cavern and then advising that if they have, they know what Loneliness looks like. It isn't entirely clear whether Loneliness is like the horror that one flees or the whole terrifying experience. I think the latter.
I read the third stanza as saying, "Did you ever face a cannon as it went off, aimed at you, and heard the voice of Judgment intervene as you pondered your own death?"
And then I'm guessing.
Speculation one: If you remember the cannon firing and the voice of judgment intervening, then you have been saved by God. (Is this Salvation or just fortunate divine intervention?)
Speculation two: If you remember the cannon going off at you and how you were coolly and distinctly pondering whether you would live or die – or even were ready to die – then your judgment saved you (perhaps by having you duck).
I'd love to hear readers' interpretations. Understand, though, that I really don't need a clear and logical explanation for Dickinson. She likes to 'tell it slant'. But often there is some deeper meaning that can be expressed or at least hinted at.
I am wondering, having tossed this poem around while I wrote, if Dickinson isn't talking about Salvation. The moment of Salvation is like the moment of death; it is like looking down a live cannon. And one meaning of salvation is being saved from the terrifying loneliness that is this cavern, life.
This poem raises many questions for me, too. I don't have clear opinions about meaning.
ReplyDeleteThe poem has a hinge between the first two stanzas and the last two. There is parallel construction, as you point out -- down to the enjambed line at the end of the first and at the end of the third stanzas.
But what is the link between the two? A cavern is a symbol of the underworld -- a place of fear. In Greek mythology, it is the realm of the unseen, of Hades, of the dead. In this poem, the experience of the cavern is an imagined experience -- we are "deemed to be alone . . . in such a place" and the Goblin is what "would be" as "t'were" pursuing you. The last line of the second stanza says that this imagined experience looks like "Loneliness". This is an odd leap -- we generally don't equate fear with loneliness. Perhaps because the fear is ours alone -- in our mind -- and no one else feels it, it is loneliness.
The third stanza turns to the Civil War image of a cannon. The cannon is personified with the same "Yellow eye" that ED used in her more famous poem "My Life had stood -- a Loaded Gun". The cannon is also an image of death. Here, the poem addresses an image of actual death -- not imagination -- but isolates a moment of reflection -- the question will I die "extemporizing" (a beautiful word) in your ear. The reflection here -- a frozen moment when time slows, instead of being based on horror and fear is "As cool as Satyr's Drums". This is a strange image -- reaching back again to Greek mythology. Satyrs are better known as flute players -- but they also have a link to rhythm in music. Why is the Satyr's Drum "cool"? The "hot" fear in the first two stanzas is based on imagined death. The "cool" reflection of the second two stanzas is in a moment of confrontation with an image of actual death.
The poem seems to end by saying that this moment of reflection -- when one has been spared death and returns to life -- is "liker so" -- closer to loneliness than the death that we imagine.
Thank you (yes, 8 years later) for this thoughtful commentary. I particularly am struck by the contrast between the 'cool' Satyr's drum of death awareness and the 'hot' fear of death in a Goblin cavern. I'm still pondering your thought that the surviving the first (and most likely) death is 'closer to loneliness than the (Cavern) death that we imagine. I suspect you are right. You can't laugh at your fear later in the cannon instance -- and you are absolutely aware of how alone you are.
DeleteThis could also be read as escaping a bad relationship. Satyr is associated with passion, and he is suddenly cool. The death of a relationship is certainly a lonely time...
ReplyDeleteHi Susan. As the poem's overriding theme seems to be loneliness, are the last two stanzas not simply describing the utter fear and isolation that one feels at the point of death? Ultimately, we leave this earth alone.
ReplyDeleteThis reading may help one to understand the last line of the poem. I feel that the word 'It's' in final line refers back to the Loneliness mentioned in line 8 ('Then Loneliness - looks so-'). The connection between line 8 and line 16 is suggested by the fact that both lines employ the vocabulary of resemblance, ie 'looks' in line 8, and 'liker' in line 16. The link between the two lines is also suggested by the use of the word 'so' in both.
I therefore understand the final line, 'It's liker so - it seems', to be saying that the isolation one experiences at the point of death is a more absolute embodiment/reflection of loneliness than any other experience (even that of standing at the mouth of a fathomless cave).
Would be interesting to get your thoughts on this!
I like your links between line 8 and 16 - still baffled by satyr’s drums.
DeleteHi Jimmy -- I also like how you link line 8 and 16. It makes sense. But parsing the verbiage is just tough. But it does seem to be, as you say, reflecting on the unique and absolute loneliness experienced at either the imagined death or the image of actual death -- as Anonymous framed it earlier.
DeleteIt's about having homosexual urges during that time period and the loneliness and shame connected to those urges.
ReplyDeleteI've read this poem a dozen times now and each time I get a slightly different take. In the last take it was abouut the terror of loneliness in the first two stanzas as opposed to the terror of marriage in the third. The facing of the cannon is a facing down the death of self that marriage may imply.
ReplyDeleteI think I was drawn to that reading through the "cooling of the satyr's drums". The satyr to me represts lust, so then the staring at the cannon would be facing romance/lust which may lead to a kind of death of self. (That word "cool" there is masterful, as you normally would think of a satyr's drums being "hot", but cool connotes...calculating...patient.... and, ultimately, the idea of "cooling"; the heat of romance will eventually cool.)
In forming this reading, I was largely trying to account for those satyrs in opposition to loneliness. It is too easy perhaps to go from loneliness to satyr, and also too easy to go from satyr to loneliness. They may both drive you to the other.
The last stanza implies that if you've ever been on either end of that dialectic you know what it is like. But also I see a second meaning in the construction at the end, wherein the "it's" refers to the remembering itself.
"If you remember, and were saved —
It's liker so — it seems —"
Like, you were saved BECAUSE you remembered.
Remember both extremes and so fall prey to neither.
Some context . . .
ReplyDeleteLooking “in a Cannon's face” was fresh in ED’s mind when she wrote ‘Did you ever stand in a Cavern's Mouth’’ (F618, second half of 1863):
“In April 1862, after the body of Frazar Stearns —the son of the college’s fourth president, William Augustus Stearns—came back to Amherst, so did a cannon that he had helped reclaim from Confederate forces [during the Battle of New Bern, NC, March 14-18, 1862]. The cannon was given to Amherst College in April 1862, following the Union Army’s victory at New Bern.
“Stearns was among a group of Amherst students who signed up for service at the urging of their popular chemistry professor, William Smith Clark [ED's near neighbor and botany professor] of the Class of 1848. Clark became an officer in the 21st Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, with Stearns as his adjutant [chief assistant]. Stearns was among troops disembarking from the Neuse River [NC] about 16 miles downriver of New Bern on March 12, 1862. On March 14, the 21st assaulted a brickyard and makeshift Confederate battery.
“Clark wrote of the opening skirmish, which claimed his student’s life: “[T]he noblest of us all, my brave, efficient, faithful adjutant, First Lieutenant F. A. Stearns, of Company I, fell mortally wounded . . . . As he was cheering on the men to charge upon the enemy, he was struck by a ball from an English rifle…He lived about two hours and a half . . . and died without a struggle a little before noon.”
“They tell that Colonel Clark cried like a little child,” wrote Emily Dickinson, whose brother was a close friend of Frazar. “Austin is chilled—by Frazer’s murder—He says—his Brain keeps saying over ‘Frazer is killed’—‘Frazer is killed,’”
(Sweet, William. 2012. A Cannon for the Confederacy: The Legacy of Frazar Stearns.
https://www.amherst.edu/news/news_releases/2012/03/node/384752 )
More context . . .
ReplyDeleteOdysseus finds the cave of one-eyed Polyphemus (Homer, Odyssey, Book 9, Lines 183-192):
“[T]here on the land's edge hard by the sea we saw a high cave, roofed over with laurels, and there many flocks, sheep and goats alike, were wont to sleep. . . . There a monstrous man was wont to sleep, who shepherded his flocks alone and afar, and mingled not with others, but lived apart, with his heart set on lawlessness. . . . .”
For ED, the “Cannon’s face” had one Cyclopsan “yellow eye” because the recently captured “six-pounder” brass cannon in the Amherst College library had been freshly polished when she first saw it there in April 1862, shortly before she wrote this poem, ‘Did you ever stand in a Cavern's Mouth’.
For ED, the “Yellow eye” in the “Cannon’s face” belongs to Polyphemus, the Cyclops “Goblin”, staring at her from the “Cavern’s Mouth”, the face of Death:
“Did you ever stand in a Cavern's Mouth —
Widths out of the Sun —
And look — and shudder, and block your breath —
And deem to be alone
“In such a place, what horror,
How Goblin it would be —
And fly, as 'twere pursuing you?
Then Loneliness — looks so —
Did you ever look in a Cannon's face —
Between whose Yellow eye —
And yours — the Judgment intervened —
The Question of "To die" —”
“Did you ever stand in a Cavern's Mouth — . . .
ReplyDeleteIn such a place, what horror, . . .
Did you ever look in a Cannon's face — . . .
Extemporizing in your ear . . .”
Can’t you see ED, standing in the Amherst College Library, staring down the dark mouth of Frazar’s polished brass cannon, mentally disconnected with everything around her (“As cool as Satyr’s Drums”), composing this poem in her head? Lavinia Dickinson tells us ED often composed poems this way, standing in the kitchen doing chores, and stopping briefly to jot her lines on a scrap of paper.
Yes, I can. Thank you for this apt contextual info.
Delete“And deem to be alone . . .
ReplyDeleteThen Loneliness — looks so — . . .
The Question of "To die" — . . .
It's liker so — it seems — . . .”
Sure sounds like four iambic trimeter last lines to me. To make it so, elisionist Emily invented a new English word, “liker” to replace “likelier”, but all’s fair in poetry and war.
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ReplyDeleteEDLex has only 14 definitions for “deem”, three more than OED. The first is “think” or “judge to be”, the latter redundant in Line 4, but I’ll use it anyway because Stanza 1 sets the stage for Lines 5-6, “In such a place, what horror, / How Goblin it would be —”. Line 7 completes the action of Lines 1-7, a complicated question that ends with a question mark followed by a conclusion, Line 8: “Then Loneliness — looks so —”
ReplyDeleteLines 9-12 comprise a new question, “Did you ever look in a Cannon's face”, this time without a question mark. Line 9 perfectly echoes Line 1, especially “Cannon’s face” and “Cavern’s Mouth”. Like Line 8, Lines 11-12, “the Judgment intervened — / The Question of "To die" —”, conclude this new question.
There’s no need to repeat explication of Lines 13-14, except to procrastinate on Susan’s nemesis Lines 15-16. In Line 15, “If you remember” probably refers to the two “Did you ever . . . .” questions, but how does “and were saved” fit? Could ED mean “if her flight succeeded, she escaped the “Goblin” of loneliness”?
Line 16 seems to be a wrap-up answer that assumes a successful escape from loneliness. Interpreting, “If you remember and escaped successfully, then it’s likely that you escaped successfully”, which sure sounds circular to me. It seems ED has confused herself, so she ends the poem, “— it seems —”.
No wonder Susan K threw in the towel.
I would suggest that the question is ""Extemporizing in your ear" by the audible panic pulse ("Drums") of the frightened person's blood.
ReplyDelete"Cool" is ironic, oxymoronic with satyr—a symbol of unrestrained passion,
The last two lines would mean, "If you had such a near death experience, it probably felt like that."
The diffident, cryptic expression here is due n part to this being a time of military fervor, and a poem that dwelt upon "cowardly" responses to battle would not have been well received.