So much Summer

So much Summer
Me for showing
Illegitimate –
Would a Smile’s minute bestowing
Too exorbitant

To the Lady
With the Guinea
Look – if she should know
Crumb of Mine
A Robin’s Larder
Would suffice to stow –

    Fr761, J651, Fascicle 34, 1863

This kind of poem is not likely to capture many readers because its syntax is too difficult to follow. But the difficulty does intrigue, which, if you are a certain kind of reader, pulls you into the puzzle, and therefore, the poem. The more pulled in you get, the more moved you may be. This puzzle need only capture one reader. The original captive was likely meant to be Dickinson's sister-in-law, and usually the first reader of Emily's poems, Sue. But the newest one to be captivated is…me, and, perhaps, now, you too.

If we step back and try to get a general feel for this poem we can see that it appears to touch on the common Dickinsonian theme of putting your store of modest wealth in nature, here represented as a crumb that suffices for a robin. This modest wealth is greater than monetary wealth, the “guinea” of the lady. The illegitimate smile from the poet is compared to a crumb containing "so much summer" that it may be stored by the robin in winter. That’s how I read the syntax. If you write it out as a complete sentence you can get a better sense of it:

“So much summer, me for showing, illegitimate, would a smile’s minute bestowing too exorbitant to the Lady With the Guinea look if she should know crumb of mine, a robin’s larder would suffice to stow."

It's a tricky sentence because the final phrase, "a robin's larder would suffice to stow" follows from the first, "So much summer," and the rest of the thought is sandwiched between. "So much summer...a robin's larder would suffice to stow." It's also tricky because of the inversion of some of the clauses, "would a smile's minute bestowing too exorbitant to the Lady with the guinea look,"for instance, instead of the much simpler, "would look to the Lady with the guinea like a minute smile too exorbitant to bestow."

Re-worded, the thought goes something like this: "The bestowing of a smile would be too exorbitant for the lady with the guinea (money), like a crumb that a robin stows in its larder for winter is, as if there was so much summer in that smile that there is still some left over for when it is needed later."

Once we unpack the syntax we arrive at a very sweet thought. An illegitimate smile from me, the poet says, would allow extra sustenance for you later, like a stored crumb in a larder would give an illegitimate bit of extra summer to a robin when winter kicks in.

Dickinson frames this thought in a trochaic rhythm. Why? I think it is to put an extra emphasis on the opening syllables, on that “SO much,” and that “ME for,” and on “TOO exorbitant,” and “LOOK if,” and “CRUMB of,” and “WOULD suffice.” She uses rhythm for emphasis wonderfully. 

And what is the purpose of the difficult syntax? One reason, I think, is fun. It’s part of the “smile.” At least it made me smile, this winter, some hundred and sixty years later, stored as it is in the larder of poems.

    -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Notes:

1. The word “illegitimate” raises an eyebrow. Is this an illegitimate affair we’re talking about here, as David Preest has suggested, or even a reference to an illegitimate child, as Lawrence Barden has intimated? My guess is that this poem is for Sue, with which I believe Emily did have a kind of illegitimate (illegitimate in a not-legally-wed kind of way) relationship. Part of the reason for the tricky syntax may well have been to evade the prying eyes of her family, a kind of secret code. The wonder is that Dickinson could write for both the private sphere and the public at the same time. This poem leans more toward the private, but I still think there is a crumb in it for you and me.

2. To add to this intriguing idea of a secret code, we see that Dickinson has paired Robins and Guineas together before, way back in one of her earliest poems, Fr12. Is Guinea a code word? Could it be a pun here, a reference to a guinea hen? Did Sue, or some other friend of Emily's, have a guinea hen? They were popular in the 1800s in America. We can’t know anything for sure, but we can have fun trying to follow the crumbs.

Pain — has an Element of Blank—

Pain — has an Element of Blank—

It cannot recollect

When it begun or if there were

A time when it was not —

It has no Future — but itself—
Its Infinite contain
Its Past — enlightened to perceive
New Periods — of Pain.


    -Fr760, J650, Fascicle 34, 1863


Dear reader,

For this poem, we would love to hear what it personally means to you.

It would be instructive to have a chorus of voices for this one. 

Afterward, check out the edifying commentaries by William Styron and BookishNerDan in the notes below. 

Affy,

/)dam Wade l)eGraff

notes:

1. There is an Emily Dickinson blog I love to read by a guy that goes by BookishNerDan. His take on this poem is brilliant. It really gets down to something essential about consciousness itself. Go here to read. It might help.  

2. This bit, from the great William Styron, in Lapham's Quarterly, is instructive too. (R.I.P. Lewis Lapham)

Darkness Visible,

1985

In depression a faith in deliverance, in ultimate restoration, is absent. The pain is unrelenting, and what makes the condition intolerable is the foreknowledge that no remedy will come—not in a day, an hour, a month, or a minute. If there is mild relief, one knows that it is only temporary; more pain will follow. It is hopelessness even more than pain that crushes the soul. So the decision making of daily life involves not, as in normal affairs, shifting from one annoying situation to another less annoying—or from discomfort to relative comfort, or from boredom to activity—but moving from pain to pain. One does not abandon, even briefly, one’s bed of nails, but is attached to it wherever one goes. And this results in a striking experience—one which I have called, borrowing military terminology, the situation of the walking wounded. For in virtually any other serious sickness, a patient who felt similar devastation would be lying flat in bed, possibly sedated and hooked up to the tubes and wires of life-support systems, but at the very least in a posture of repose and in an isolated setting. His invalidism would be necessary, unquestioned, and honorably attained. However, the sufferer from depression has no such option and therefore finds himself, like a walking casualty of war, thrust into the most intolerable social and family situations. There he must, despite the anguish devouring his brain, present a face approximating the one that is associated with ordinary events and companionship. He must try to utter small talk, and be responsive to questions, and knowingly nod and frown and, God help him, even smile. But it is a fierce trial attempting to speak a few simple words.

Her Sweet turn to leave the Homestead

Her Sweet turn to leave the Homestead
Came the Darker Way—
Carriages—Be Sure—and Guests—too—
But for Holiday

’Tis more pitiful Endeavor
Than did Loaded Sea
O’er the Curls attempt to caper
It had cast away—

Never Bride had such Assembling—
Never kinsmen kneeled
To salute so fair a Forehead—
Garland be indeed—

Fitter Feet—of Her before us—
Than whatever Brow
Art of Snow—or Trick of Lily
Possibly bestow

Of Her Father—Whoso ask Her—
He shall seek as high
As the Palm—that serve the Desert—
To obtain the Sky—

Distance—be Her only Motion—
If ’tis Nay—or Yes—
Acquiescence—or Demurral—
Whosoever guess—

He—must pass the Crystal Angle
That obscure Her face—
He—must have achieved in person
Equal Paradise—


     -F759, J649, Fascicle 34, 1863


In this poem it is as if Dickinson is taking the two faces of drama, tragedy and comedy, and fusing them together as one. It is a comedy that takes a dark turn into tragedy, or, conversely, a tragedy sweetly dressed up as a comedy.

Her Sweet turn to leave the Homestead

The first line, because of the adjective "Sweet," leads you to expect a wedding story, but the expectation is overturned in the very next line,

Came the Darker Way—

Whoa, what happened? What is this "Darker Way" to leave the Homestead? We suspect the worse, and we get our first supporting clue in the next line,

Carriages—Be Sure—and Guests—too—

Carriages come for weddings. But also for…funerals. Guests too.

But for Holiday

’Tis more pitiful Endeavor
Than did Loaded Sea
O’er the Curls attempt to caper
It had cast away—

These guests and carriages are here for an occasion, but it is no holiday. You might endeavor to turn this into a holiday, but the attempt would be pitiful, since it's as impossible to make this a happy occasion as would be for the "Loaded Sea" to attempt to caper (skip and dance) over the top of the very waves it was casting to shore. That image is poignant. The ocean is ready to let go of the wave, here a representation of the self, which has already “capered” to shore. The heavy sea is ready to sink back into itself. ("Called back" are the words Dickinson had inscribed on her gravestone.)

I love how the third line of this stanza capers in its very sound. You can hear it in that O’e r/ curl/ caper rhyme and in the alliteration.

And how about that adjective "Loaded?" That adjective is, itself, very loaded, isn't it?

Never Bride had such Assembling—
Never kinsmen kneeled
To salute so fair a Forehead—
Garland be indeed—

That first line puts one in mind of the bride of Frankenstein, as if the bride had been assembled in parts. But Dickinson just means here that people have assembled at the funeral. The kinsmen, the family, are kneeling at the grave, to salute the young beautiful corpse.

Garland be indeed—

Fitter Feet—of Her before us—
Than whatever Brow
Art of Snow—or Trick of Lily
Possibly bestow

These lines are tricky. I kept reading them over and over again and thinking I had it but then something in the syntax fell apart. (The garland is Fitter for her Feet than for her Forehead? The Feet are Fitter than the Brow bestowed by art of snow or trick of lily? Does Brow refer back to Forehead here? or does it mean hill, another definition of brow, as in a funeral mound?) My best guess here is that there is a garland of flowers placed by loved ones over the head of the casket, or grave. The garland is fitter for the feet of this woman than whatever the beauty of the snow, or trick of the lily could bestow upon her brow. A stanza like this makes me slow down. I want to move on to the rest of the poem, but I'm stuck here, trying to crack the riddle to get to the truth I sense is just under the surface.

And eventually I do see something extraordinary stemming from the phrase “Art of Snow—or Trick of Lily.” Both the snow and the lily are transient. Is this why it called a trick, or an art (as in artifice)? The woman, and her life, represented here most fittingly by her feet, which have walked the earth, have achieved some deeper and less transient truth than the merely seasonal. This is represented by the garland placed there by loved ones. This show of Love is more meaningful, more eternal, than the seasonal trick of snow and flowers. That strikes me as a powerful idea, and was worth slowing down to "get."

I’m attuned to the fact that “feet” in Dickinson’s poetry always seems to have a double meaning of metrical feet.When feet get mentioned in a Dickinson poem it is worth looking for something metrically awry in the feet of the poem. (See F372 for a good example of this.) So I look for a metrical anomaly in this one and I notice that the poem is trochaic instead of iambic. See the notes at the end of this post for more on this idea and a possible reason Dickinson decided to use this rhythm in this poem.

Of Her Father—Whoso ask Her—
He shall seek as high
As the Palm—that serve the Desert—
To obtain the Sky—

Continuing with the Marriage vs. Funeral conceit, this stanza riffs off of the idea of asking the girl for her hand in marriage, which has now turned into asking the Father in heaven for the dead girl's hand. In order to get that permission, you have to seek as high as the Palm in the Desert. What a beautiful image. In the arid deadness of the desert there is a palm reaching up to the sky. (I think of the title of Wallace Steven’s final book, “The Palm at the End of the Mind.”) There may be a pun on Dessert here too with that phrase “that serve the Desert (Dessert)." This may be a stretch, but Dessert IS what usually comes after “serve." And to extend this pun, you have a hand, a Palm, serving the dessert too. As the Palm—that serve the Desert—  Can Dickinson possibly be so clever?

The palm (tree) “serves” the desert, with shade, and perhaps with the sustenance of coconuts, but also, here, it serves the desert to obtain the sky.

Distance—be Her only Motion—
If ’tis Nay—or Yes—
Acquiescence—or Demurral—
Whosoever guess—

The dead girl is at an impossible distance from us now, so we can’t know which motion she gives to the question of marriage, nay or yes? There is a double meaning for motion here. When you see distance as motion, as movement itself, suddenly you find yourself going at light speed.

He—must pass the Crystal Angle
That obscure Her face—
He—must have achieved in person
Equal Paradise—

What an intriguing phrase, "Crystal Angle." What is this Crystal Angle we must pass between this world and the next? Is this referring to something specific, like the lens of a telescope? My first thought, in keeping with Dickinson's idea of "Tell the truth but tell it slant" is that you have to “slant” a crystal lens between this world and the next at just the right angle to “see” the beloved girl. The only way to do that, we are told in the next lines, is to achieve "in person/ Equal Paradise—”

The first meaning of achieving "Equal Paradise" is that you would have to die (a la Romeo or Heathcliff) to join the beloved girl if you wish to join her.

But the second meaning could be…anything that takes you beyond the veil. You just have to turn the angle of the crystal right.

One other thought is that this poem could be, posthumously, about Dickinson herself. She never left the Homestead until her death. Never did a bride have such assembling as Dickinson has readers for her poems. Her "feet" (poetic feet) are fitter than art of snow or trick or Lily. Distance is her only motion. And to read her poems clearly you have to slant the crystal at just the right angle. Finally, to meet her where she now is you have achieve Equal Paradise.


       -/)dam Wade l)eGraff






Notes:

1. It would be instructive to look at just the poems Dickinson makes trochaic and take note of the various reasons why she makes this choice. Since it runs counter to the norm, it is always, I believe, a conscious choice made for a purpose, so the question is, why did she make this choice for this particular poem?

One theory: this poem itself passes through a crystal angle, you might say, by inverting the common iambic rhythm into a trochaic rhythm. The English language lends itself most easily to the iambic rhythm, which is why poets most often use it, but the trochaic rhythm echoes that sound of the heartbeat itself, DUM dum DUM dum DUM dum.

2. I went down a bit of a rabbit hole with Crystal Angles. There is a lot there, and its hard to know if Dickinson was just playing off the mathematical properties of the way crystals are formed. But here's an intriguing bit from the Happy Scientist website:

"How can a random assortment of molecules arrange themselves in geometric shapes with such smooth sides and precise angles?

It has to do with how the molecules fit together. Imagine a jigsaw puzzle. You start with a pile of strangely shaped pieces, but when you put them together, you wind up with a rectangular shape, with smooth sides and sharp corners. No matter how many times you take it apart and put it back together, the puzzle will always form the same shape, with the same angles at the corners.

While molecules in a quartz crystal are not shaped like jigsaw pieces, they do fit together in a very specific way to form the crystal. A common example is a quartz crystal. A well formed quartz crystal has six sides, forming a hexagonal crystal that usually comes together at the end to form a point. The angles where those six sides meet will always be exactly 120°. It does not matter if the crystal is large or small, thick or thin, long or short. The flat parts of the crystal, called crystal faces, may be different sizes, producing crystals with different shapes, but the angles between those faces will still be 120°."

A little Road— not made of Man—

A little Road— not made of Man—
Enabled of the Eye—
Accessible to Thill of Bee—
Or Cart of Butterfly—

If Town it have—beyond itself—
'Tis that— I cannot say—
I only know— no Curricle
that rumbles there
Bear Me—


       -F758, J646, Fascicle 34, 1863

The surface reading of this poem goes:

There is a road that the eye can see, 

accessible to the way of the bee 

and butterfly, but not to me. 

It's fanciful, with those butterfly carts, and a bit wistful too at the end. There's a sighing wish to be able to follow those bees and butterflies and take to the skies. 

But just as Dickinson wants to know where this sky-road leads to, we wish to know where this poem is going. Can we follow it? Some clues:

1. The first idiosyncrasy I notice is the odd lay out of the final lines. The way this poem is laid out in the fascicle is exactly as I have shown it above. 

The way the lay out makes most sense to me, scansion-wise, is,

I only know— no Curricle
that rumbles there bear Me—

This matches the 4/3 hymn meter rhythm that runs through the rest of the poem, but it isn’t the way Dickinson did it.

A compromise, and the way Christanne Miller has it in "Poems Preserved," goes like this,

I only know— no Curricle that rumbles there
Bear me— 

I imagine Miller made this decision because “that” is not capitalized in the fascicle, which leads you to think it may belong to the line above it. Also “Bear” is capitalized, which, since it is a verb, indicates that it gets its own line. 

This all may seem like a petty thing to worry about, but with Dickinson the power is so often in the subtleties.

Here’s one theory as to why Dickinson laid out this poem the way she did. If you laid the last two lines out in hymn meter, according to 4/3 patterning, it would put an iambic emphasis on the “Me” at the end of the poem, because you are following along to an iambic rhythm. In the Dickinson handwritten version, though, the “Bear Me,” sitting as it does by itself, becomes trochaic, and therefore the emphasis is on the word “Bear.” The emphasis is more on the “bearing,” the carrying, than on the “Me.” That’s a very small, very significant change. Also having that short final line carries the sense of a plea, almost a command: “Bear Me!”

This all makes even more sense when you read the poem that proceeds this one in Fascicle 34, which, is about requiring a “Thee” for “Bliss.” You need a lover to be carried into the skies. Or, in other words, in keeping with this poem, you must be born by your lover if you are going to “rumble” to the heavens.

If we go with this reading, then Dickinson is asking her lover, in the most subtle of ways, to bear with her, and, further, to bear her into the air, unto that road to Bliss.

2.

The “bee” and the “butterfly,” if you are following the Dickinson-lover-mystery-game, both seem to be code names, which also adds to the mystery of what’s happening here too.

If we view Dickinson’s entire oeuvre as one masterwork than the bee is an ever accruing symbol of deep meaning to Dickinson. It is also, always, I believe, an actual bee. Same with the butterfly.

We have a few new words in this poem. Thill. A thill is one of the two shafts that extend from the body of a cart or carriage, on either side of the animal that pulls. And we have “curricle,” which is a two wheeled racing chariot. It’s a great word here, because it carries within it the latin root curriculum. This also makes you think of “current.” The Curricle would "rumble" through the sky. It's the sound of thunder!  There is now a current of air in the picture; a storm breeze. Now I think of the Dickinson classic, one of earliest poems , F26,

In the name of the Bee –
And of the Butterfly –
And of the Breeze – Amen!

3. The road not made of man is a clue of sorts to the meaning of this poem too. There is something beyond us, a road through the sky, in the spiritual realm. It reminds me of the lyrics from The Grateful Dead's song, "Ripple."

Let it be known there is a fountain
That was not made by the hands of men.

There is a road, no simple highway
Between the dawn and the dark of night.

4.  Another thing to consider is the doubleness of “eye” and “I” in the second line, “Enabled of the eye.” The way this is worded may mean that only the eye is able to follow the road of the butterfly and bee, but it may also mean that the road is enabled BY the eye. It wouldn’t exist without being seen, just as this poem would no longer exist if it was no longer being read.

Thus, deep philosophy may be gleaned from this seemingly simple poem:  our "eye" enables the vision of the way, but, paradoxically, it's a Reality beyond our own making.  

     -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

 A curricle

Notes: 

1. The way the final lines of this poem are printed in most online versions is

I only sigh,--no vehicle
Bears me along that way.

Why is this common version so different from the fascicle? Well, Dickinson does provide “sigh” and “vehicle” as alternative word choices in the fascicle, so that change is fair game. “Sigh” is more romantic and full of pathos than “know,” and “vehicle” is a more common word than “curricle.” But the final lines have been changed completely. Did some early editor try to “fix” the ending by adding that phrase “along the way.“ 

In a letter to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Dickinson explains why she didn’t like to see her poems in print. She comments in the letter about her famous poem which begins, “A narrow fellow in the grass."

“Lest you meet my Snake and suppose I deceive it was robbed of me – defeated too of the third line by punctuation. The third and fourth were one – I told you I did not print – I feared you might think me ostensible."

Inevitably some publisher would try to “fix” her careful arrangement of the poem and “defeat” it. The last thing a publisher would wish to do is make Dickinson ostensible, right? So, it matters. This is also an argument that the best way to read the poem is probably the original handwritten one.

 Here is a photo of the original published version of the poem here. You can see that the publisher not only changed the syntax of "Narrow Fellow in the Grass," but also imposed a title upon the poem.

2. I’ve noticed that in another poem, with “Bee” in it Dickinson uses the verb “Bear." See F642, in which there appears to be a pun on “honey bear” in the line “A honey bear away.” I don’t know if there is anything to this coincidence, but it has me curious regarding bears and bees in Dickinson's lexicological landscape.

I think to Live—may be a Bliss

I think to Live—may be a Bliss     
To those who dare to try—           
Beyond my limit to conceive—
My lip—to testify—

I think the Heart I former wore
Could widen—till to me
The Other, like the little Bank
Appear—unto the Sea—

I think the Days—could every one
In Ordination stand—
And Majesty—be easier—
Than an inferior kind—

No numb alarm—lest Difference come—
No Goblin—on the Bloom—
No start in Apprehension's Ear,
No Bankruptcy—no Doom—

But Certainties of Sun—

Midsummer—in the Mind—
A steadfast South—upon the Soul—
Her Polar time—behind—

The Vision—pondered long—
So plausible becomes
That I esteem the fiction—real—
The Real—fictitious seems—

How bountiful the Dream—
What Plenty—it would be—
Had all my Life but been Mistake
Just rectified—in Thee

    -F757, J646, Fascicle 34, 1863

Who is the "Thee" that this poem refers to at the end? David Preest suggests "Christ" as one possibility. That works. Judith Farr suggests that it is "that beloved master whom Emily could not marry." It's a fun game to try to solve the mystery of who the specific "Thee" is that Dickinson is writing about from poem to poem, but, because a poem is an experience between the poet and the reader, I propose that the reader of the poem is its truest object. Let us assume that Dickinson sewed these poems into packets to preserve them for her future readers, meaning, most intimately, you and me. This very poem, in one of dozens of little sewn together books, was preserved for whom, if not a future reader? Therefore, goes my logic, the Thee is thee, and we may read the poems as if we were the requisite Other. Without a doubt, on the most immediate level, we are. Without our eyes the poem doesn’t exist. Or, put another way, as we read the poem, it only exists, in that moment, for us. 

Let's take this poem stanza by stanza. 

I think to Live—may be a Bliss
To those who dare to try—
Beyond my limit to conceive—
My lip—to testify—

One of the joys of reading a Dickinson poem is the way it builds meaning, word by word and line by line. So let's start with just the first half of the first line, I think to Live. That’s Emily, alright, who certainly lived through thought. You could stop the poem there and it would still be a worthy fragment. 

But then there's the rest of the line: I think to Live—may be a Bliss. Emily famously wrote “I dwell in possibility.” The possibility here, well worth dwelling upon, is that living may be a Bliss.

To those who dare to try—

This feels like a challenge doesn't it? It's a dare! It's inspiring. It challenges you to want to try.

Beyond my limit to conceive—

The Bliss, because it requires "Thee," is beyond the speaker's limit of conception. You can’t conceive of it on your own. It is more than just “thought.” 

So there is a double possible meaning here to the line following this one, depending on how you read it.  The following line may be saying it’s beyond my lips to testify, because I can't conceive of it, or, it may be saying, my lip will testify, because beyond my limit, with Thee, I've experienced Bliss. It’s both beyond our ability to describe, and, once the self has been “rectified” with Thee and conceived, beyond limit, that the lip may testify. 

Nobody can multiply meaning like Dickinson can, with the possible exception of Shakespeare. There are other readings I can make of this stanza too. The slipperiness of the dashes are part of what allow these ambiguities to happen, which is just one of the many reasons they are such a subtly powerful form of punctuation. The effect of the resulting ambiguities is an opening up of the poem to the reader’s imagination, and thus to the reader’s self, to the conception beyond limit.

Bliss may be beyond our ability to testify about, but, at the same time, this very poem is testament. It's here in the *majestic sweep of its language.

I know we have a tendency to want to “pick a lane” when it comes to having a take on a poem, but Dickinson, due to her multi-track mind and deft use of language, makes it difficult.  She just keeps opening up more lanes.

I think the Heart I former wore
Could widen—till to me
The Other, like the little Bank
Appear—unto the Sea—

How about the weird future-past combo here? I think the heart I former wore (past tense) could widen (future possibility.) It’s as if the heart is in mid-air, neither there, yet, nor any longer here.

If the Self dares, then “The Other” shore would “Appear unto the Sea” The Little bank on the other side would widen to become “unto the Sea.”  I've noticed Dickinson likes the ambiguities of the word "unto." Here it allows a mind-bending transformation from little Bank to Sea.

There are other ways I can read these lines too. The meanings widen with each voyage back and forth between shores, each pass between Emily’s bank of meaning and mine.

I think the Days—could every one
In Ordination stand—
And Majesty—be easier—
Than an inferior kind—

The majesty of the language in this poem is fitting for the majesty of the subject matter. If this poem seems to be reaching for Other for validation, it has, regardless, already achieved that validation in the language itself. If this poem is saying every day may be a majestic ordination, it is proving this to be true by couching the statement in a majestic language.

Does this majestic ordination really necessitate an Other? Yes, and no. The Self may be also read as a kind of Other, after all. See Emily’s mirror poems for more on this, for  example, F693. It's complicated. I'm convinced Dickinson's poetry, and expansiveness, came as much from solitude as it did her relationships. A great paradox in her poetry is the way the poems, like this one, exist, somehow, in the liminal space in between.

Majesty be easier than an inferior kind 

Nearly every line of Dickinson’s seems to have some wrinkle to it, some kind of a riddle. What does this one have? What would an inferior “kind” be? Something unkind? Something less kind? Not only does every line of this poem seem to have multiple angles, so do many of the words. Kind, for instance, may mean “sort” or “caring” or “kindred," or, as I think it may here, all three at once.

No numb alarm—lest Difference come—
No Goblin—on the Bloom—
No start in Apprehension's Ear,
No Bankruptcy—no Doom—

Bum bum BUM. In this stanza the “M”s come marching in, and with them, some doubt.  The internal rhyme of numb/alarm/come/bloom/doom is strong and a bit sinister. We are hearing in the sound itself a kind of red flag. Difference is cause for an alarm. Is it? The little shore turning into the Sea seems so ideal, on first glance, but if we are all just “Sea,” then where is our shore, our unique self? Dickinson is both grieving loss and retreating here, I believe. She is sounding the very alarm she is speaking of, you might say. There is a goblin here, but maybe, in Dickinson’s goth sensibility, a goblin is not unwanted. This bend in the poem, if there indeed is one, also puts “apprehension” into question. Perhaps apprehension is necessary? And bankruptcy? And even Doom?

Dickinson has flexed this idea elsewhere, like in F320, "Internal difference where the meanings are” and in F706, and its meditation on "The white sustenance/ Despair."

Dickinson could also be saying here that it is alarm itself that brings the goblin to our differences. Without alarm our differences would not be a problem,

But Certainties of Sun—
Midsummer—in the Mind—
A steadfast South—upon the Soul—
Her Polar time—behind—

Ah, look how Dickinson retains just a touch of the UM feeling of the previous stanza with Midsummer. She's so masterful with her use of sound.

That “But certainties of the sun" could mean, “No more goblin, no more Doom, but only certainties of the sun.” But, that “But” could also be a negation. But for the certainties of the sun we would still have our differences, our own space, our sustaining despair. The Dickinson poem so often shows both sides of the equation. You learn to look for these "differences," lest you get too caught up with one side or the other.

It’s so so tricky with Dickinson. There is no other way to get underneath the multiplicities of meaning  without heading out into rough water. I know that I’m still only treading the surface of this poem, but at least I know I’m swimming in it.

The Vision—pondered long—
So plausible becomes
That I esteem the fiction—real—
The Real—fictitious seems—

Here is another stanza that could be read against itself. Is the “Vision” heartbreaking because its not real? Or is it liberating because it is fiction? There is a sense of Fiction’s possible victory over the Real here, and yet, we know that Bliss depends on a real connection outside the bounds of fiction…

How bountiful the Dream—
What Plenty—it would be—
Had all my Life but been Mistake
Just rectified—in Thee

How bountiful the Dream. (There’s that M again.) Again, is it the Real that is bountiful, or the dream itself?

I can even see a double meaning in “What plenty it would be/ had all my life had been mistake." This may be read as the poet saying she embraces the mistake, and its plenty.  

I know this reading goes against the surface reading, which says the dream would come true and be plenty if the mistake of the my life was rectified (made upright) by Thee. But Dickinson is wily. Words like “rectified” go against her “slant” nature.

Nonetheless, I do think she is acknowledging here the need for love from the reader. It’s just that we, if we love Emily, love the mistake too, the little bank, the nobody at odds finding meaning in “difference.”

     -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Goblin—on the Bloom—

* David Preest, after giving an attempt to parse this poem writes, "But any elucidation of this poem pales into insignificance before the sustained, majestic sweep of its language.”

I can appreciate Preest throwing his hands up at his attempt to elucidate the poem in the face of the actual poetry and succumbing to the “majestic sweep” of the poem’s language. It's always worth remembering. 

Notes: There are several word substitutions Dickinson provides for this poem in the MS. Some scholars believe that these alternative words are meant to be part of the poem itself. It certainly can aid in understanding the meaning of the poem. You can look at them yourself in the fascicle here.  You can also see a rare crossed out word. "Appear" is crossed out (disappears!) and becomes "becomes," probably to heighten the "UM" sound in that stanza. 

Bereavement in their death to feel

Bereavement in their death to feel
Whom We have never seen—
A Vital Kinsmanship import
Our Soul and theirs—between—

For Stranger—Strangers do not mourn—
There be Immortal friends
Whom Death see first—'tis news of this
That paralyze Ourselves—

Who, Vital only to Our Thought—
Such Presence bear away
In dying—'tis as if Our +Souls
Absconded—suddenly—

+ World, Selves, Sun


     -F756, J645, Fascicle 34, 1863


Have you ever mourned the loss of someone you never met because that person’s art moved you?  You feel a Kinship with this person even though you’ve never met them. That’s what this poem appears to be about. I've felt that way often. I remember finding myself in tears when Lou Reed died and feeling the same sense of wonder about it as Dickinson seems to be feeling here. There is a kind of mystical connection felt in bereavement that seems to transcend the material world.

For Stranger—Strangers do not mourn—
There be Immortal friends

Normally a stranger is not mourned by strangers, goes the logic of this poem, therefore, the person being mourned must not be a stranger. They are, instead, friends, and not just friends, but Immortal friends. We know the deceased artist must not be a stranger because of the way we feel about them.

It is actually in the lack of knowing each other personally that we realize the friendship is in the realm of the Immortal. See the following two fragments from Dickinson’s letters for more on this idea:

"A letter always seemed
to me like Immortality,
for is it not the Mind
alone, without corporeal friend?"

"An hour for books
those enthralling friends
the immortalities"

And, even more interestingly, this relationship, as Dickinson frames it, appears to be two-way. Somehow, even though we have never met them, the artist who has affected us is also affected by us:

A Vital Kinsmanship import
Our Soul and theirs—between—

That syntax implies a two way relationship doesn't it? It seems like to us as if the great Poet we love is our friend, so it is wonderful to think that we are also their friend. It is the reader's love, after all, that they are writing for, abstracted as we may be. On the Immortal level there is no abstraction.

We don’t know who Dickinson is speaking of here, but the odds are on Elizabeth Barrett Browning, a poet Dickinson deeply revered. There are at least 3 other elegiac poems written for EBB in Dickinson’s oeuvre. The chief ones are F600, F627, F637.

We know that in the years after Browning died in 1861 Dickinson was mourning her loss. In “The Dickinson Sublime," we learn from Gary Lee Stonum that “in the twelve to eighteen months following EBB’s death (in 1861) Dickinson had received three pictures of EBB and referred to her in five letters, once asking a friend traveling in Europe, “Should anybody where you go, talk of Mrs. Browning, you must hear for us—and if you touch her Grave, put one hand on the Head for me—her unmentioned Mourner” 

There is one other fragment of writing that I suspect is about EBB. I saw this one, which Dickinson had written on the back of some wallpaper, at the Morgan library exhibition of her work:

"Did you ever
read one of
her Poems back —
ward, because
the plunge from
the front over —
turned you?
I sometimes
often have
many times have —
A something overtakes the
Mind"

What is terrific about all of Dickinson’s poems to Browning is that we could easily apply Dickinson’s words about Browning to Dickinson herself. 

“A something overtakes the Mind.”

      -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Looking up photos of Elizabeth Barrett Browning online I came across this letter of hers, 

which is currently for sale. The part I love about the letter, and I imagine our Immortal friend 

Emily would love too, are the words, "Use me, I beg of you —" And notice the dashes!

Alter! When the Hills do—

Alter! When the Hills do—
Falter! When the Sun
Question if His Glory
Be the Perfect One—

Surfeit! When the Daffodil
Doth of the Dew—
Even as Herself—Sir—
I will—of You—


     -F755, J729, Fascicle 36, 1863

This is the last poem in Fascicle 36. It's a solid closer.

Though the syntax of the second stanza is a little tricky to get, this poem is fairly simple on the surface. Dickinson is telling her lover (and by extension, the reader) that she will never alter her love, that it will never falter, and that she will never grow tired of receiving love back. She compares her love to the hills, which aren’t going anywhere, to the sun, which has a perfection beyond question, and to the Daffodils, which can never get too much of the morning dew.

What is fantastic is that Dickinson is able to keep this promise of long-term love long after her own death through the creation of a perfect poetic form. The perfection of the frame is what locks the content, the love, into place.

This one makes itself special in a few ways.

1. For starters, its meter is trochaic, instead of the normal iambic. This means the rhythm goes TA da TA da TA da instead of the more common ta DA ta DA ta DA. This makes the poem sing-songy and emphatic. The effect is that there is a build up, a push, so that in the final line there is extra emphasis on the “I” beginning the line: I will. And, by switching to an iamb in the last two words, “of You,” there is extra attention created by the rhythmic tension as the new beat falls on “You.”

2. Dickinson also emphasizes the meter by making the first words of the first two lines rhyme, “Alter” and “Falter.” It’s very noticeable and seems to nail the words in place.

3. There are many musical subtleties here too. For instance, in the first line the L sound in "hills" echoes the L sound in “Alter.” This may seem like a small thing, but just try imagine ANY other word besides hills in this line and the perfection of form falls apart.

There are other moments like this in the poem, like the subtle rhyme of “Sur” and “sir,” the V sound in “of you” echoing the V sound in “Even,” and the alliteration of Daffodil, Doth and Dew. It all works to create a gem of a poem that will last the ages.

Another very subtle thing is that the final beat of the trimeter in lines two and four are missing, so that there is extra emphasis on the rhyme of Sun and One. The expectation of the ending beat also has the effect of springing the rhythm forward to the next line, which gives even more oomph to the accented syllable in the trochee that begins it. The effects are exquisitely controlled.

4. The end stop of the first line lets loose into the enjambment of the second line into the third and then, continuing, in the fourth line. There is a subtle feeling created of bursting forth, like water from a dam. The second stanza also enjambs, but in the flow that follows the first line there are internal dashes for extra rhythmic variation, all perfectly balanced.

The form of this poem has the solidity of the hills, the brilliance of the sun and the beauty of the daffodils of which it speaks. Therefore, simply reading it reassures us in the same way that nature does. It enmeshes us in a feeling of an eternal sublime.

    -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

When the Daffodil Doth of the Dew...

Let Us play Yesterday –

Let Us play Yesterday –
I – the Girl at school –
You – and Eternity – the
Untold Tale –

Easing my famine
At my Lexicon –
Logarithm – had I – for Drink –
’Twas a dry Wine –

Somewhat different – must be –
Dreams tint the Sleep –
Cunning Reds of Morning
Make the Blind – leap –

Still at the Egg-life –
Chafing the Shell –
When you troubled the Ellipse –
And the Bird fell –

Manacles be dim – they say –
To the new Free –
Liberty – Commoner –
Never could – to me –

’Twas my last gratitude
When I slept – at night –
’Twas the first Miracle
Let in – with Light –

Can the Lark resume the Shell –
Easier – for the Sky –
Wouldn’t Bonds hurt more
Than Yesterday?

Wouldn’t Dungeons sorer grate
On the Man – free –
Just long enough to taste
Then – doomed new –

God of the Manacle
As of the Free –
Take not my Liberty
Away from Me.


    -F754, J728, fascicle 36, 1863

You are in school. It's boring. Someone comes along and suddenly there's a spark, one that school studies could never give you. Pretty soon you are on fire. Now you can never go back to your boring and studious life. If you did, the status quo would be worse than before, because now you have tasted something better. So you are asking, pleading, praying, for the lover to stay.

That's the basic idea for this poem. But the poem, just like its subject matter, takes you beyond the basic, just as a new found love might.

Let us play Yesterday –
I – the Girl at school –
You – and Eternity – the
Untold Tale –

The compression of this first line lets you take it a few different ways. It could be looking backwards: let us play a game of pretending we are young, which we will call Yesterday. Or it could be focused on the present: let us play today just like we did yesterday. And, if you flip to the third line, the future is in play too: Eternity. 

In past, present and future, "play" is at the fore. "Play" was also a key player in the last poem in this fascicle. (It is fascinating to watch words and ideas weave in and out of Dickinson's poetry like thread.) In that poem "Play" meant to play false. Here, though, play seems ripe with potential. Play is in play. 

The "Untold Tale" is full of potential too, especially following the word "Eternity." Eternity would be a very loooong story. (Can any story actually be eternal? I watched a soap opera with my mom for 10 years growing up, Days of Our Lives, which is still going on today four decades later. So maybe a tale can go forever? Why not? But it's bound to get boring eventually, no? A shorter tale is sweeter,  poignantly so.) 

The Untold Tale has now, perhaps, been told. You get the feeling that Dickinson is wishing the tale hadn't yet been told. The current tale is sad, as we shall see. This poem is doubly down in the present, because not only has love gone away, but now there is the added burden of knowing what it is we are missing. The poet wants to go back, or at least bring the back forward. But she also knows, perhaps, it can't be. 

I wonder why Dickinson left that "the" hanging there after the third line? It's unusual, as it would make the lines scan better if the "the" began the following line. It's as if that "the" was leading elsewhere.  With another poet we might write something like this off, but with Dickinson aberrations are best seen as purposeful. 

Easing my famine
At my Lexicon –
Logarithm – had I – for Drink –
’Twas a dry Wine –

Before the untold tale began the author had to ease her hunger with her lexicon, which is to say her dictionary. Lexicon is another beloved word of Dickinson's that means more and more with each poem in which it appears. 

There is now a Dickinson Lexicon online that tells you what words meant in Dickinson's time. For the word Lexicon, the Dickinson Lexicon gives us: "word, diction, phrase. Interpreter's guide; vocabulary of a specific group; language of a particular domain. Dictionary; word book; alphabetical arrangement of words with definitions of each. Explanation; translation; key to the significance of something; tool for determining the meaning of words."

But for Emily of course, Lexicon could signify something even more than the word's denotation. Lexicon is a metonym for poetry itself. So when Dickinson says she is easing her famine at her lexicon, this may be taken as a spin on Dickinson's poetics. For what is she doing with this very poem, if not easing her famine with her lexicon? 

Dickinson made a meal of her Lexicon and washed it down with some math. Logarithms are like "dry wine." They are dry, but they can still make you tipsy.  It's worth noting that Emily's schoolgirl friend, Sue Gilbert, whom she was in love with, was a mathematician.  It's also worth noting that Sue had been married to Emily's brother for seven years when this poem was written. I half resist adding these kinds of biographical notes to these commentaries, just because I think these poems should speak for themselves, but sometimes the biographical details are just too good.

Okay, logarithms. Here the Dickinson Lexicon proves quite helpful. "Logarithm: calculation; mathematical function; abridgment of numbers through formulas in trigonometry; [word play on “logos” + “rhythm” or “rhyme”] words; language; lexicon; poetry; metrical verse." 

Aha! Logarithm can also mean the rhythm of words.  When I mentioned this pun to my 14 year old daughter Sofia, she said, "That's so Emily Dickinson of her."

Somewhat different – must be –
Dreams tint the Sleep –
Cunning Reds of Morning
Make the Blind – leap –

First thing I notice here is that "Somewhat." Somewhat usually means just a little, but Dickinson is here talking about a lot, the difference, say, between a thin dry white wine and a full spicy red one. Dreams tint the sleep. (This line reminds me of Wallace Steven's great poem, "Disillusionment of Ten O'clock")

How about "cunning" as a descriptor of a red wine? Try that one out the next time you are describing a good red wine. Red wine in the morning is pretty wild and decadent. It's like that landowner in Canterbury Tales who dips his cake in wine in the morning. 

What else besides wine does red indicate here? Blood, passion, and perhaps, sunrise. 

But wait, who is there with the poet in the morning drinking a red wine? Could this possibly be a morning following an evening of bliss? A bliss to make the Blind leap? The blind aren't just made to see by this red, but to leap!

Still at the Egg-life –

Chafing the Shell –
When you troubled the Ellipse –
And the Bird fell –

Straight from one terrific phrase to another, 

Make the Blind – leap –// Still at the Egg-life –

We are still in the egg-life at school. (I'm reminded of the "ring" in "Because I could not stop for death"..."We passed the School, where Children strove/ At Recess—in the Ring—.")

When do you hatch from the "egg-life?" First love? Well, Sue, if we can believe the letters, was Emily's first real love. 

Chafing the Shell –

Another good line. We push up against our own protective shell, chafing it, wanting out. Chafing is a great verb as it implies an intense and warying process. Meanwhile from the other side of the shell there is another, helping us out by troubling our "ellipse." The other is provoking us to flight.

You can imagine the baby bird trying to get out, while the mother bird taps from the other side to help. It's very sweet, and also, perhaps, a bit scary, because the other is troubling us, troubling our ellipse. Ellipse is great word choice here too. It can mean elliptical, like an egg, but ellipse can also mean "absence." You troubled me into...presence.

And the Bird fell –

There was a leap...and then there was a fall.

I put a tune to this poem, and the way the rhythm of this poem works in song, because of the construction of trochees and iambs in the meter of the lines leading up to this last line, feels as if the bird is indeed falling. There is a build up rhythmically toward a release into that line.  

The bird falling is a great development. You expect "flew," but "fell" is the rhyme for "shell" here. So is the poet falling from the shell or flying? The question is raised. This is what it feels like to fall in love. Are you falling or flying?

’Twas my last gratitude
When I slept – at night –
’Twas the first Miracle
Let in – with Light –

This awakening into love is the poet's last gratitude at night. It is also the miracle, in the morning, that was let in with "Light." The morning is tied in here with birth, with the opening of the shell. Birth, morning, love, gratitude at evening, and, by poetic extension, death, are all tied into this awakening. (How beautiful is it that Sue was still there at the end nursing Dickinson when she died? "'Twas my last gratitude")

Can the Lark resume the Shell –
Easier – for the Sky –
Wouldn’t Bonds hurt more
Than Yesterday?

Dickinson returns to the bird metaphor. She asks, is it easier to go back into your shell after having had the whole sky as yours? You could make an argument that it would be, that at least you got to see the sky for a moment. But Dickinson doesn't think so. She asks a follow up question. Wouldn't bonds hurt more after having tasted freedom? 

Then, to drive the point home she asks a further question,

Wouldn’t Dungeons sorer grate
On the Man – free –
Just long enough to taste
Then – doomed new –

Imagine a man let out of prison, just for a few days. Would he be grateful for those few days of freedom? Or would he be better off if he had never gotten out at all? 

God of the Manacle
As of the Free –
Take not my Liberty
Away from Me.

This last stanza is a hard one to figure. How can God be the God of Manacle and the free? Isn't that a contradiction? Is Dickinson pleading with God to make up his mind here? Or is this plea intended, really, for the liberating lover? God and lover are often conflated in Dickinson's poetry. 

Dickinson could ask a further question here though. Is the blame for this newer and more painful loss of liberty to be placed on the whims of God or lover? Or does the responsibility for this state lay somewhere else? 

It is hard to be alone after having experienced deep soul-stirring passion. I feel this difficulty in so many of Dickinson's poems.

      -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

note: When I was researching this poem, I ended up going down a rabbit hole reading about Mabel Loomis Todd. The love triangle soap opera of Emily's relationship to Sue and Austin was complicated even further when Mabel Loomis Todd came into the picture. Sue and Austin's 20 year old son, Ned, was in love with her. Then Austin, 25 years her senior, fell in love with her, and, much to Sue's chagrin, had a long lasting affair with her. Meanwhile, she had a strange relationship with Emily, whom she played piano for and corresponded with, but never met. Then after Emily died, there was fighting between Todd and the Dickinsons over control of Emily's poems. Todd ended up taking Dickinson's story on a lecture circuit for years, and was instrumental in getting her work published. It must have all really chafed Sue.  It's all much better than Days of Our Lives ever was. 

Grief is a Mouse —

Grief is a Mouse —
And chooses the Wainscot in the Breast
For His Shy House —
And baffles quest—

Grief is a Thief — quick startled —
Pricks His Ear — report to hear
Of that Vast Dark —
That swept His Being — back—

Grief is a Juggler — boldest at the Play —
Lest if He flinch — the eye that way
Pounce on His Bruises — One — say — or Three —
Grief is a Gourmand — spare His luxury —

Best Grief is Tongueless — before He’ll tell —
Burn Him in the Public Square —
His Ashes — will
Possibly — if they refuse — How then know —
Since a Rack couldn’t coax a syllable — now.



     -F753, J793, Fascicle 36, 1863



“And Baffles quest”

This line, which here describes a mouse-like grief, could be said of Dickinson’s poetry as a whole. We do our best to get into the “wainstcot in the breast” of the poems, but the mouse is sly. And this poem too, like its subject, baffles quest.

These metaphors for grief are surprising. Who but Emily Dickinson would equate grief with a mouse, or a juggler? It is this quality of surprise that makes the images stick in our minds.

Grief is a Mouse —
And chooses the Wainscot in the Breast
For His Shy House —
And baffles quest—

How is grief like a mouse? It gnaws and gnaws at us, but it is also shy. It doesn’t want to be seen, doesn’t want to be vulnerable to the preying of cats, so it stays hidden. 

Is this hiding away a good thing? I think that word “shy” here gives us the idea of something that wants to be reached, wants to be discovered. 

“The wainscot in the breast” makes the self into a house. In our house there is a mouse, and, looking forward to the next stanza, it becomes clear that this mouse is stealing our cheese.

Grief is a Thief — quick startled —
Pricks His Ear — report to hear
Of that Vast Dark —
That swept His Being — back—

Grief doesn’t just gnaw at us, it steals from our well-being. I imagine this mouse stealing our cheese, our joy, but being snuck up on, by the cat. Grief the Mouse is terrified by that void, by "that Vast Dark —/ That swept His Being — back—” What a way to put it!

Grief is a Juggler — boldest at the Play —
Lest if He flinch — the eye that way
Pounce on His Bruises — One — say — or Three —

These lines are puzzling. What is it that grief juggles? Emotions? You have to put on one face, while you feel another way. Is that what is meant by “boldest at the Play”? The actor is acting, but acting to suppress the drama, so that the drama stays hidden.

In the first stanza Grief was shy, but here it is bold. How can it be both? It is shy of being found out, but bold in evading being found out. That’s my best guess here. 

If the juggler flinches, he draws fire. You have to keep the act going perfectly well. This is what makes me think Dickinson is possibly talking about the grief of losing a lover here. The pain can’t be found out, or else the jig is up. 

Why does Dickinson write, “One say or Three,” when referring to the bruises? Why not "Two say or Three"?  It’s strange. It seems like a clue, but it baffles quest. Is Dickinson talking about the balls being held in the air? Maybe it is a reference to the one (unity) of two lovers as opposed to the craziness of a lover’s triangle? This fits pretty well the situation that Dickinson was in with Sue and Austin. She was juggling between the oneness of her relationship with Sue and the more fraught relationship of the three of them, in which “oneness” was difficult.

Obviously I’m doing a lot of guessing here. This poem evades detection like the mouse behind the wainscot. Is this poem purposely baffling, in order to evade being understood? If so, it's a catch 22, because that makes us want to figure it out all the more. Dickinson teases us, like a cat teases a mouse.

There is something delicious about this grief too. In the next line we get

Grief is a Gourmand — spare His luxury —

That mouse stealing and eating all the cheese, enjoying the pain. It’s a luxury to hurt. It’s like the heartbroken lover who relishes wallowing in their pain, because it hurts so good.*

Best Grief is Tongueless — before He’ll tell —
Burn Him in the Public Square —
His Ashes — will
Possibly — if they refuse — How then know —
Since a Rack couldn’t coax a syllable — now.

I think there is a sense of sarcasm here that makes me wonder if this poem was aimed at a lover, in order to unleash their grief.  Grief would rather be burned at the stake before tell what it is that grieves it. Before he'll tell, his ashes will, "Possibly." But if they refuse, then even torture will no longer coax another word out. What a shame.

But if Dickinson is speaking of her own grief, and she may well be, then the "syllable" is referring to the  poem itself. What Dickinson is telling us with her tongue is that her grief is tongueless and therefore she isn’t telling. Grief would rather be burned at the stake in public than tell. That's very dramatic! The retreating lover won’t get the satisfaction of knowing they are being grieved over and the dignity of the griever will be left intact.

(In the poem before this one in the fascicle, written for Sue, we have a volcanic mountain retreating. Could this poem be a continuation of the pent-up drama? Quite possibly.)   

In trying to understand an underlying message in this poem I keep coming back to the idea in the second stanza that something is being stolen from us by grief, but the fear of that "vast dark" is keeping us from stopping it. Face your fear, and quit wallowing.

I suspect there is something I'm not quite grasping here yet though. It baffles quest. If you have further ideas, please comment!

     -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

*Dickinson often writes about the benefit of pain. See F706 where she chooses not to live with someone, accepting instead the white sustenance Despair.

I cannot live with You –
It would be Life –
And Life is over there –
Behind the Shelf

So We must meet apart –
You there – I – here –
With just the Door ajar
That Oceans are – and Prayer –
And that White Sustenance – (White) Exercise, Privilege
Despair –

Note: Long time Prowling Bee commentor Larry B has started his own blog. For his take on this poem go there. 

Ah, Teneriffe—Receding Mountain—

Ah, Teneriffe—Receding Mountain—
Purples of Ages halt for you—
Sunset reviews her Sapphire Regiments —
Day—drops you His Red Adieu!

Still clad in your Mail of Ices—
Eye of Granite—and Ear of Steel—
Passive alike—to pomp—and Parting—
Ah, Teneriffe—We’re pleading still—


     -F752, J666, Fascicle 36, 1863


Teneriffe is a volcano in the Canary Islands. Dickinson had a thing for volcanoes as metaphor. There are 9 other poems of hers that mention volcanoes. A couple of them mention Etna, and a couple mention Vesuvius. Taken together, we begin to get a real sense of the meaning. You can read several of them along with a fascinating in-depth essay on the subject here .

In this particular poem you get a sense of the volcano as stand-in for someone that is immune to displays of grandeur, to pomp, insensible to any pleading. It is a cold queen, covered in armor of frost.

And yet, inside, we know, must be boiling hot, ready to blow any minute.

That disparity, all but hidden here, just as it would be to a casual tourist looking at a volcano, is, I think, at the hot heart of this poem.

It is worth comparing this version, which is the one presented by Dickinson in the fascicle, to the version given to Sue Gilbert the year before in 1862:

Ah, Teneriffe!
Retreating Mountain!
Purples of Ages—pause for you—
Sunset—reviews her Sapphire Regiment—
Day—drops you her Red Adieu!

Still—Clad in your Mail of ices—
Thigh of Granite—and thew—of Steel—
Heedless—alike—of pomp—or parting

Ah, Teneriffe!
I’m kneeling—still—

The differences are fascinating. In A., the poem for Sue, who is surely the volcano, the mountain is retreating. In B. it is receding. The purples of ages pause in A. In B. they halt. “Day” is a her in A. and a His in B. "Still" is set off by itself with a dash, twice, in A., giving an air of stillness, but not in B., where it gives us more of a sense of continuance. The “Thigh of Granite” becomes “Eye of granite” and “thew of steel” becomes “Ear of Steel.” Heedless in A. becomes Passive in B. (That’s a big difference, heedless is a quite active verb, just as retreating is more active than receding.). The kneeling of A. becomes, after too much kneeling perhaps, the pleading of B. The exclamation points in A. disappear in B.

Much could be made out of each of the differences if we were to take a magnifying glass to them. But suffice to say that there is a general tone change between the two. The poem for Sue seems to have been written in exclamation-pointed passion, while the later poem has an air of being written in repose. The accusatory “retreating” and “heedless” have turned into the more stolid “receding” and “passive” of the later poem. The sexual hint of “thighs of granite” (that won’t submit) have become “eyes of granite.”

Dickinson, it would seem, is still pleading, but there is an air of acceptance now. The volcano is no longer heedless of Dickinson’s pleas (not to mention those purples, sapphires and reds), but is now merely passive. We’ve gone from a hopeful “pause” to the more definitive “halt.” The poet may be resigned, but, she hasn’t given up. And we know that, eventually, the icy volcano will erupt in fire.

There is much heat below the surface of this poem, as there must have been in the relationship of Emily and Sue. And this is true, too, of all us with our icy exteriors masking a passionate nature.

It is this final point that I want to especially emphasize. This poem, though perhaps first written for Sue, was also written for me and you. It seems to be reminding us that neither an icy exterior, nor an explosive interior, is good for any of us. Melt the ice, and simmer down. The poet is kneeling and pleading still. 

    -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Ah, Teneriffe!

Precious to Me — She still shall be —

Precious to Me — She still shall be —
Though She forget the name I bear —
The fashion of the Gown I wear —
The very Color of My Hair —

So like the Meadows — now —
I dared to show a Tress of Theirs
If haply — She might not despise
A Buttercup’s Array —

I know the Whole — obscures the Part —

The fraction — that appeased the Heart

Till Number’s Empery —
Remembered — as the Milliner’s flower
When Summer’s Everlasting Dower —
Confronts the dazzled Bee.


     -F751, J727, Fascicle 36, 1863


This one becomes more beautiful and dazzling every time I read it. I’ll see if I can say why, though when reading a poem over and over there is a cumulative effect that leads to being overturned, and a dream logic that must be experienced rather than explained.

I’m going to put aside the supposition that most commentators bring up about this poem, that it is for Sue. It may well have been, and was probably accompanied by a buttercup, but to reduce the poem to this is to miss the point of the poem. Forget the names, forget the specificities of the life. “She,” after all, is unnamed here. Forget the fashion of the time (as opposed to the never-goes-out-of-fashion style of the buttercups). Forget the color of the hair. But remember the meadow from which this dead “flower” in the hat on top of the head of hair came from. Unlike us, summer is everlasting. And so is poetry.

Precious to Me — She still shall be —
Though She forget the name I bear —
The fashion of the Gown I wear —
The very Color of My Hair —

This opening almost seems like a complaint, a lament. (Dickinson often begins her poems with this sort of ruse. See F748 in this same fascicle for another good example of a poem that begins with a complaint, but which is really anything but.) 

I will love Her long after She has forgotten my name. This very poem is a kind of proof of this long lasting love. It is a poem still loving, 150 years later. In that sense it reminds me of Shakespeare's famous sonnet 18. It is worth noting that Dickinson's poem is also a 16 line sonnet.

To forget the name of a lover, or the color of their hair, would take a long time, so this poem makes an uncanny move from the get go. It puts us in the future, long after fashions have changed, after the body, itself, perhaps, is gone.

So like the Meadows — now —
I dared to show a Tress of Theirs

The poet has become “So like the Meadows — now —” She has turned into a meadow, Now. The everpresent “nowness” of this poem is akin to the ever present buttercups each spring.

Like Whitman come back as the grass, this poet has come back as a meadow full of flowers. (There is another poem with a similar idea, in which Dickinson actually seems to be one-upping Whitman, "Contending with the Grass —/ Near Kinsman to Herself —” See F642.)

If this idea of a buttercup in a meadow is taken metaphorically to be the poem, then we can extend the trope to say that we still have a field full of Dickinson’s poems, a whole meadow's worth.

The fashions may have changed, but the poems stay in style. (In the case of Dickinson, though, we still do remember her name, and her hair color too. I’ve seen locks of her hair. It still holds its lovely auburn hue.)

I like that Dickinson, having become the meadow, “dared to show a tress of theirs.” There is much to be wondered about in that past tense verb “dared” here. She dared to show us a meadow’s tress,

If haply — She (we) might not despise
A Buttercup’s Array —

If we put ourselves in place of the She here, then we are being shown the returning glory of the spring through Dickinson’s poem, as opposed to that which we may have come to despise, the transient, and eventually forgotten, body.

I know the Whole — obscures the Part —

The fraction — that appeased the Heart

Till Number’s Empery —
Remembered — as the Milliner’s flower
When Summer’s Everlasting Dower —
Confronts the dazzled Bee.

This stanza is hard to parse because "Remembered" modifies "fraction" rather than "Empery." I think it goes like this:

I know the whole obscures the part, but the fraction that appeased my heart, until sheer numbers took over, will be remembered, just as the flower placed by the hat maker* remembers the bee even as the dazzled bee is confronted by the gift of an everlasting summer, the recurring meadows full of flowers.

The flower on the hat is the poet, remembering the bee who once loved her, and whom she still loves. It’s wistful, but also, with the gift of the buttercup, and the poem, the sadness has been transformed into “Summer’s Everlasting Dower.”

         -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

a meadow full of buttercups

*There is the possibility that the milliner’s flower is meant to be artificial here. I like the suggestion of the artificial, as a poem has an artificiality about it, but I think the flower must've had real congress with the bee for this image to really work. 

It's also worth noting that the She in this poem is a Bee. The bee is usually the male part in the analogy of flowers and bees, but not here.

We thirst at first—’tis Nature’s Act—

We thirst at first—’tis Nature’s Act—
And later—when we die—
A little Water supplicate—
Of fingers going by—

It intimates the finer want—
Whose adequate supply
Is that Great Water in the West—
Termed Immortality—


      -F750, J726, Fascicle 36, 1863


This poem would be fairly easy to follow if Dickinson's ideas about Immortality were easier to comprehend. What Emily Dickinson means by “Immortality” in her poems goes far beyond the usual definition of the word. In one of her letters she writes, "It may be she came to show you Immortality." So what is it she came to show us? The following quotes are all taken from her letters.

"No heart that break
but further went than
immortality."

"Emerson's intimacy with
his "Bee" only
immortalized him."

"The risks of immortality
are perhaps its charm."

"A letter always seemed
to me like Immortality,
for is it not the Mind
alone, without corporeal friend?"

"Dear friend, can you walk,
were the last words that I wrote her.
Dear friend, I can fly-
her immortal reply."

"An hour for books
those enthralling friends
the immortalities"

"The immortality of flowers
must enrich our own."

See what I mean by difficult to pin down?

This poem makes a connection between a natural desire for water, and a finer desire for Immortality, symbolized by "that Great Water in the West." This begs the question of what the connection between a natural thirst and spiritual thirst might be. What is this connection? Thirst is a biological response necessary to maintain the body's required need for H20. There is an evolutionary basis to it.

Inside of time, thirst makes sense. It makes sense because a fuel-based energy system could only exist inside of time. Something has to keep you going. Thirst can only exist inside of in time, and time can only exist, you might even say, because of thirst. Time and thirst are inextricable.

Being material creatures we are stuck in this order of time, poignantly and wonderfully so.

But what might this finer spiritual thirst for Immortality be? Is fuel needed in the world of spirit? Can there be any desire at all when you have Immortality?

Might what we are thirsting for be no more thirsting? And, if so, isn't that what death is?

Okay, back to the poem.

And later—when we die—
A little Water supplicate—
Of fingers going by—

Later —when we die— we are still supplicating for water. To supplicate is to beg earnestly. It starts from birth and ends with the grave. Life is a beggar’s banquet to quote Mick Jagger.

...fingers going by—

We take our water from fingers going by, such a touching, tender image, brushing fingertips as they hand us water, fingers that are warm, tingling, reaching, full of the energy of life.

It intimates the finer want—
Whose adequate supply

Dickinson internally rhymes "supplicate" with "intimate" and then "adequate." This rhyme stands out in this poem. There is something intimate and supplicating in this poem, something leading us toward the "adequate."

What is this finer want that leads us to the adequate supply? I don't think finer means better here (because how can you get better than water?) but rather finer as in more refined, more subtle.

Is that Great Water in the West—
Termed Immortality—

That Great Water in the West. What is it? Is it beauty? Like the beauty of a sun setting in the West? Is it Truth? The sunset represents the glory of an inflamed love upon the poignancy of leaving.

Perhaps it is being fully present and aware of our mortality that leads us to Immortality.


       -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Immortality by William Michael Harnett, 1876

P.S. It is worth repeating this quote one more time:

"No heart that break
but further went than
immortality."

Where Thou art — that — is Home

Where Thou art — that — is Home
Cashmere — or Calvary — the same —
Degree — or Shame —
I scarce esteem Location's Name —
So I may Come —

What Thou dost — is Delight —
Bondage as Play — be sweet —
Imprisonment — Content —
And Sentence — Sacrament —
Just We two — meet —

Where Thou art not — is Woe —
Tho' Bands of Spices — row —
What Thou dost not — Despair —
Tho' Gabriel — praise me — Sire —


     -F749, J725, fascicle 36, 1863


David Preest points out that this poem has a tightly organized structure: "‘Where Thou art’ is described in five lines, and then ‘What thou dost’ in five lines. In the contrasting last stanza ‘Where thou art not’ and ‘What thou dost not’ get two lines each.” It is fascinating to see the structures Dickinson invented upon which to hang her thoughts. I also like the subtle distinction Dickinson makes in this poem between Being (Thou art) and Doing (Thou dost).

The poem begins,

Where Thou art — that — is Home
Cashmere — or Calvary — the same —

The word Calvary brings the idea of Christ into this poem, though that doesn’t mean it is about Christ, as some commentators insist. You would think so, perhaps, at first, because of those Thous, and the appearance of Gabriel at the end, but Dickinson very often conflates worldly love with religious symbolism, and I suspect this poem was written about a lover. Besides, if this poem was about Christ, then I don't think cashmere OR Calvary would be equated as the same. It would be Calvary all the way.

The juxtapositions of pairs are intriguing in this poem. There is much that could be made of Cashmere vs. Calvary. Cashmere is a tactile luxury. Calvary represents torture upon a cross. The juxtaposition of the two invokes not only rich vs. poor, but also pleasure vs. pain, and, ultimately, selfishness vs. selflessness. The two would normally be set up against each other like so, but here they are both summarily dismissed. What does any of it matter, the poet says, as long as “Thou” art near?

               — the same —

Degree — or Shame —

“Degree” means honor, according to the Dickinson lexicon. Honor is usually set against shame, but again, they are seen as one and the same in the realm of love.

I scarce esteem Location's Name —
So I may Come —

In fact, location itself is suspect. I can come to you wherever, says the poet. Home, it would seem, is where the proverbial heart is, but the way Dickinson puts this gives us the added sense that in the naming of location and the placing of self in said location, there is something taken away from connection.

Naming your location is a way of saying I am “here,” which automatically places the other “there.” To do away with this distance is the goal. To “come,” one must forget location.

There are more thought-provoking juxtapositions in the second stanza, imprisonment vs. contentment, sentence vs. sacrament, but the most intriguing one is

Bondage as Play — be sweet —

There is a possible suggestion of sexuality in this poem, with the line “I may come” and the Shakespearean idea of “Doing,” as in, doing the sexual act. So this line seems like it could have that vibe in it too. Seeing a sexual connotation here may just be a case of interpreting with modern eyes, but “bondage as play” is such an odd turn of phrase that it’s hard not to see this possibility here. There is another possibly sexual allusion near the end of the poem with the reference to the angel Gabriel, but I'll discuss that when we get to it. 

Imprisonment (is)— Content —
And Sentence — Sacrament —
Just We two — meet —

After the power dynamics of bondage and sentencing have been brought up, this final line of the second stanza makes me think that there may be a double meaning to “meet.” Just we two meet together, but also, just we two are “meet,” as in “proper” or “suitable.” In other words, these dynamics work for us, they are proper in the context of our relationship. “Meet” here rhymes, after all, with “Sweet”.

Where Thou art not — is Woe —
Tho' Bands of Spices — row —

I was intrigued by the idea of bands of spices rowing. I picture spices banded up together in boats and rowed to shore for trade across continents. This, like cashmere earlier in the poem, evokes exotic sensual pleasure.

Any other ideas, dear reader, about what "Bands of Spices — row —" might mean?

What Thou dost not — Despair —

Tho' Gabriel — praise me — Sire —

Gabriel praising the poet evokes Luke 1:26, when the angel Gabriel praises Mary and tells her she is pregnant with Christ. “And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favored, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.”

(It’s worth mentioning that both this poem and the poem previous to this one in Fascicle 36 make reference to the two most common prayers of Catholicism, The Lord’s Prayer, which is referenced in F748 and The Hail Mary in this one.)

The last two lines of this poem may also be taken in a sexual way. What you do not do (to me) causes me despair, even if Gabriel tells me that, though a virgin, I’ve become pregnant with Christ. That may be an interpretive stretch but the suggestion is there.

The heightened language of “Thou art” and “bands of spices” and “Sire” gives this poem a tone of seriousness, but it is also playful; Bondage as Play. There is a tone of deep reverence and yet it also is a bit naughty. In other words you can find in this poem both "Degree — or Shame —".

So which is it? Where can you locate this poem, this poet? You don't. You can't. You just enter it. 

I scarce esteem Location's Name —
So I may Come —

      -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Tho' Bands of Spices — row —

P.S. The focus on being and doing in this poem reminded me of this great Kurt Vonnegut quote:

“To be is to do - Socrates

To do is to be - Sartre

Do Be Do Be Do - Sinatra”