I've heard my Father tell—
And Owls do build in Oaks—
So here's an Amber Sill—
That slanted in my Path—
When going to the Barn—
And if it serve You for a House—
Itself is not in vain—
About the price—'tis small—
I only ask a Tune
At Midnight—Let the Owl select
His favorite Refrain.
-F728, J699, Fascicle 35, 1863
A judge is like an owl; perceptive, authoritative, solemn, august, and somewhat mysterious. The poet’s father tells her this, so we can add didactic and patriarchal to this list. We might also think of Judgment from on high and God the Father here.
“And owls do build in oaks.” Oaks are strong and rooted, and if you are a judge, you want to be rooted in strength. Wise owls, like judges, build in strong oaks.
In the the last line of the first stanza you get the pivot that this poem spins on. Wise owls build in oaks? Okay you judges, “So here’s an Amber sill.” We’ve gone from the mighty oak, to an amber sill, which is Dickinson’s branch off this oak. Poetry has entered the picture. And it’s entered the picture at a slant. You can’t hear the word “slant” in a Dickinson poem without hearing the echo of her lines, “Tell the truth, but tell it slant,” (F1263) or, “There's a certain slant of light” (F320). You might also think of Dickinson’s famous use of “slant” rhyme, which she uses in this poem itself to great effect.
In this poem the reader encounters Dickinson's slanted Amber Sill, the one in her "Path,” i.e. in the Path of the poet. Amber is another rich word. Things are preserved in Amber, not unlike how poetic form preserves words. The color Amber lights up majestically in the sun. And “Sill” is the thing at the edge of a window, the ledge upon which rests vision and possibility. This is what is to serve the owl, in this poem, as a house. The slanted Amber Sill might just be the poem itself.
We have made quite the turn in this poem from the Father’s world of judgment to the poet’s world of midnight tunes on amber sills. We’ve gone from patriarchy to poetry, from judgment to music, from criticism to nurturing.
I love the generosity in the lines “And if it serve You for a House—/ Itself is not in vain—” The poet’s slanted "Amber Sill” is not in vain if it can give the reader, the one who is judging this poem afterall, a home. That’s kind. The judge isn’t giving anything to the poet here. Rather the poet is allowing the judge a perch on her modest, but gorgeous, Amber Sill. And all she asks is a song in return. She's not going to judge the judge though. The judge may present her with whatever song it desires.
Who?
-/)dam Wade l)eGraff
P.S. In Christanne Miller's anthology of Dickinson's poems she offers this note, "The Judge is: may refer flirtatiously to Otis Lord, at this point a close friend of her father's ad a judge on the Massachusetts Superiour court; the northeastern long-eared owl is named Asio Otus." Ha. Later, in the 1870s, Dickinson would, purportedly, nearly marry Judge Otis, so in a way this poem may be prescient. If she offered a “home” to Judge Otis, perhaps it would be her Amber Sill.
In the the last line of the first stanza you get the pivot that this poem spins on. Wise owls build in oaks? Okay you judges, “So here’s an Amber sill.” We’ve gone from the mighty oak, to an amber sill, which is Dickinson’s branch off this oak. Poetry has entered the picture. And it’s entered the picture at a slant. You can’t hear the word “slant” in a Dickinson poem without hearing the echo of her lines, “Tell the truth, but tell it slant,” (F1263) or, “There's a certain slant of light” (F320). You might also think of Dickinson’s famous use of “slant” rhyme, which she uses in this poem itself to great effect.
In this poem the reader encounters Dickinson's slanted Amber Sill, the one in her "Path,” i.e. in the Path of the poet. Amber is another rich word. Things are preserved in Amber, not unlike how poetic form preserves words. The color Amber lights up majestically in the sun. And “Sill” is the thing at the edge of a window, the ledge upon which rests vision and possibility. This is what is to serve the owl, in this poem, as a house. The slanted Amber Sill might just be the poem itself.
We have made quite the turn in this poem from the Father’s world of judgment to the poet’s world of midnight tunes on amber sills. We’ve gone from patriarchy to poetry, from judgment to music, from criticism to nurturing.
I love the generosity in the lines “And if it serve You for a House—/ Itself is not in vain—” The poet’s slanted "Amber Sill” is not in vain if it can give the reader, the one who is judging this poem afterall, a home. That’s kind. The judge isn’t giving anything to the poet here. Rather the poet is allowing the judge a perch on her modest, but gorgeous, Amber Sill. And all she asks is a song in return. She's not going to judge the judge though. The judge may present her with whatever song it desires.
Who?
-/)dam Wade l)eGraff
P.S. In Christanne Miller's anthology of Dickinson's poems she offers this note, "The Judge is: may refer flirtatiously to Otis Lord, at this point a close friend of her father's ad a judge on the Massachusetts Superiour court; the northeastern long-eared owl is named Asio Otus." Ha. Later, in the 1870s, Dickinson would, purportedly, nearly marry Judge Otis, so in a way this poem may be prescient. If she offered a “home” to Judge Otis, perhaps it would be her Amber Sill.
P.P.S. There is a fantastic blog called "Dickinson's Birds" in which you can see the original MS of Dickinson poems followed by sound bites of bird songs they refer to. Here's the post for this poem.
OED (2024) defines “sill” first as a horizontal piece of wood forming the lower part of a window, but “sill” is also an alternate word for “thill”, which is a shaft(s) of wood on the front of a carriage or wagon that attaches to the harness of a horse.
ReplyDeleteEDLex (2024) defines “sill” as (1) Tree branch; base for bird nest, (2) Threshold, (3) Foundation; basic premise.
In this poem, ED tells us “Owls do build in Oaks -/ So here's an Amber Sill- // That slanted in my Path - / When going to the Barn –”. ED is probably using the “tree branch” definition of “sill”.
Miller’s (2016) Footnote 300: “‘The Judge is like the Owl’ may refer flirtatiously to Otis Lord, at this point a close friend of her father's and a judge on the Massachusetts Superior Court.” Miller’s prepositional phrase, “at this point”, means 1863. Judge Lord was a long-time friend of ED’s father.
Miller’s adverb, “flirtatiously” reminds us that ED loved to flirt with older men. This 1863 poem, for example, ends with a suggestive invitation for the “The Judge” to purchase a “an amber sill” in ED’s backyard oak to build a “House”.
“There are many tales of [ED’s] repartee still remembered. She is said to have astonished some of her father's friends by her insight into men and affairs, and created quite a sensation by her wit. One story of her, handed down in the family, was of her asking a prim old Chief Justice of the Supremest sort [probably Judge Lord], when the plum pudding on fire was offered, “Oh, Sir, may one eat of hell fire with impunity here?” (Bianci 1924).
ED left it up to Judge Otis Lord’s imagination to sing “His favorite Refrain” at “Midnight” when she was “going to the barn” (Miller, 2016, Footnote 300). Hmmm, wonder why ED would “go to the Barn” at “Midnight”? Just kidding.
Judge Lord’s wife died in 1877, and within a year, Otis Lord was wooing ED. By “the second half of 1878” ED was confessing how much she loved him:
“My lovely Salem smiles at me. I seek his Face so often - but I have done with guises. . . .I confess that I love him - rejoice that I love him - I thank the maker of Heaven and Earth - that gave him to me - the exultation floods me. I cannot find my channel - the Creek turns Sea - at thought of thee –” (L559).
However, in 1878, after two years of courtship, when Judge Lord asked ED to marry him, or at least share a sexual relationship, she replied “Dont you know you are happiest while I withhold and not confer - dont you know that "No" is the wildest word we consign to Language?”(L562, about 1878). By 1878, ED had the maturity to know that for her, poetry and marriage or heterosexual partnership were impossible bedfellows.
• Miller, Cristanne. 2016. Emily Dickinson’s Poems: As She Preserved Them
• Bianchi, Martha. 1924. ‘The Life and Letters of Emily Dickinson, by her niece, Martha Dickinson Bianci’, Riverside Press, Houghton Mifflin Co., 386 pp.