It tossed—and tossed—

It tossed—and tossed—
A little Brig I knew—o’ertook by Blast—
It spun—and spun—
And groped delirious, for Morn—

It slipped—and slipped—
As One that drunken—stepped—
Its white foot tripped—
Then dropped from sight—

Ah, Brig—Good Night
To Crew and You—
The Ocean’s Heart too smooth—too Blue—
To break for You—


    -F746 J723, Fascicle 36


I’ve noticed that when Dickinson throws the word “foot” or “feet” in a poem, you can find something extra going on with the metrical feet of the poem as well. The feet of the poem become the feet of its subject. The form and the content come together; the poem, in this way, becomes its subject. 

The most striking example of this is in the famous poem, “After great pain a formal feeling comes,” which begins with highly regular iambic pentameter. It starts very formally, as one does after great pain. But then just as it begins to talk about "mechanical feet going round and round" the meter breaks and the metrical feet become unsteady. It's as if both poet and poem have become one and in their grief, have lost their footing. By the end of the poem the feet regain their formal feeling and the last two lines are back to iambic pentameter.

You see the play with "foot" here too. The “white foot” of the brig “tripped.” This poem is notably uneven in its meter. It lists back and forth between dimeter, pentameter, trimeter and tetrameter. The pattern is: 2-5-2-4 / 2-3-2-2 / 2-2-4-2. The feet, in other words, trip all over the place in this poem. The meter is tossed and tossed, spun and spun. It slips and slips.

“The white foot tripped” is also notable in this poem as an image. A brig doesn’t have a foot, so what is this? Is the hull of the brig its foot? Is the foot of the brig the white of the wave as the ship goes down? The line reminds you of a person more than it does a ship, which makes you wonder about the nature of the tripping. 

Was the brig the victim of a circumstantial storm, or did it make a mistake (trip) causing its own demise? This question carries some import if you take the brig here as a stand-in for a person. The question of our own fate may even rest on the answer to this question. Through this one word, “tripped,” Dickinson raises the question: “Could this tragedy have been avoided?” The line, “As One that drunken—stepped—” leads one toward reading into this poem the possibility of a self-created storm. This drunk “groped delirious for morn.”

The meter of this poem never becomes regular, but the rhyme scheme does. It starts with typical Dickinsonian slant rhyme, Tossed/ blast, spun/ morn, slipped/ stepped. This, too, mirrors the wild tossing of the ship. But when we get to the ocean, which has calm depths, the rhyme matches almost too perfectly and you get, crew/ too/ blue/ too/ smooth, and then, driving the emphasis home, you get an exact end-rhyme of “You” and “You.” It is a notably heavy inundation of the "ooh" sound. It becomes “smooth” like the ocean. (It is also worth noting that Dickinson sets up this heavy repetition of rhyme in the first stanza with the word "knew.") 

There is a double-sidedness to this poem. There is the tragedy of a ship, or a person, who is caught up in a storm and then drunkenly plunges to its/their death. Then there is the detached ocean who is too blue (cold) and smooth (unruffled) to be concerned. Where does the poet stand in this equation? Is she identifying more with the lost crew or ocean here? That “Ah, Brig—Good Night” at the beginning of the last stanza can be read with a compassionate tone, or it could be read, if more aligned with the ocean, as having a nonchalant tone, as in, “Oh well, Brig, good night.”

This brings us back to the reason for the brig going down in the first place. If this “brig” is a metaphor for a drunk going down, then perhaps some distancing from the tragic figure is necessary. If you’ve ever had a loved one in the throes of addiction, you know what I’m talking about. Beyond an intervention, there is only so much you can do. Sometimes you have to distance yourself.

Still, there are indicators of compassion here, especially in the phrase “little brig I knew.” The fact that the brig was little (especially since brigs are usually quite large) and that the poet "knew" it, leads us to feel empathy. The poet is both warm and cold in this poem.

I think this poem is saying to the reader, “watch your step.”

       -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

"A Storm" J.M.W.Turner

Notes:

1. This poem may have a wild uneven meter, but still, somehow, said out loud, its musical resolve feels perfect. It’s a wonder of poetic composition.

2. A few poems back in this same fascicle you have a calm body of water, a “crescent in the sea,” with a “maelstrom” overhead. Since the two poems were written about the same time, there is, perhaps, a connection, a kind of resolve to the cold depths of being, an escape from those hot and “wild nights,” at least for the time being. 

I'm reminded of the Kris Kristofferson line, "Love will make you crazy, but your soul will keep you sane."