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.