We all need love, and, when we read Dickinson, we receive it by assuming the position of the "You" who is reading the poem. Dickinson’s poems are written, expressly, to an unnamed reader and points toward them with all of their passion. Since that "You" is unnamed, we may more easily assume it. That’s powerful. In Dickinson this love can hit you like a blast of water from a fire hose. Sometimes it knocks you over.
There is a primal part of our brain, the deepest part perhaps, which reads the “you” in the poem as the self, and thereby this turns into a love poem by one of the greatest that has ever lived written to you. It is literally addressing you. Shakespeare's sonnets function in a similar way.
For the love coming from the "I" to feel real, it must be convincingly singular. What makes the “I” in a Dickinson poem so singular are the idiosyncrasies in the language. Dickinson's poetry is beyond the idiosyncratic though. It’s so personal that it is inimitable.
Look, for instance, at the decisions she makes in the first two lines here. Why does Dickinson use “be” instead of “are” in that first line? It’s a surprising choice. Perhaps it is to bring more attention to the process of "being." Being is juxtaposed to dying. How can you “be” the very process of un-being?
And then, how about the surprising choice of the adjective “some" in the second line. With the simple addition of that "UM" sound you have that PROM/ SOME/ SUM rhythm which sets up the "M" sound of that "Me." Also, the line is funnier that way. You better not just send one person to summon me, my beloved. To insure I get there, send more than one, send "some."
The oddities are, with Dickinson, in service to a more defined, and thus deeper, meaning.
Mine belong Your latest Sighing—
Mine—to Belt Your Eye—
”Latest” has a doubleness here, meaning both “your most recent” and “your very last.” "Sighing" has a double meaning too. It is sensually romantic, if "latest" means most recent, and sadly wistful if it means very last. The lines can be read as signalling both the current passion and future loss at once.
"Mine," which is repeated twice in this stanza, and then four more times through the poem, is part of the romance. The reader, who is being intimately spoken to, is being cherished.
And speaking of idiosyncrasies, how about the idea of belting the eye? Who else would think of that? You belt the waist, not the eye. The only way you belt an eye, normally, is by hitting it, as in, "The boxer belted him in the eye." To insinuate violence inside so sincere a poem is funny, and perhaps hints at something darker. More on this later.
But “belt,” the way Emily means it first, is to close the eyelids over the pupils. This is a tender image, the now senseless eyes being closed for the last time by the beloved.
I would guess this poem was written to Sue. If so, it's wonderful, and ironic, that it was Sue who was there at the end to close Emily's eyes rather than the other way around. I wonder if she had this poem in mind as she was doing so?
Not with Coins—though they be Minted
From an Emperor's Hand—
Be my lips—the only Buckle
Your low Eyes—demand—
The poet is not going to close your eyes with coins, in the old pagan way, even if those coins are “minted from an Emperor's Hand.” The Empire, and its riches, are not as good as my lips would be, she says. A kiss to shut the eyes of the dead is such a strange and gothic thing to imagine, but also intimate and tender in the extreme.
Is “buckle” in the third line a pun of “buck,” meant to to follow the monetary sense of “coin”? To watch the mind of Dickinson move, in both sense and sound, is a marvelous thing.
And how about the adjective “low” here? There is so much possible meaning in that simple word, which gets an extra emphasis when it is repeated a second time in this poem. "Low" as in dying, as lying and looking up, as in humble, its all there.
There is a sense created with belting and buckling here of tying something down. This gives a tinge of possessiveness to the poem, to that repetition of "mine." You see this idea continued in the next stanza, with its theme of “staying.” There is a sneaking intrusion of the dark side to such extreme love that enters the poem. Seen from one angle, this poem, from the dying person’s eyes say, might be a kind of nightmare.
This poem, which is the most romantic love poem possible, is, therefore, also a kind of cautionary tale. How can it be both at once? It’s both an expression of the love we all dream of having, and, at the same time, one that exposes the fear of being smothered by another's love.
Mine to stay—when all have wandered—
To devise once more
If the Life be too surrendered—
Life of Mine—restore—
Two more “mines.” They are like land mines in the poem, little explosions on the page whenever your eyes step on them. There will be six "Mines" all told before this strange and morbid valentine of a poem comes to an end. And there are four uses of "My."
In that "if" there is a question posed that underlies the tension of the poem. What does it mean to be "too surrendered" to somebody? And what exactly is surrendered? What exactly is restored?
The word “devise” is an odd one here, which is complicated by the syntax. To devise is to “plan” or “invent.” How do you “devise” if a life be too surrendered? The more you think about it, the more odd it becomes. The word seems like it should be “decide” or “divine” instead of “devise.” Both of those words make more sense.
To devise, though, gives us a sense of the will to love being one that is created by the lover. I think of the prayer of St. Francis. "It is in loving that we are loved, in dying that we are born to eternal life.” It is in surrendering that we are restored, but we have to "devise" this "once more." We have to invent it, to plan it, to make it happen, over and over again.
Poured like this—My Whole Libation—
Just that You should see
Bliss of Death—Life's Bliss extol thro'
Imitating You—
My whole life gets extended into “My Whole Li...bation." Libation is used here in its original sense of a drink poured as an offering to a deity. It is in this pouring of the self into other that you see, in the bliss of dying, the bliss of the living praise by the one imitating, or, becoming, you. I think of that line in "The Tempest" about how Miranda and Ferdinand have “changed eyes.” The love exchanged makes death bliss for the dying one through the complete surrender of the beloved one still living. That is just the most exquisite thought. Poetry does not get more romantic that that.
Though, on the flip side, that word "imitate," if we are going with our nightmare counter-reading, is worth considering. It hints at a loss of self, a surrendering that has gone too far.
Mine—to guard Your Narrow Precinct—
To seduce the Sun
Longest on Your South, to linger,
Largest Dews of Morn
There is that word “Mine” again, though now it is the realm of the corpse that is being possessed by the living. Your “Narrow Precinct” is meant to refer to the grave here. The word "narrow" hints at something claustrophobic, something closing in.
"Seduce" is a surprising word here, and plays into the "sighing" romance of this poem, but also into the sense of possessiveness.
The poet is going to seduce the sun itself to shine longer on the grave, and to induce the dews in the morning to linger. I’m not sure what double meanings there may be in "Your South" here, except that South invokes a sunnier region. Everything in Dickinson, including the four directions, are imbued with a book-worth of meaning.
“Largest” is another surprising adjective here. Who else but Dickinson would use the word “largest” to describe “dews?" When read out loud our ear is apt to hear "Largest dues."
To demand, in Your low favor
Lest the Jealous Grass
Greener lean—Or fonder cluster
Round some other face—
There’s the second “demand” of this poem, or really the third if you include “promise” in the first line as a kind of demand. For someone who is surrendering themselves to another, there sure is a lot of demanding going on. The beloved makes the dying promise that he/she will summon her. Then there is a demand that the dying one’s low eyes demand the lips of the beloved. Now the beloved is demanding again, this time from nature herself, favor for the dead, that the greenest grass may grow on this grave.
We get another hint of the dark side of all of this possessiveness with the word "jealous." It’s intoned here in a way that honors the dead, but it resonates in this poem in another way.
There is a part of me that reviles looking at the dark possessive undertones in this poem. I want to just see the romance in it. It’s so wonderfully strange, the idea of seducing the sun and dew to make the grass greenest over the beloved's resting place. I want to just bask in that sunny green hill the poet is creating for me and ignore the shadow.
But here that shadow comes in the last two stanzas.
Mine to supplicate Madonna—
If Madonna be
Could behold so far a Creature—
Christ—omitted—Me—
Another “Mine” and the word that spins out from this one is “Madonna.” The speaker here is telling the beloved that when they die she wants to pray to Mary on his/her behalf, if there is a Madonna who would listen to (behold) someone who has been omitted (rejected?) by Christ. The syntax of that last line makes it hard to decide just who has omitted whom. The sense I get from the line though is that Emily would pray to Mary on behalf of her beloved, if Mary would even listen to someone who has been rejected by (or has rejected) her son. What is this idea doing in this poem? It is part of a larger argument with God we can trace throughout Dickinson's poetry as a whole, and which appears to often involve an argument with the unquestioned belief held by the beloved.
Just to follow Your dear future—
Ne'er so far behind—
For My Heaven—
Had I not been
Most enough—denied?
The end of this poem, the beloved may be going to heaven, but the poet is not so sure if she will be following. For the poet the beloved is "My Heaven." Will she be able to follow him/her into the after-life? If not, this especially stings, since in life itself she has often felt denied by the other. There is a sense here then that the beloved, in life, was not the "mine" of the poet at all, but largely refused her. This throws a shadow over the rest of the poem. The poem seems to be saying, "In life you rejected me, so just let me be there, at least, to see over your dying."
But it also seems to be asking, at the same time, "If all of this surrendering is unrequited, is it worth it?" The poet’s closing question makes you wonder.
Six "Mines" throughout this poem, and yet at the end, we are left with the sense of denial, both from God and from the beloved.
And yet? This poem still loves its reader completely, unconditionally, despite the painful question.
-/)dam Wade l)eGraff
