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.