I make His Crescent fill or lack—

I make His Crescent fill or lack—
His Nature is at Full
Or Quarter—as I signify—
His Tides—do I control—

He holds superior in the Sky
Or gropes, at my Command
Behind inferior Clouds—or round
A Mist's slow Colonnade—

But since We hold a Mutual Disc—
And front a Mutual Day—
Which is the Despot, neither knows—
Nor Whose—the Tyranny—


      -Fr837, J909, Fascicle 40, 1864


There is a power dynamic here between the sun and the moon. The sky, under Dickinson's watch, becomes a playground of power and sly reversals. The poet kicks off with a flourish of authority. “I make His Crescent fill or lack— / His Nature is at Full / Or Quarter—as I signify— / His Tides—do I control—.” She’s the Sun, master of moon and tides. You can practically hear her delight in the audacity.

The sun/self signifies and therefore controls, which is why it is presented to us in the first person. 

If you are looking from the position of the Self, which we all are, after all, then you may realize that you have the ability to make another “superior in the Sky,” or you may make them crawl and “grope.”

But a turn-around begins to happen in the second stanza. The other, the one being controlled, may be obscured by “inferior clouds,” but He will still shine through, and He will still “round/ A Mist’s slow Colonnade.” 

That last phrase is gorgeous. You imagine that the atmosphere, in league with the sun, doing what it can to obscure the moon, by slowly erecting a colonnade. A colonnade is a row of columns, which is something we think of as quite solid. And note the ominous word "slow." But here the colonnade is shown to be merely a mist that the moon rounds. The moon not only shines through the inferior clouds but also gives depth, gives roundness, to the mist.  The word “Colonnade” is also perfect here because of the way it echoes the sounds of “control,” “Command” and “Clouds” which precede it. 

In the third stanza we get a new idea hinging on the word “since.”

But since We hold a Mutual Disc—
And front a Mutual Day—
Which is the Despot, neither knows—
Nor Whose—the Tyranny—

 So if you are reading this from the Sun/self’s point of view, the poem presents to you the idea that your power is ultimately illusory. But if you are the "other," the one under control, this poem becomes about resilience.

The moon, quietly, survives. Hidden behind clouds or quartered in phase, it holds its disc, keeps its rhythm. The moon’s sovereignty is cheeky. It refuses to be fully dominated. It exhibits endurance and autonomy, all under the radar of a would-be master. The moon may be perceived as quartered, but to itself it is always full, and there is always a new chance to shine, always a new day to “front.”

Dickinson is showing us that power is never as tidy as we think. Authority is provisional and sovereignty comes in hidden strength. Even when domination seems total, resilience quietly asserts itself.

We are reminded to remember our innate roundness and keep our rhythm. 

        -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh. 

P.S. This poem seems to be an elaboration of sorts of the poem that precedes it in the fascicle, Fr836. There, death is the great equalizer. In the grave, distinctions vanish. Here, life itself levels the playing field. The sun may shine, the speaker may boast, but the moon persists.

P.P.S. I can't help but think of Taming of the Shrew here. Petruchio gets Kate to say the Moon is the Sun. Her willingness to do so undermines him, and in the end we are left wondering who exactly has won "the field." 

Katherina: Forward, I pray, since we have come so far,

And be it moon, or sun, or what you please;

And if you please to call it a rush-candle,2280

Henceforth I vow it shall be so for me.

Petruchio: I say it is the moon.

Katherina: I know it is the moon.

Petruchio: Nay, then you lie; it is the blessed sun.

Katherina: Then, God be bless'd, it is the blessed sun;2285

But sun it is not, when you say it is not;

And the moon changes even as your mind.

What you will have it nam'd, even that it is,

And so it shall be so for Katherine.

Hortensio: Petruchio, go thy ways, the field is won.

Color — Caste — Denomination —

Color — Caste — Denomination —
These — are Time's Affair —
Death's diviner Classifying
Does not know they are —

As in sleep — All Hue forgotten —
Tenets — put behind —
Death's large—Democratic fingers
Rub away the Brand —

If Circassian — He is careless —
If He put away
Chrysalis of Blonde—or Umber —
Equal Butterfly —

They emerge from His Obscuring —
What Death — knows so well —
Our minuter intuitions —
Deem unplausible —


     -Fr836, J970, Fascicle 40, 1864

Dickinson often starts with an idea, which, in this case, would be that death doesn’t discriminate, and then explores and expands upon that idea until something deeper about it is revealed. Part of the joy, for me, is watching the way she starts by weaving her idea around the sounds it evokes. It is clear in this poem that the poet takes the C and D sounds of that opening line and then consciously repeats them throughout the rest. But more is going on than just the C and D alliteration. The R sound of “Color,” for instance, leads to the end rhymes of “Affair” and “are.” And there are sound clusters too, like how the CLR sound in “Color” comes back strongly in the third stanza with Circassian, careless and Chrysalis. The result is a subtle music that is beautiful beyond compare. Few poets can do this as well as Dickinson, and none better.

Another remarkable thing is to watch how further ideas spin out of the original. If you are looking for it, every new line may carry some new revelation. In the first stanza we find out, for instance, that Death doesn’t discriminate based on color of skin, religion (denomination) or class (caste). These are all big issues, and each would have been even more divisive in Dickinson’s day than it is now. Dickinson was white, upper class and raised in a protestant society, but here she is dismissing all of that, or at least acknowledging that Death does.

But then she says something curious, that Death has a “diviner Classifying.” What is she getting at here? In a poem before this one in the fascicle, Fr834, there is the idea of being patient and constant, so that in death you will be worthy of Grace. This seems to me to be the sense here too. We see in a later stanza that something graceful, like a butterfly, “emerges” after death. 

There is a bit of a paradox in this poem though. There is a hint of the idea of a diviner classifying being one where there is no classification, and by extension, there is the suggestion that those who classify aren’t fit for death. We see this paradox play out in other Dickinson poems, like this one, Fr797, in which she tells us that the definition of beauty is that there is no definition. 

As in sleep — All Hue forgotten —
Tenets — put behind —
Death's large—Democratic fingers
Rub away the Brand —

In this stanza Dickinson hints toward other ideas. American “democracy” is lampooned a little in the phrase “Death's large—Democratic fingers.” America purports to be democratic, but has it ever truly been? Only death’s fingers are truly democratic. And what do they do? They rub away the brand. With brand you get a metonym of capitalism. I’m not sure if “brand” meant the same thing in 1864 that it does now, so Dickinson may just be referring to a cow’s brand here. But even that definition brings to mind the idea of commerce, of chattel, of ownership. A true democracy would get rid of any hot iron branding altogether. Everything would be shared by all alike. In Dickinson’s dark irony, though, it is only Death that can truly do this.

If Circassian — He is careless —

Careless here means that Death couldn't care less whether you are Circassian or not. You might be tempted to think, as I did at first, that Dickinson chose the ethnic group Circassian based on the way the sound of the word echoes the soundscape of the poem, but, alas, it would seem that nothing is careless in Dickinson’s poetry. The Circassians were very much in the news in 1864 when this poem was written for being an exiled people. 

From Wikipedia:

“The native Circassian population was largely decimated or expelled to the Ottoman Empire. Only those who accepted Russification and made agreements with Russian troops, were spared. Starvation was used as a tool of war against Circassian villages, many of which were subsequently burned down. Russian writer Leo Tolstoy reported that Russian soldiers attacked village houses at night. British diplomat Gifford Palgrave, stated that "their only crime was not being Russian." Seeking military intervention against Russia, Circassian officials sent "A Petition from Circassian leaders to Her Majesty Queen Victoria" in 1864, but were unsuccessful in their attempt to solicit aid from the British Empire.That same year, the Imperial Russian Army launched a campaign of mass deportation of Circassia's surviving population. Many died from epidemics or starvation. Some were reportedly eaten by dogs after their death.”

Circassian Zalumma Agra, by Mathew Brady, ca. 1865.

Zalumma was presented as a freak in P.T. Barnum's circus.

Same problems, different day.

If He put away
Chrysalis of Blonde—or Umber —
Equal Butterfly —

Dickinson’s choices for Chrysalis colors here reflect the hair color of the Russians and the Circassians, blonde and umber. In death it doesn’t matter which you are, an “equal” butterfly emerges.

The idea of emerging as a butterfly reflects a belief in an after-life, of some kind at least. The idea of our life here on earth being our chrysalis is an instructive one. Did Emily believe in an afterlife? I’m starting to think that maybe she did. 

But belief in an afterlife is not necessary for this poem. Getting beyond the trappings of identity doesn’t necessitate an actual death. It could also be achieved through renunciation in life. In other words, it would be a symbolic death, the death of an ego. You might say that this is the only kind of death we can ever really understand, since actual death is beyond our ken.

Either way, our democratic equality, our freedom, is not to be found in life as we know it. It is the removal of the ties of identity, such as color, caste and creed, that frees us. 

They emerge from His Obscuring —
What Death — knows so well —
Our minuter intuitions —
Deem unplausible —

Something akin to butterflies emerge from death’s obscuring of the self. Our “minuter intuitions” tell us that the emergence of something after death is "unplausable," but Death well knows that the butterfly will soar once the veil of the chrysalis has been torn.

    -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

He who in Himself believes—

He who in Himself believes—
Fraud cannot presume—
Faith is Constancy's Result—
And assumes—from Home—

Cannot perish, though it fail
Every second time—
But defaced Vicariously—
For Some Other Shame—


    -Fr835, J969, Fascicle 40, 1864


This one starts off in a variation of the advice Polonius gives to Laertes in Shakepeare’s Hamlet:

“This above all- to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.”

Dickinson's version:

He who in Himself believes—
Fraud cannot presume—

There's a difference though, it seems to me, between being true to yourself and believing in yourself. The first means looking at yourself honestly, doing your best not to fool yourself. But to believe in yourself takes fortitude and will-power. You have to know what it is you are believing in. You have to know who you are and what you are about. Once you do, and will, fraud cannot “presume” anything different.

We get a sense of the difference in the turn-around presented to us in the following line,

Faith is Constancy's Result—

Normally we would say that constancy is faith’s result. You have faith and therefore you are constant. But here we start with constancy. Faith is something earned through action. That’s a great twist. It’s not really faith though if it is the result of action, is it? It’s more like “knowing.”

In the sense of “knowing,” we are led to a very powerful word in Dickinson’s lexicon: Home.

Faith is Constancy's Result—
And assumes—from Home—

Dickinson has written elsewhere of the “infinite power of Home.” And though by Home Dickinson means something fundamental, we can’t help but remember that Dickinson died in the home she was born in. She was, indeed, very constant to her family, as well as to her friends.

The idea of assuming “from Home” is powerful too. Assume is an odd word, a contranym almost. It can mean to believe something without having all the facts (similar to faith,) but it can also mean to support, as in “assume a debt” and, even, to become, as in assuming a body.

I think of the beginning of Whitman’s Song of Myself. “What I assume you shall assume/ for every atom belonging to me as well belongs to you.” Whitman is talking about belief, but also about the idea of assuming a form. The two opposing meanings are mystically tied together. We end up becoming (assuming) what we believe (assume).

So, our faith is assumed from a constancy to our Home, and all that Home entails.

Cannot perish, though it fail
Every second time—

If you believe in yourself, and your home, you will eventually succeed, though you fail often. “Every second time” is funny. I like the odds though. Half the time you will fail. But half the time you will succeed too.

But defaced Vicariously—
For Some Other Shame—

“Defaced vicariously” is a pointed phrase. Vicarious, according to the Dickinson lexicon means, “Proxy; representative; substituting; acting on behalf of another; carried out in another's stead.” So, essentially, you are someone else, not your true self, when you are brought to “Shame.” You are “defaced.” Your face is taken away and replaced with someone else’s, someone who is not the true you “whom in himself believes.”

The poem ends in “Shame.” But the message seems to be to try, try again. It’s all about that constancy.

I don’t know what to make of it, but I find the slant-rhyme in this pleasing and curious. Presume/ Home/ Time/ Shame, with internal rhyme of Assume and Some. All of it seems to be honing into the sound of Home.

     -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

That's Emily's Home. Her window is on the far right.

Fitter to see Him, I may be

Fitter to see Him, I may be
For the long Hindrance — Grace — to Me —
With Summers, and with Winters, grow,
Some passing Year — A trait bestow

To make Me fairest of the Earth —
The Waiting — then — will seem so worth
I shall impute with half a pain
The blame that I was chosen — then —

Time to anticipate His Gaze —
It's first — Delight — and then — Surprise —
The turning o'er and o'er my face
For Evidence it be the Grace —

He left behind One Day — So less
He seek Conviction, That — be This —

I only must not grow so new
That He'll mistake — and ask for me
Of me — when first unto the Door
I go — to Elsewhere go no more —

I only must not change so fair
He'll sigh — "The Other — She — is Where?"
The Love, tho', will array me right
I shall be perfect — in His sight —

If He perceive the other Truth —
Upon an Excellenter Youth —

How sweet I shall not lack in Vain —
But gain — thro' loss — Through Grief — obtain —
The Beauty that reward Him best —
The Beauty of Demand — at Rest —


     -Fr834, J968, Fascicle 40, 1864


In David Preest’s notes for this poem, we read: “George Whicher suggests that these difficult stanzas may be just the first draft of a poem never completed.” It’s not surprising to me that someone might think this, since men (and women) have questioned Dickinson’s style all along, but for Preest to perpetuate this offence is surprising. The poem is careful in its meter and rhyme, and not only that, but she copied the poem into a fascicle, a sure sign it was finished. If something at first seems amiss in a Dickinson poem, it is always best to give her the benefit of the doubt. You probably just missed her. In this case, I don't think George Whicher could be more mistaken.

Ironically, though, this poem is, in part, about being unfinished, or, at least, not quite finished. 

Fitter to see Him, I may be
For the long Hindrance — Grace — to Me —

Who is Him? This question is a fraught one in Dickinson’s oeuvre. It could be a beloved. It could be Christ. It could be both. I take it, ultimately, as the consummation of Love that meets us on the other side of the veil. Dickinson has many poems that seem to be leading up to this moment when she shall see her “King.” But because Dickinson so often conflates her love poems with her spiritual poems, it is hard to say. At any rate, in these first lines she is saying something like, “I’m more fit to see the Beloved because of the long hindrance. The hindrance was Grace because it allowed me to become ready." The idea of a hindrance being a Grace is worth deep meditation. It gets a the core of Dickinson’s poetics. 

Another question: what is the hindrance? Is it life itself? Or is the hindrance self-imposed? Something to ponder. Did Dickinson choose her difficult life, or did it choose her?

With Summers, and with Winters, grow,

In both the joys of summer and the pains of winter we grow fitter for our connection to the divine. It’s all “grist for the mill.” The process is necessary. And eventually, if you trust the process deeply enough,

Some passing Year — A trait bestow
To make Me fairest of the Earth —

Some year ( “passing”!) the self will become “fairest of the Earth.” Quite a goal, fairest of the earth. The waiting is hard, but it is the prerequisite for true beauty, which can only come with age and dedication.

Again, it is worth remembering that it is the “hindrance” which bestows the “trait” of “fairest.” A lot hinges on the meaning of “hindrance” here.

The Waiting — then — will seem so worth
I shall impute with half a pain
The blame that I was chosen — then —

I hear a deep sigh in these lines. The poet, after all, is mid-process. She has faith it will all be worth it, but for now she is cursing (blaming) that she’s been chosen to take on the burdens of life. (And there is the further idea here of being “chosen” for some specific purpose, like being a poet.) If she does get there, then she will admit “with half a pain” that it was worth it, in other words, still a bit begrudgingly.

That’s funny and sad all at once, and richly Emily.

And how about the funny surprise in the next stanza?

Time to anticipate His Gaze —
It's first — Delight — and then — Surprise —
The turning o'er and o'er my face
For Evidence it be the Grace —

You need the hindrance of time to anticipate the Gaze of the beloved. The anticipation itself is important; the desire, the longing, the felt absence. Then when the beloved finally Gazes at you, He will be delighted to see that your ability to be patient and diligent has made you worthy of Him. Note that “He” wasn’t expecting you to succeed. That’s why it is a surprise. It’s so funny to think of Emily anticipating God’s utter surprise that she’s worthy of Him, and Him turning her face back and forth, sizing her up to make sure that the Grace is really there.

(There is another possible way to read this stanza, which carries further surprise. If “my face”...”be the Grace.” Then it is as if the eyes of the poet have become synonymous with His. Grace is staring at Grace.)

For Evidence it be the Grace —

He left behind One Day — So less
He seek Conviction, That — be This —

That idea that the Beloved “left” the poet “behind One Day” is intriguing. I suppose one could have the feeling that God left us behind, abandoned us, when we were born. But it's wonky. It’s as if the poet was abandoned and then had to work on herself to get back in God’s good graces. But it was “Grace/ He left behind” in the first place and why would God leave Grace behind? Maybe it just means that when you are born you have Grace, and it is surprising if you can keep it. He is seeking "Conviction, That — be This —”, that the innocent self is born again.

(There is another possibility here though, that the “He” is the reverend Charles Wadsworth. There are those that theorize that Dickinson made a pact with with the married Wadsworth that she would re-unite with him in heaven. I come back to this idea -which is not one I’m particularly fond of, but is one I have to contend with- because in Matty Dickinson’s recollections of her Aunt Emily she makes it clear that Dickinson was in love with Wadsworth, whom she met when traveling. Matty says that she heard this from her mother and father, as well as Emily’s sister, so it is likely true. In this reading of the poem being "left behind" has a different sense. The idea of being left and then spending a life making the self fit for the one who left has a tragic quality to it and is the opposite, to me, of the unconditional love of God. Or maybe it isn't tragic. Maybe it is a key ingredient of the kind of grit Dickinson needed to become a great poet?)

I only must not grow so new
That He'll mistake — and ask for me
Of me — when first unto the Door
I go — to Elsewhere go no more —

The idea of growing “new” turns on its head the idea of growing old. It carries that sense of becoming new like an innocent child. But here it is odd that you could become so new that God would no longer recognize you. It's as if God (or Wadsworth!) loves you not just for your innocence, but also because of your “experience.” If you become too new, do you lose your self?

“And ask for me/ Of me” Imagine God asking you when you get to heaven, “Where are you? Have you seen you anywhere?”

to Elsewhere go no more —

Death, or the afterlife, is the last stop. But also, there is the idea that there is nowhere else the poet wants to .
be.

I only must not change so fair
He'll sigh — "The Other — She — is Where?"
The Love, tho', will array me right
I shall be perfect — in His sight —

The poet wants to become worthy, but not so perfect she is unrecognizable. But, in the end, she trusts that "The Love, tho', will array me right." She doesn’t have to be perfectly innocent. She trusts that God will see her intentions and she will be perfect in His sight. We come back to a sense of forgiveness, an unconditional love. "The Love."

If He perceive the other Truth —
Upon an Excellenter Youth —

What “other Truth” is Dickinson speaking of here? The Truth of "Excellenter Youth," of who we essentially are, who we were as pure being before becoming tainted by the world. “Excellenter youth” is, again, a turn-around, like “grow new.” We don't become excellent, we become less excellent. It is a child-like state we want to return to. Dickinson did seem to achieve this. In Matty Dickinson’s book, “Face to Face,” which I couldn’t recommend highly enough, we see how much children loved Emily, and how much she colluded with them in pranks and secrets. 

How sweet I shall not lack in Vain —
But gain — thro' loss — Through Grief — obtain —
The Beauty that reward Him best —
The Beauty of Demand — at Rest —

There was some (purposeful) turbulence along the way, but Dickinson really lands this poem. This last stanza would work even without the rest of the poem. There is Beauty in loss, and in grief, the kind of Beauty that carries the truth of the divine. Death is sweet because for those, like Dickinson, who have demanded so much of themselves, there are not only the rewards of sacrifice, but also of rest.


       -/)dam Wade l)eGraff


P.S. This poem has a unique structure. First, it is in rhyming couplets, with mostly exact rhyme, which is fairly rare for Dickinson. It’s as if she is working to “rhyme,” both figuratively and literally here. The poem also has the odd quality of being in quatrains except for two couplets that are on their own, that have lost each other, as if, again, the form isn’t completely cohering yet, but almost! Almost finished.

The first page of Matty's memoir, Face to Face. 

Pain — expands the Time —

Pain — expands the Time —
Ages coil within
The minute Circumference
Of a single Brain —

Pain contracts — the Time —
Occupied with Shot
Gamuts of Eternities
Are as they were not —


   -Fr833, J967, Fascicle 40, 1864


The core of this poem is the seeming paradox that it presents.

On one hand, pain makes the moment seem to last forever. We’ve all experienced this. I’ll never forget sitting in a hospital waiting room with a kidney stone. Every minute waiting seemed to last hours.

On the other hand, the contraction of time is about how pain puts you so absolutely in the moment that the rest of time, the “Gamuts of Eternities,” becomes irrelevant. When I was feeling that kidney stone, there was nothing else but the moment.

It's a double whammy. The pain is so intense that it's all consuming and, moreover, feels as if it will never end. 

Dickinson was a philosophical poet and pain was often her subject. It makes sense that pain would be a starting point for thinking about existence, seeing as to how it is undeniably felt, and can take over the self. There are several Dickinson poems which are about pain. (See the notes below for a small sample). It was an important subject for Emily Dickinson, as it is, I suspect, for all of us.

Though this poem is about pain, it is still a pleasure to read. The image and sounds are fantastic. “Ages coil within/ The minute Circumference/ Of a single Brain.” One gets the rather fantastic image of pain causing masses of time to coil themselves up inside a tiny round brain. A brain has the appearance of being coiled, too, which adds to the weirdness of the image, as if the brain were made up of coils of endless pain.

Dickinson wrote to T.W. Higginson, “My business is circumference.” She also wrote, “The brain is wider than the sky.” You can see both of these ideas echoed here. The minuscule brain’s circumference has expanded, through pain, to encompass the ages.

There is a pun on “minute” here too, perhaps. The ages are felt in “minute,” meaning both spatially and temporally small.

In the second stanza we see something subtle happen in the placement of the dash.

Pain — expands the Time —
...
Pain contracts — the Time —

The phrase "expands the Time" appears to contract into just “the Time.”

In the first stanza the reigning letter is "n," which has an expansive quality that carries the sound of moaning in pain: nnnnnnn. But in the second stanza we are presented with a scattershot of “t”s, which enacts a feeling of curtness, a tautening.

Pain contracts — the Time —
Occupied with Shot
Gamuts of Eternities
Are as they were not —

Gamuts of Eternities is very Dickinson. There can only be one eternity, right? But here there are Gamuts. Likewise, in a different poem, Dickinson uses the word “infiniter,” as if you could get more infinite than infinite. In another she writes “finallest,” as if you could get more final than final. Here we have not just a whole gamut of eternities, but gamuts. It’s an excess of infinite excesses.

Gamut, as Dickinson would have likely known, was originally a musical term for all the notes on a scale. So here we are presented with the idea of scales upon scales, as if eternities were notes in the music of the spheres.

The word “Shot” is a surprising one. “Occupied with Shot.” “Shot” is a compressed way of saying “the shot that killed me.” “Shot” is a single explosive word that contains multiple meanings. It brings to mind the suddenness and violence of gunfire. It suggests pain can strike in an instant, reducing vast swaths of time to a split-second trauma. There is the sense here of a shot piercing the body, cutting deeply into consciousness.

If we return to the musical idea of the gamut, a shot might be a single note in the broader symphony of time, a percussive sound that disrupts the flow.

A “shot” can also be a dose, a concentrated delivery, like a shot of whiskey or medicine. Pain, in this way, is like a compressed eternity injected into one moment, a “shot” of infinite feeling in finite time. The word cracks open the poem.

This poem predicts our post-modern sense of relativity. (Another writer who did this brilliantly is Ambrose Bierce in the amazing short story from 1890, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.”) It undermines our trust in “objective” time. Dickinson shows that our inner lives defy the idea of regular measurable time. Pain bends time to its own will, distorting the normal order of things.

So what is Dickinson trying to get across to the reader with this paradox then? It positions pain not as meaningless agony, but as an existential force, something sublime. Pain is a window into the moment, and simultaneously into the infinite. It’s not seen as a weakness, but as a profound capacity of the human soul.

By recognizing how enormous and pointed our private suffering can be, Dickinson is asking us to pay attention to the unseen pains of others, and to their own, too.


     -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Bullet piercing an apple. Harold Edgerton. 1964

Notes:

Here are some more thoughts on pain from Emily Dickinson:

After great pain, a formal feeling comes--
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs--
The stiff Heart questions ‘was it He, that bore,’
And ‘Yesterday, or Centuries before’?

***

There is a pain—so utter—
It swallows substance up—
Then covers the Abyss with Trance—
So Memory can step
Around—across—upon it—
As one within a Swoon—
Goes safely—where an open eye—
Would drop Him—Bone by Bone.

***

Pain has an element of blank;
It cannot recollect
When it began, or if there were
A day when it was not.

***

To learn the Transport by the Pain
As Blind Men learn the sun!

***

The hallowing of Pain
Like hallowing of Heaven,
Obtains at a corporeal cost—
The Summit is not given

To Him who strives severe
At middle of the Hill—
But He who has achieved the Top—
All—is the price of All—

'Tis Sunrise — Little Maid — Hast Thou

'Tis Sunrise — Little Maid — Hast Thou
No Station in the Day?
'Twas not thy wont, to hinder so —
Retrieve thine industry —

'Tis Noon — My little Maid —
Alas — and art thou sleeping yet?
The Lily — waiting to be Wed —
The Bee — Hast thou forgot?

My little Maid — 'Tis Night — Alas
That Night should be to thee
Instead of Morning — Had'st thou broached
Thy little Plan to Die —
Dissuade thee, if I could not, Sweet,
I might have aided — thee —


     -Fr832, J908, fascicle 40, 1864


This poem begins in morning, with the speaker wondering why the “Little Maid” hasn’t risen. She was never one to sleep in. She had a “station in the day,” something to do. But now she’s still. 

By noon, the poet is more worried. “Alas — and art thou sleeping yet?” We get the feeling this “sleep” is deeper than just a nap. The world continues without her. The lily is waiting “to be Wed,” and the bee is looking for her. These are metaphors for the promise of love. The world is going on without the “Little Maid,” but she hasn’t taken her place in it. 

Then we reach the last stanza, and it’s night. “Alas / That Night should be to thee / Instead of Morning.” This isn’t sleep. The “Little Maid” is gone, maybe dead, and worse, by her own hand. The poet wonders, if she had spoken of her “little Plan to Die,” maybe she could have been talked out of it? Or, if not, at least she wouldn’t have been alone. (I wonder what else Dickinson might have meant by “aiding” the “little maid” with her “little plan” to die?)

The repetition of the word “little” in this poem, used four times, stands out. Calling her "Little" signifies that the maid is young and vulnerable. Repeating the adjective in the last stanza, “Thy little Plan to Die,” gives us a sense of tragic irony. Death is not little. But to the Maid, perhaps it seemed like it, just a small escape. Dickinson’s use of "little" carries a sense of a stunned sadness.

The word also gives the poem the tone of a nursery rhyme, which makes it even more haunting. It sounds at first like something you'd say to a child reluctant to get up, but then becomes something more terrible when we realize the girl is dead, and even more so when we find out it was planned. 

By repeating "little," the poem keeps circling back to her lack of agency. The girl is little against the big world. 

The form of the poem is worth a close look. It is is divided into three stanzas, each corresponding to a different time of day; sunrise’s hopeful beginning, noon's missed opportunity, night's irreversible ending. This mirrors the arc of a life, from childhood, to a delay, then to death. The structure is the story.

Also notice how the stanzas begin to fracture as the poem progresses. By the third stanza the lines are choppier and the punctuation grows heavy with commas and dashes, mimicking the stumbling cadence of sorrow. There is a sense of observation giving way to collapse.

The repeated address “My little Maid” at the start of each stanza is repetitive, like a chant, but each time the tone behind the words shifts. First there is a mild correction, then concern and, finally, grief.

The poem says to the despondent reader, don't don't be afraid to talk to someone, especially if you have Emily Dickinson around. And don't forget the promise of the Lily and the Bee. 

     -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Notes:

1. The poem reminds me of Blake’s “Little Lamb, who made Thee,” with its repetition, and its use of “Thou.”  There is also an echo of "maid" there in the word "made." I’m convinced, by now, that Dickinson read and subsumed Blake. And like many of Blake's poems, this one is about innocence lost. 

2. There is another echo here, the nursery rhyme,

Little maid, little maid,
Whither goest thou?
Down in the meadow
To milk my cow.

It's as if Dickinson took the maid's imperative to "milk my cow," and all of its innuendo, and rebelled against it. That was no life for her. That helps makes sense of "I might have aided — thee —"

3. I've noticed that Dickinson has used the endearment "Sweet" a few times in the poems written in 1864. In at least one of these, the word "Sue" was replaced with "Sweet. This makes me wonder if this poem was possibly for Sue too, though I'm not sure what to make of that. 

 

Till Death—is narrow Loving—

Till Death—is narrow Loving—
The scantest Heart extant
Will hold you till your privilege
Of Finiteness—be spent—

But He whose loss procures you
Such Destitution that
Your Life too abject for itself
Thenceforward imitate—

Until—Resemblance perfect—
Yourself, for His pursuit
Delight of Nature—abdicate—
Exhibit Love—somewhat—


     -Fr831, J907, Fascicle 40, 1864


I showed this poem to the poet Jennifer Moxley and her response was “Ouch! Dickinson is gnarly.” Yes! Gnarly is a good word for her.

Let’s take this poem stanza by stanza.

Till Death—is narrow Loving—
The scantest Heart extant
Will hold you till your privilege
Of Finiteness—be spent—

Loving someone only until death (“Till death do us part”) is shallow. Even the smallest heart can manage that and will hold you (keep you going) until your time as a finite being runs out.

But He whose loss procures you
Such Destitution that
Your Life too abject for itself
Thenceforward imitate—

But He (possibly Christ) whose loss leaves you so completely desolate that your life becomes too empty to sustain itself, you start to imitate,

Until—Resemblance perfect—
Yourself, for His pursuit
Delight of Nature—abdicate—
Exhibit Love—somewhat—

Until you resemble Him perfectly and give up your own self, abandon the joys of life and the natural world, and in doing so, finally show what love truly is.

The “But” of the second stanza marks a sharp contrast between ordinary and extraordinary love. Loving until death is common, but there’s another kind of love that begins after death, and it’s so powerful that it unmakes you. That “But” is the turning hinge of the poem. It shifts from finiteness to something that begins where death ends.

Another aspect worth exploring is the idea that “He” is Christ. A couple points about this. “Destitution” caused by loss of Him mirrors what St. John of the Cross called "the dark night of the soul." The poet's life becomes “too abject for itself,” like the soul without divine purpose, or maybe like one who has become overwhelmed because of the horrors of the world. The words “perfect” and “imitation” are clues too. “Thenceforward imitate—/ Until—Resemblance perfect—” "Imitatio Christi" is the basic idea of becoming more like Christ, imitating His life and even death. “Delight of Nature—abdicate—” Giving up the pleasures of nature sounds a lot like Christian asceticism. Finally, ending with “Exhibit Love—somewhat—” points to the realization that after all the self-erasure and abandoned joy, the poet only somewhat exhibits love. That humility mirrors Christian teachings. No love can fully match Christ’s love.

But all that said, it’s still difficult to get underneath this poem. First of all, it’s ambiguous whether or not the He in this poem is a lover (not necessarily a man) or Christ. But even if it is about Christ, and I suspect it is, one wonders at how devastating the cost of “perfect love” can be. To abdicate the "Delights of Nature" is a tall order for a nature lover like Emily Dickinson.

Let’s turn our focus to that term in the first stanza, “privilege of finiteness.” At first I took this phrase as earnest, as in, it’s a privilege to be alive, to experience the finite. But upon further reflection, I’m not so sure. I think she is being ironic here. The privilege here seems to be your mortality, the fact that you only have to endure until death. You’re spared the burden of forever. So it’s a dark kind of privilege, a relief by limitation.

But true love begins where that privilege ends, when the beloved is gone and you aren’t allowed to stop. That’s what the second stanza leads to, love that transforms in grief, without the escape hatch of death. This irony draws a sharp contrast between an ordinary and easy finite love and a radical love which is all consuming, and therefore not a privilege, but a burden or a calling.

Finally, let’s take a closer look at that “somewhat” at the end of the poem. After all that self-erasure and imitation, what does the poet say she’s done?

Exhibit Love—somewhat—

That “somewhat” undercuts everything that came before. After describing an act of self-abandonment in love, the poet minimizes it. It’s as if she's saying, even after all this, I only barely approach real love. After the poet gives everything, herself, her joy, her identity, she hesitates. It feels like a sigh. Maybe I’ve shown love. A little.

It also leaves the poem open-ended. The “somewhat” leaves the reader in tension. Is Dickinson being humble, or expressing futility?

Mourning can completely overtake a person, not just emotionally, but existentially. The real exhibition of love isn’t found in loyalty during life, but in the transformation of the self after loss.

This poem offers no easy comfort, but it does offer witness. It tells us that our grief isn’t just pain, it’s transformation. It points to the way that grief consumes you until your whole self becomes a sort of love-offering in return. 

       -/)dam Wade l)eGraff 

A gnarly pine reveals the heat of thousands of seasons

The Admirations—and Contempts—of time—

The Admirations—and Contempts—of time—
Show justest—through an Open Tomb—
The Dying—as it were a Height
Reorganizes Estimate
And what We saw not
We distinguish clear—
And mostly—see not
What We saw before—

'Tis Compound Vision—
Light—enabling Light—
The Finite—furnished
With the Infinite—
Convex—and Concave Witness—
Back—toward Time
And forward—
Toward the God of Him—

      -Fr830, J906, fascicle 40, 1864

The reality of death puts things into perspective. There is a raw truth in this poem that most of us can understand. A confrontation with death can change your priorities. This is one reason why a thinker like Emily Dickinson spends time meditating on death. It helps one to see the “Light.”

What are the "Contempts" of time? Well, today I read that there are plans to build a new $200 million gold ballroom in the White house. Perhaps when you hold that idea up to people struggling and starving, this may, upon reflection through the "Open Tomb," be considered one of the “Contempts” of time? (Of course it is pretty easy to point the fingers elsewhere, but much harder to go inward, to go "concave." I have plenty of my own "Contempts" to worry about.)

I like that phrase “Open Tomb” in the second line. The adjective “Open” can be read both literally and figuratively here. If you are looking into an open tomb, you see the body for the last time, life-like but lifeless. It’s an unforgettable sight. But “Open” also has the connotation of truth being “Open.”

We are also reminded of the stone rolled away from Christ’s tomb, leaving it open and... empty. Evoking Christ points us back toward the “Admirations” in the first line, the sense of sacrifice for others, but it also helps us make sense of that odd phrase at the end, “the God of Him,” since “Him” may well be referring to Christ, He of the empty open tomb. 

The Dying—as it were a Height

Dying as the apex of life is something I have seen in Dickinson before, though I can’t recall the specific poem. Can anybody help me here? There is this one, in which it is the wounded deer that leaps highest, which carries a similar idea, but its not the one I'm thinking of. At any rate, death is seen as a height toward which you climb, and from which you can clearly see the life below you. This vantage point “reorganizes estimates” of what we focused on in life.

Reorganizes Estimate
And what We saw not
We distinguish clear—
And mostly—see not
What We saw before—

What we “saw not,” which might be, for example,  the incomparable worth of love and generosity, becomes more clear to us with death at hand. And, likewise, we no longer look at the objects of our own desires, with which we were so obsessed, in the same way, if at all.

'Tis Compound Vision—
Light—enabling Light—

This is a kind of double vision, more than ordinary sight, one kind of illumination (divine?) helps make sense of another, such as the light of eternity casting meaning onto the light of life.

The Finite—furnished
With the Infinite—

Our limited mortal experience is “furnished” with the eternal. The moment of death brings the two together. The idea of the Infinite being a "furnishing" is an interesting way to imagine it. It reminds me of Dickinson’s poem from earlier in this fascicle, in which she is getting bulletins from immortality all day.

Convex—and Concave Witness—
Back—toward Time—
And forward—
Toward the God of Him—

Convex and Concave Witness. What an interesting way to put it. This is another angle on Dickinson’s famous statement, “Circumference is my business.” Reviewing your life may be seen as a concave looking (inwardly round), with your furthest memories forming the furthest edge of the arc. Meanwhile, looking ahead, convexly, bubbles outward toward the “God of Him.” It’s a lens looking both ways at once.

The “Him,” at the end of this poem, could refer to anyone who has died and brought our attention to what really matters, but it could also refer to Christ. The two possibilities are suggestively conflated.

I’ve been to a few open-casket funerals and the experience does wake one up to life. Once, though, I encountered a dead homeless man in a park in San Francisco. The experience helped me realize that I didn't want to end up dying alone, without family or friends. Up until that time in my life I had notions of becoming an independent loner, with Whitman as a kind of model, but after witnessing this lonely death, my ideas changed. 

In a similar manner, by reminding us of the "Open tomb," this poem attempts to help us reorganize our estimations of the worth of things.

     -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Notes: This poem has a strange meter and rhyme scheme. The iambic meter goes 5/4/4/4/3/3/3/3 in the first stanza, with an AABBCDCD rhyme scheme, and then the second stanza is essentially a broken-up iambic pentameter, with regular rhyme at the end of each pentameter. I don’t know what to make of this, but its fascinating to watch what Dickinson does compositionally from poem to poem. 

Also, there is something about the short taught lines of the broken pentameter that enacts compound vision, seeing both sides; human and divine, temporal and eternal, Admiration and contempt, “saw not” and “distinguish clear”, convex and concave, back and forward, like a see-saw. 

Between My Country — and the Others —

Between My Country — and the Others —
There is a Sea —
But Flowers — negotiate between us —
As Ministry.


      -Fr829, J905, fascicle 40, 1864


This poem was most likely written to be presented to a friend and accompanied with a flower. Emily Dickinson often wrote occasional poetry of this kind. I've said it before but it bears repeating: there should be a book of these poems sold in flower shops which present a bouquet of two dozen of Dickinson's flower poems. This poem would be a good one to include in the bunch. 

Look how much this small flower of a poem does in such a little space.

For starters, it opens up vistas by conflating people with countries. This is a poem sent to a single person, or maybe persons. Therefore "my Country," in this poem, means, first, myself. It is understood that this flower is being used to negotiate through ministry to "Others," which is to say to other people. People are compared to Countries, and upon reflection, we can see how large and complex each of us are, like walking Countries. (See Fr687 for one of Dickinson's many poems with this theme)

And, conversely, Countries are like people. This idea opens up this poem to readings along political, racial and religious divides, and suggests a way to negotiate between them through ministry. It is recommended that this ministry be through the gift of flowers.

Flowers in this poem represent beauty. Flowers look and smell undeniably beautiful and the implication here is that beauty unites us. We all share a love for beauty. It brings smiles to our faces. Flowers, though often overlooked in our day to day lives, are revered in every culture, and you could say the same of poetry. The link between flowers and poetry is beauty. If flowers could speak, it would sound like poetry. I mean this in the grounded sense of poetry having pleasing patterns of sound, just as flowers have pleasing patterns of petals. This poem, for instance, pleasingly rhymes "There is a Sea" with "Ministry." 

Granted, you want the thing you give to be beautiful, and the consideration of beauty is essential, but the paramount thing is the gift itself. It is the act of giving that counts. 

If you give someone flowers, you are giving the literal flower of the earth itself. A flower is called a flower because it is beauty flowing from the earth. (That's probably not true, but it sounds good.) What better gift could a diplomat give? What Country could refuse?

But Flowers — negotiate between us —

The word “negotiate” in this poem strikes me as ironic. Countries “negotiate” with each other and so do people, but the idea of flowers negotiating is oxymoronic. Flowers are a gift from the earth, always. They don't negotiate, they just are. So when we give them as a gift it is a reminder of natural bounty.

But Flowers — negotiate between us —
As Ministry.

The word “ministry” is rich with resonance. The word can refer to a government department, like the "Ministry of Education" and therefore fits the "Country" diplomacy motif. It also has a religious connotation. A "ministry" can refer to the work or service, or the body of clergy in a church. Finally, there is a healing connotation, like the idea of a nurse “ministering” to one’s wounds.

The word "minister" itself comes from the Latin "minus," meaning "less," reflecting the idea of service or being subordinate. 

All of this, a flower, which is to say, beauty, will do.

I don't think that Truth and Beauty are the same (like Keats’ Urn tells us) but they do seem to be nearly synonymous. Truth and Beauty summon one another. They cry out for one another.

Truth is in the gift, in the human connection, and Beauty is in the flower. Dickinson gives them both to us in her poetry. This is her "ministry" across the great divide.

      -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

lilies of the valley make good ministers

P.S. I found a good online essay about this poem by Brianne Jacquette that made some terrific connections. Check it out.

Had I not This, or This, I said,

Had I not This, or This, I said,
Appealing to Myself,
In moment of prosperity—
Inadequate—were Life—

“Thou hast not Me, nor Me”—it said,
In Moment of Reverse—
“And yet Thou art industrious—
No need—hadst Thou—of us”?

My need—was all I had—I said—
The need did not reduce—
Because the food—exterminate—
The hunger—does not cease—

But diligence—is sharper—
Proportioned to the Chance—
To feed upon the Retrograde—
Enfeebles—the Advance—

     -Fr828, J904, Fascicle 40, 1864


The logic of this poem, as best as I can make it out, goes like this.

Stanza 1: I’m appealing to myself (talking myself into the idea) that since I am prosperous right now and have this stuff, then life is adequate.

Stanza 2: But the stuff says to me: if your situation was to reverse itself, and you lost everything, it would be okay, because you are industrious.

Stanza 3: The poet answers this by saying “Well, yes, it’s true, I’m industrious because all I’ve got is my need. The hunger doesn’t go away when the stuff is gone.”

Stanza 4: Therefore, the poet concludes, I won't focus on what I've already attained, because to focus on the past weakens the chance for future possibility. I will be diligent, and therefore sharper, focused on that chance. 

This gets down to our basic humanity. "My need was all I had." We are needy. One would hope the things we have would satisfy our needs, but, no, Life is still inadequate. (What's missing?) And even if it did make life adequate, we might lose the stuff, and then life will be even less than inadequate. So all you can do is be industrious to try to fill your need. But whatever you fill your need with better be, like food, of substance to your soul. Forget about the last meal, though, if you can, and focus on the chance to advance to the next one.

Let's look at that "This, or This," for a moment. It's meaningless stuff, empty pronouns, insert any substitute. What the "This, or This" is really a substitute for? It's a substitute for the "Me, or Me," the "us." Dickinson makes that sly move between stanza one and two. 

Have you seen the movie The Jerk? There’s a scene in which the character played by Bernadette Peters leaves the character played by Steve Martin because wealth has changed him and therefore he is no longer the man she married. He walks away and says, “Well I'm gonna to go then! And I don't need any of this. I don't need this stuff, and I don't need *you*. I don't need anything. Except this. [picks up an ashtray] And that's the only thing I need is *this*. I don't need this or this. Just this ashtray. And this paddle game. - The ashtray and the paddle game and that's all I need... And this remote control. - The ashtray, the paddle game, and the remote control, and that's all I need... And these matches. - The ashtray, and these matches, and the remote control, and the paddle ball... And this lamp. - The ashtray, this paddle game, and the remote control, and the lamp, and that's all *I* need. And that's *all* I need too. I don't need one other thing, not one... I need this. - The paddle game and the chair, and the remote control, and the matches for sure. Well what are you looking at? What do you think I'm some kind of a jerk or something! - And this. That's all I need. [walking outside] The ashtray, the remote control, the paddle game, and this magazine, and the chair. [outside now] And I don't need one other thing, except my dog. [dog growls at him] I don't need my dog.”

That’s a deep comedic take into what I think Dickinson is getting at with "This, or This" becoming "Me, or Me." 

In the poem, as well as the scene from the Jerk, there is a thin line between stuff and what you really need, Love. The Dickinson poem is tricky because the “This, or This,” or “it” in the next stanza, is impersonal, and seemingly immaterial. But the idea of “Me, or Me” and “us” makes it seem personal. So which is it? Dickinson is blurring the line between material and spiritual prosperity in this poem, as it so often is in real life.

There is that “Life” in the first stanza to consider. The poet seems to be saying that the Life (of stuff, without Love) is inadequate. She's trying to appeal to herself that this stuff makes up for it. The stuff says no. Dickinson says all I have is need though. The need here seems to be referring to the "stuff," but its really pointing toward the “chance” to make a Life, to ascertain what the poet really needs.

“If I no longer had Life,” the poem is saying, “I could try to appeal to myself that the things I own would make up for the loss of You, my Life.” Life, at the time this poem was written, meant Sue for Emily, just as it means Bernadette Peters for Steve Martin in The Jerk (and for awhile, in real life.) None of that “stuff” will mean anything when the Life of the home is gone.

This kind of "appeal" is the root of the great American Dream tragedy. Think of The Great Gatsby, or Death of a Salesman, or, The Jerk. : (
      

             -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

The "This, or This" scene from The Jerk

All forgot for recollecting

All forgot for recollecting
Just a paltry One—
All forsook, for just a Stranger's
New accompanying—

Grace of Rank, and Grace of Fortune
Less accounted than
An unknown esteem possessing—
Estimate— who can—

Home effaced— her faces dwindled—
Nature— altered small—
Sun— if shone— or storm— if shattered—
Overlooked I all—

Dropped— my fate— a timid Pebble
In thy bolder Sea—
Ask me —Sweet— if I regret it—
Prove myself— of Thee—


     -Fr827, J966, Fascicle 40, 1864


Dickinson continues her string of extreme love poems from fascicle 40.

Since we know that at least one of these poems was given to Sue, we can assume that they all were. (In fact, in Fr816, "Sue" is replaced by "Sweet," and in this poem we see the endearment "Sweet" used again. ) They point to a love which lifts the beloved up to a stature that is beyond everything, even, we are told in this poem, nature itself. Because Dickinson took out referents, and made these love poems general, we are able read ourselves into both the lover's and the beloved's place. In this sense the poems teach us how to love, and, also, how to be loved.

     All forgot for recollecting
     Just a paltry One—

This one starts by saying, I forgot everything so that I could remember only one paltry person. The word paltry suggests that the one person might be insignificant to others but is everything to the poet. We get a sense of "One" being worth more than Everyone. This reminds me of Jesus' parable of the shepherd who leaves the flock unattended to look for the one "paltry" sheep who is missing.

If this poem can be read in a general sense, it is also about the specific.  

This focus on the particular is the essence of love. Loving more than "One" becomes abstract. Philosophically you might even posit that you cannot ever love more than One. You cannot love the general person, only the genuinely unique one. If I say I love my family, I am still speaking in the abstract. If I say I love my wife, it is pointing toward the real. 

The paltry One is, ironically, the least paltry. And each of us, to someone, even if only to our mother, is the least paltry. 

     All forsook, for just a Stranger's
     New accompanying—

What an adventure a romance is. To forsake all that is known in the past for the possibilities inherent in the accompaniment of a stranger. If the first couplet of this poem is about choosing one person over all others, then this one is about choosing an unknown future with this one person over the known past without them. 

     Grace of Rank, and Grace of Fortune
     Less accounted than
     An unknown esteem possessing—

No Rank, or Fortune (nor, in the other existing copy of this poem, "Wealth" and "Station") can account for that rare quality of you for which the poet possesses an "unknown esteem." That "unknown esteem" means priceless. You can't put a price on love. But also "unknown" describes the beloved. It goes along with with paltry, and strange, to describe something low that has become most high.

     Estimate— who can—

Nice one, Emily. As my daughter would say, "You clocked her Tea." Or as Justin Bieber would say, "It's not clocking to you that I'm standing on business." 

Can anyone estimate a person's true worth? And especially a person as amazing as Sue (or you)?

In that line, "Estimate— who can— " Dickinson is throwing the ball in our court. Wealth and Status are not bearers of worth. That which is of worth transcends worth. It possesses an "unknown esteem." It's not quantifiable. "Estimate— who can— " is a sly way of saying to the reader, "Do you agree, or is there something you esteem that is more valuable than me?"

     Home effaced— her faces dwindled—

In some Dickinson poems the beloved is equated to home, and in some, like this one, She represents away from home. Here, She is a stranger, and she is even seen as the effacer of home. We know how powerful home is to Dickinson. To efface a home is a serious charge. The faces from home, this poem says, dwindled, when I met you. That's a heavy statement. It says, essentially, I left my own childhood home behind for you.

     Nature— altered small—

This strikes me as an unnaturally beautiful line. I'm imagining it etched into a tree trunk, as just a fragment by itself. From it, future generations might be able to unravel the entire love affair. (Would somebody please make that happen? Sign it, Emily Dickinson.)

I feel the truth of this line in my marriage. Nature has been altered small because of my wife. In other words, if something were to happen to her, nature would lose its luster.  

Nature, which is the largest thing, is altered to become smaller by the addition of you. This reminds me of my favorite Dickinson poem, Fr1178, which says that the smallest human heart's extent reduces all of Dominion to nothing.

We should mention, for a moment, the beauty in the music in the syllables of this poem, like, for example, the way that little rhyme of "alt" with "small" in this line echoes the two instances of "all" that came in the lines before, and sets up the "all" at the end of the stanza. 

     Sun— if shone— or storm— if shattered—
     Overlooked I all—

The S-SH-ST-SH-T combo of "Sun— if shone— or storm— if shattered—" is gorgeous. Just saying. The beauty of the poem is part of the absolute devotion to the beloved.

Here the poet is saying that she overlooks the stormy days because of her love. "Were I with thee, wild nights would be our luxury" she writes elsewhere. But, we should note, she is also overlooking her good sunshine days too. That might be a problem.

     Dropped— my fate— a timid Pebble
     In thy bolder Sea—

The poet is saying here that whatever her fate is, it is wrapped up in the large ocean that is her lover. Her lover, she admits, is bolder than she is. The poet is a "timid Pebble" in comparison to the bold sea of her lover. There is a pun here with bolder/boulder, which is triggered by the word "Pebble." Once you hear the pun, then the line says, "in my boulder sea," which is to say, I'm a pebble in your rocky ocean.

An uncanny thing about these lines for me is that they could be written to any future reader. Dickinson left the fate of her poems up to posterity, to the bolder sea of the future. She never profited from them. She has dropped her fate, her "timid Pebble," into the ocean of readers yet to come.  

     Ask me —Sweet— if I regret it—
     Prove myself— of Thee—

"Sweet" here has a little bitterness to it, maybe even a little spice, when followed by that word "regret."

The poet will prove to you that she did not regret it. She will prove herself OF Thee. What a move, using that preposition "of" like that. It can mean, I'll prove myself to thee, but also that the poet will prove herself OF Thee. Like the pebble is engulfed in the sea, the self is of Thee. 

Those last lines perhaps intimate an insecurity in the mind of the beloved. "Do you regret it?" the beloved is imagined asking the poet. The poet turns to comfort her and say, I'll help you see why I could never regret it. In this poem, and in poem after poem, she does exactly that. She proves it over and over again in the poetry itself.

In reading these poems there is a (very slow) quickening effect on the reader. These love poems are written, in essence, to you. The "you" that was once, very specifically, Sue, is now you you, because you have assumed the role of the reader.  They are ideal love poems written for an ideal lover: you. 

But you also are reading these poems in the guise of the lover, in the voice of a poet with a capacity to love that is proven, time and again, with a love that seems to be larger than nature herself.

    -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

the incomparable Susan Gilbert Dickinson

P.S. This post feels like a love letter. But who am I even writing it to? There has to be someone specific, right? Otherwise, it's not you.  

Denial—is the only fact

Denial—is the only fact
Perceived by the Denied—
Whose Will—a numb significance—
The Day the Heaven died—

And all the Earth strove common round—
Without Delight, or Beam—
What Comfort was it Wisdom—was—
The spoiler of Our Home?


     -Fr826, J965, Fascicle 40, 1864


Let’s start with the ending of this poem and work backward. “The spoiler of Our Home” is a stomach-churning phrase. If Home has infinite power, as Dickinson has written elsewhere, then there is a real horror in spoiling it. Most of us can feel this at some level, though some of us may relate more than others. There are few things worse than having your home spoiled. It feels like "Heaven died."

And all the Earth strove common round
Without Delight, or Beam—

The home has been spoiled. There is no more delight, nor heavenly beam of light. There is only a common earthly striving.

The stakes in this poem are high then. So naturally, we want to know, what is it that happened that “spoiled” the poet’s home? So we go back to the beginning of the poem and find out that the only “fact perceived" is the beloved’s denial of the narrator. 

What is the Beloved's reason for the denial? Maybe there’s a very good reason? But, since this reason isn't given to us, the sense that I get here is that those other facts are irrelevant. There is no reason good enough to spoil a home. The only one that matters is what leads to -what Dickinson called in an earlier poem in this fascicle- “the finallest occasion.” It has spoiled the home. Whatever other “facts” there may be pale in comparison to this one.

The poet doesn’t give us the beloved’s purported reason for the denial because it is not pertinent to the overriding fact of the denial itself.

What Comfort was it Wisdom—was—

The spoiler of Our Home?

Whatever "Comfort” there may be in the reason for the denial couldn't possibly make up for the ultimate comfort of the home before it was spoiled. And it would be even more asinine to call reasons for denial “wise,” because what wisdom could there possibly be behind the spoiling of a home?

Think about the spoiled homes you know about and how the spoiler always has some “justification” for their actions. This poem is asking, how can you ever justify breaking up a home? The poem is asking the reader to stop and really think about those possible justifications for ending a relationship.

I think it might be useful to read this poem in light of the homeless problem, and the immigrant problem too. What does it mean to deny someone a home? What possible reason could be good enough?

     -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

P.S. Can this poem be read against itself? I wonder about that word "Will" in the first stanza,

Whose Will—a numb significance—
The Day the Heaven died—

I can’t help but think of the phrase, "Not my will, but Thy will be done." Is it the “will” that got in the way in the first place and caused the beloved's denial? In Fr818, Dickinson writes,

Other Betrothal shall dissolve —
Wedlock of Will, decay —

A Wedlock that we have willed our self decays. The Will can be a problem.

But I also think that Dickinson may merely mean here that since the break up of the home, she lacks the will to even get out of bed.

P.P.S.

What about those other "facts," the unperceived ones? Maybe they do matter? If this is a poem to Sue, and I suspect it is, then Sue's reason for denying Emily may have seemed quite reasonable. After all, Sue was married to Emily's brother. It was a very complicated relationship.

"Unto Me?" I do not know you—

"Unto Me?" I do not know you—
Where may be your House?

"I am Jesus—Late of Judea—
Now—of Paradise"—

Wagons—have you—to convey me?
This is far from Thence—

"Arms of Mine—sufficient Phaeton—
Trust Omnipotence"—

I am spotted—"I am Pardon"—
I am small—"The Least

Is esteemed in Heaven the Chiefest—
Occupy my House"—

    -Fr825, J964, Fascicle 40, 1864


This poem is a conversation between the poet and Jesus. It starts in a very Dickinsonian way. Christ uses the same truncated language the poet does. “Unto me?” It’s like shorthand, encapsulating in two words the whole question. No set up, no pre-amble, and no extra words.

Dickinson loved that preposition “unto” and used it in several poems, usually love poems, and always with gravity. Here she opens up the poem with the open vowel of the word, which immediately brings us “unto” the poem itself. 

“Unto” is a strange word if you think about it. The etymology of the word is a merging of “until” with “to,” but it has come to mean something more totalizing. In King-James-Bible terms it has the connotation of moving exclusively toward something. Matthew 11:28 says, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Dickinson shortens all of this to just the essential “Unto me?,” but the rest of the scripture is implied. The translator of the original Hebrew could have just written, “Come TO me,” but there is more of a sense of all-inclusiveness in that word “unto.” There is also a hint of “into.” Come into me.

Our sense of the connotation of this word matters. Dickinson writes in one letter to Abiah Root, “I have perfect confidence in God & his promises & yet I know not why, I feel that the world holds a predominant place in my affections. I do not feel that I could give up all for Christ, were I called to die.” To come “unto” Christ could be seen, then, as total, as giving “all up.”

Dickinson’s letters to Abiah are worth reading for their frank confessions of religious reckoning. You can read some of the excerpts Here. These letters were written when Emily was 19. This poem, written 18 years later, has years of Dickinson’s extremity of thought and feeling behind it.

If you read this poem directly after the poem that precedes it in fascicle 40, which is about the affliction and agony that comes from leaving home, the illness that comes from “Illocality,” then you also get the sense of the weight that is insinuated in Dickinson's answer, “I do not know you/ Where may be your house?”

Dickinson was attached to “home,” and to the “world,” and so for her, to give “home” up for some unknown “house” was a reigning concern.

So this poem starts off with that sense. Unto you? “I do not know you— Where may be your House?”

We hear in the tone of this reply, and the one in the next stanza, Dickinson’s playful impudence: You want me to come to you? I don’t even know you, sir!

Jesus answers, “I am Jesus late of Judea, now of Paradise.” We see a little bit of humor in this answer too. Christ saying He is "late of Judea,” but has moved to Paradise, makes it almost seem like we are talking about Paradise City, California rather than THE paradise.

Wagons—have you—to convey me?
This is far from Thence—

Again, asking Jesus if there are wagons is cheeky. And by the way, this is how we know it is the poet speaking here and not just some general narrator. Only Emily would answer Jesus with her tongue so firmly planted in her cheek, not to mention the turn from humor to pathos taken in the following line, “This is far from Thence.” You live in Paradise? Oh, well, I’m nowhere near there. We wince with the implied agony of this understated "Far from Thence." There is still a touch of humor in the understatement, but it is drying up. Things are getting more humble and real.

"Arms of Mine—sufficient Phaeton—
Trust Omnipotence"—

But they are not fully there, yet, because to have Jesus use a term that comes from Greek mythology is still pretty cheeky. It's clever too. A phaeton is a light, four-wheeled, open carriage popular in Dickinson’s day, but it is also mythological figure. In Greek mythology, Phaeton was the son of Helios, the sun god, who attempted to drive his father's sun chariot, resulting in disaster.

That alluded to disaster informs the following line. “Trust Omnipotence.” Trust? Wait, what happened to Phaeton again?

Still though, “arms of mine” has the implication of an embrace of love. We sense the poet leaning a bit closer to that embrace, trying to trust.

She admits,

I am spotted—

Jesus answers, 

"I am Pardon"—

The brevity and these lines is breathtaking. I am spotted. You have a sense here of the poet truly seeing her own limitation and weakness. She aspires to a Christ-like love and falls short. “I,” itself, falls short. “I” am “spotted.” The self is spotted by its isolated and inherently selfish nature. All of that is implied in this brief line.

And conversely, Christ is pardon. Christ is forgiveness. When we forgive, including forgiving ourselves, we become Christ-like. That is Christ. “I am Pardon.” (If you are not religious, you can still enter this poem through the understanding of forgiveness. That is the gist of it.)

I am small—"The Least
Is esteemed in Heaven the Chiefest—

This is the essence of Christ’s teaching. From Matthew 25:40, “Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” (There’s that “unto” again.)

The poem begins with some arrogance, but by the time you get to “I am small” you have turned the corner into humility. And this humility is “esteemed in Heaven the chiefest.” We love Dickinson for her humor and attitude, but we also admire her ability to go deeper. In this poem we watch that happen.

"Occupy my House"—

Christ finishes the conversation with an invitation that also reads as an imperative. 

We note at the end of this poem that the “house” is still not a “home,” a distinction that would be clear to Dickinson. But she seems, in this poem anyway, to be moving toward making it into one.

    -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

A nearness to Tremendousness –

A nearness to Tremendousness –
An Agony procures –
Affliction ranges Boundlessness –
Vicinity to Laws

Contentment’s quiet Suburb –
Affliction cannot stay –
In Acres – It’s Location
Is Illocality –


    -Fr824, J963,  Fascicle 40, 1864


I’ve been thinking lately about how everything can be seen in terms of home and away. In western music, for instance, even the most complex Beethoven symphony can be boiled down to the tension between the tonic chord (home) and the dominant chord (away). Or think about the Fort/Da (Gone/There) game which Freud wrote about in "Beyond The Pleasure Principle," in which we see the child's innate drive to push the ball away and then have it sent back home to her. This poem is getting down to that essential thing. 

We have the connotation in the word “Tremendousness” that whatever is “away” is great. It's Boundless! But it is also from where “affliction,” a word used twice in this poem, and “agony,” derives. We want the safety of rules, a “Vicinity to Laws.” I remember asking my daughter Sofia, when she was 3 or 4, if she would rather be a wild horse running free or to be one kept fenced in on a farm. She surprised me by saying she'd rather be kept fenced in. Perhaps now, at 15, she would choose to be running wild?

Dickinson thought a lot about this dialectic too. She wrote to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, "My business is circumference." Circumference might be seen as the boundary between home and away. If Dickinson's vocation was poet, then you might say that all of her poetry was a meditation on the interplay of this binary.

Physically Dickinson was very much a home-body, though you might argue that mentally she traveled further into boundless Tremendousness than anyone. "The brain is wider than the sky," she wrote.

I think the astonishing statement in this poem is that "Affliction cannot stay in Acres." If you truly feel at home, then you cannot stay afflicted and in agony. You have a sense here that even if you are in pain, and your body is failing you, if you feel loved and located, then that pain can't reach you, or at least can't last. Elsewhere Dickinson has written of the "infinite power of Home." 

And yet, paradoxically, isn't her poetry difficult to locate? And isn't it tremendous?

      -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

P.S. I found an insightful essay about this poem from Joely Fitch, Mapping illocality, on the Dilettante Army blog. Here is an excerpt:

“Emily Dickinson is so often a poet of elusive definitions. She rhymes and riddles; she poses impossible questions and goes on to answer them, but leaves always an escape clause—something that slips away from meaning, or exceeds it. I’ve been thinking and writing for some time now about space and embodiment in Dickinson’s work—about the ways she renders human subjectivity as neither continuous with nor separate from its environment; about the persistent (and fascinating!) oddness of the spaces and bodies in her poems.

There’s one word in particular in which I find a center of these concerns, “illocality.” I’m still looking for a way to explain why some thread in me has so long been caught on the fishhook of this word, this illocality. I’ve found one way in through a series of questions that the writer and scholar Sara Ahmed asks in the introduction to her book Queer Phenomenology: “How do we begin to know or feel where we are, or even where we are going, by lining ourselves up with the features of the grounds we inhabit, the sky that surrounds us, or the imaginary lines that cut through maps?”

I find myself asking a question I’m not sure can be answered—where is illocality? Can it be said to be inside or outside of the body? Is it a place, or a feeling, or is the distinction between those things part of the problem? (“Is Heaven a Place—a Sky—a Tree?” Dickinson asks elsewhere.

This poem asks us to wonder where the interior is, where the boundaries of the self are and what crosses them. Pain takes us to the edges of ourselves, past the limits of the measurable. The poem ventures into abstraction because it must. “Tremendousness” and “Boundlessness” sprawl across their respective lines, enacting the vastness they describe in the capacious expanse of their syllables.

“Contentment” is a “Suburb,” here, or contains said Suburb, but “Affliction” can’t be figured in geographic terms. According to the poem’s logic, “Tremendousness” and “Boundlessness” are related to “Illocality,” meaning we have to think about it not only in terms of pain (for “Affliction”) but of expansiveness. It’s worth paying attention to the “ill” of “illocality,” too, as well as to its paradox: “illocality” can only be defined by what it isn’t, by thinking of “locality.” It’s a “Location” mappable only according to its own absence.

To me, this makes no sense—and it makes perfect sense. “Illocality” is place and no-place, a word which somehow contains within its syllables the feeling of embodied displacement, a state of being out-of-phase with one’s occupying of physical space. It rhymes with one of Dickinson’s favorite words, “Immortality,” which makes sense, too: both are expansive, unmappable states of being, which elude definition and yet remain captivating.

In fact, maybe thinking of illocality as the absence of locality isn’t quite right—we could think of it as something more like hyperlocation, as a sense of locatedness that continuously exceeds its boundaries. As suggested by its association with “Tremendousness” and “Boundlessness,” illocality might be a state of radical possibility even as it’s also one of dissociation. I find a link to this way of understanding illocality in an earlier poem, from 1861. It’s a species of love poem:

The Drop, that wrestles in the Sea –
Forgets her own locality –
As I, in Thee –

She knows herself an incense small –
Yet small, she sighs, if all, is all,
How larger – be?

The Ocean, smiles at her conceit –
But she, forgetting Amphitrite –
Pleads “Me”?

Knowing and unknowing, here and more broadly in Dickinson’s work, are inextricable from the ability or inability to locate oneself in space. Here, the poet and her “Drop” are worried about the boundaries of an inside and an outside. Where do we outline the limits of the interior? Is a drop in a sea still a drop? Where are the boundaries of the self—and if the “I” “Forgets her own locality,” then where is she to be located?

“As I, in Thee” is crucial to how I read this poem; the unspecified addressee may be a beloved, or God, or neither, or both. In any case, it remains true that Dickinson is comparing the condition of a drop of water in the ocean to that of an “I” in some relation to a “you,” whose immensity both enchants and overwhelms. The Drop “wrestles”; there’s a struggle here for self-definition, for an identity with clear boundaries, but the very material of which she’s composed resists this.

I read this “forgetting” of one’s own locality and “illocality” both as expressions of the problem of the individual—these irreconcilable forces of understanding oneself as bounded, separate, and as continuous with the world one inhabits, including the world of other people. Here, in the “now” I write this from—early 2021, approaching a year since the COVID-19 pandemic radically transformed the way so many of us move through the spaces of our daily lives—I’ve found myself turning anew to her poems as little machines of understanding, in which I find a universe as complicated as it is in life, suffused with a sense of wonder: Dickinson had a gift for looking at the world and asking what is it? in ways that still feel so striking, so continuously new. Queer phenomenology offers one way of understanding why these reframings-in-language might matter so much. Ahmed declares that “the ‘new’ is what is possible when what is behind us, our background, does not simply ground us or keep us in place, but allows us to move and allows us to follow something other than the lines that we have already taken.”Illocality, involving some degree of defamiliarization, could be what precedes the following of a new line, a new attachment, a different source of identification. I keep lingering in the condition of this “Drop”: suspended between the awareness of herself as a particular entity and the understanding that she’s continuous with, inseparable from, something so much larger, almost incomprehensibly immense."

Thank you, Joely!