Wert Thou but ill—that I might show thee

Wert Thou but ill—that I might show thee
How long a Day I could endure
Though thine attention stop not on me
Nor the least signal, Me assure—

Wert Thou but Stranger in ungracious country—
And Mine—the Door
Thou paused at, for a passing bounty—
No More—

Accused—wert Thou—and Myself—Tribunal—
Convicted—Sentenced—Ermine—not to Me
Half the Condition, thy Reverse—to follow—
Just to partake—the infamy—

The Tenant of the Narrow Cottage, wert Thou—
Permit to be
The Housewife in thy low attendance
Contenteth Me—

No Service hast Thou, I would not achieve it—
To die—or live—
The first—Sweet, proved I, ere I saw thee—
For Life—be Love—


     -Fr821, J961, 1864


I go to poetry for both its beauty and its truth, and I go to Emily Dickinson’s poetry in particular because she takes me deeper into both than any other poet I've read. With every poem, I’m trying to glean what it has to say to me.

In this poem, and the one preceding it, Fr819, love is put to the test. Both lead me to question my own ability to love. I'm like a rank amateur compared to Dickinson, like a HS basketball player next to Michael Jordan. But just like having Michael Jordan as a rolemodel makes you a better ball player, having Emily Dickinson as one makes you a better lover.

In Fr819 it is impressed upon us that just a little from those we love can go a very long way. In the poem at hand, we come to understand just what a very long way means.

Some of the language is difficult in this poem, so let's break it down stanza by stanza.

Wert Thou but ill—that I might show thee
How long a Day I could endure
Though thine attention stop not on me
Nor the least signal, Me assure—

Were you ill, so that I could show you how long of a day of caretaking I could endure, even if you paid no attention to me, even if you gave me no sign of reassurance at all...

Note that the "if" statement set up by that "Wert Thou" is not yet resolved by a "then" statement. It will not come until the end of the poem.

Wert Thou but Stranger in ungracious country—
And Mine—the Door
Thou paused at, for a passing bounty—
No More—

If you were a stranger in an unfriendly land and it was my door you stopped at for charity as you were passing through, and nothing more than that...

Accused—wert Thou—and Myself—Tribunal—
Convicted—Sentenced—Ermine—not to Me
Half the Condition, thy Reverse—to follow—
Just to partake—the infamy—

This one is difficult. It took me a long time, for instance, just to figure out that the first line is saying "If we were both accused and the tribunal...," not "If you were accused and I was the tribunal." Ermine, I had to look up. It refers to the white fur once worn by judges. My best stab at this stanza is,

If you were accused, and I was too, and the tribunal convicted and sentenced only you, who is only half of the "condition," then  I, who share all with you as your reverse, would follow you to the cell and share your infamy. 

The main gist of this stanza, anyway, is one of radical love. Instead of blaming the beloved, the poet will share their guilt. For me this is getting down to true unconditional understanding.

I love these kinds of difficult stanzas because in trying to puzzle them out, you end up going deeper in. By the time I worked through this stanza for the dozenth time, I really started to feel the idea inherent in the radical love that comes not from a position of judgment, but rather one of solidarity.

The Tenant of the Narrow Cottage, wert Thou—
Permit to be
The Housewife in thy low attendance
Contenteth Me—

"The Narrow Cottage” refers to the grave. Dickinson often refers to death and burial with domestic metaphors (e.g., “A Coffin—is a small Domain”). So here, the beloved is imagined as already in the grave. The tone is intensely devotional and self-effacing. She’s not asking for closeness in life, or status in love, only the permission to serve the beloved, even in death. This is chillingly tender. She is saying, "Even if you were dead, and I could only sweep the dust from your grave, that would be more than enough."

No Service hast Thou, I would not achieve it—
To die—or live—
The first—Sweet, proved I, ere I saw thee—
For Life—be Love—

Now we get the "then" statement. Then, there is no service for you, the poet says, that I wouldn't do. I would die for you and I would live for you. To die is nothing, since death already seemed sweet to me before I met you, and to live means to love you.

In Fr819, which we know was given to Sue, Dickinson says that the smallest crumb, even just a single look, from Sue is enough. In this poem Emily shows us what that enough would look like. Whatever weakness the beloved has, whether sick, or lost, or guilt-ridden, or even dead, she will be there. Otherwise, says the poet, it would be sweeter to be dead.

Don't we all wish to receive love like that? And don't we all aspire to be able to give it? In these poems to Sue, Emily shows us how.


    -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

P.S. When I was looking up this poem I stumbled on another one by Robert Burns that appears to be the template for this one. Google search gave it to me because of the "Wert thou" construction. Sometimes researching these poems feels a bit like being a literary archaeologist and it was cool to happen across this connection, and to realize the influence of Burns on Dickinson. I'm sure Emily read Robert Burns poetry. The basic idea in the Burns poem is the same, though of course Dickinson makes it her own. Here is the first stanza,

Oh wert thou in the cauld blast,
On yonder lea, on yonder lea,
My plaidie to the angry airt,
I'd shelter thee, I'd shelter thee;
Or did misfortune's bitter storms
Around thee blaw, around thee blaw,
Thy bield should be my bosom,
To share it a', to share it a'.

In doing further research I discovered that Mendelssohn put this poem to music in 1859, a few years before this poem was written. Perhaps Dickinson was inspired by Mendelssohn's version. Here is a sweet rendition... 

The Only News I know

The Only News I know
Is Bulletins all Day
From Immortality.

The Only Shows I see—
Tomorrow and Today—
Perchance Eternity—

The Only One I meet
Is God—The Only Street—
Existence—This traversed

If Other News there be—
Or Admirable Show—
I'll tell it You—

      -Fr820, J827, 1865

The Only News I know
Is Bulletins all Day
From Immortality.

I admire people who stay engaged in politics. To do the real day to day work of bettering the planet, it seems necessary to stay connected to the “news.” But it is also all so transient, and moreover, it can affect your mental well-being. What to do?

Poems are, perhaps, closer to a lasting Truth, "bulletins from Immortality." I think of William Carlos Williams conclusion to his long poem, “Asphodel, that greeny flower,”

"It is difficult/ to get the news from poems/ yet men die miserably every day/ for lack/ of what is found there.// Hear me out/ for I too am concerned/ and every man/ who wants to die at peace in his bed/ besides."

I also think of the words of St. Clare, “Keep your mind on the mirror of eternity.”

The Only Shows I see—
Tomorrow and Today—
Perchance Eternity—

Dickinson is focused on the present and, perchance, Eternity. It leads me to think about the shows I watch, all the fluff. What does another episode of Modern Family have to do with my actual family? That's what I take from these lines. Be present, with your mind on Eternity.
 

One wonders what that “Perchance” is motioning toward. What is needed to turn the temporal moment into an eternal one? How do we watch THAT show?

The Only One I meet
Is God—

That’s an amazing thought. I’m reminded of Matthew 25:40. “And the King shall answer and say unto them, 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.”

I’ve heard the advice that you should treat everyone as if God was standing in front of you. That's helpful advice, especially when you are dealing with difficult people, or maybe aren't feeling that great yourself.

The Only Street—
Existence—This traversed

Existence is the only street? What is Emily getting at here? Perhaps she means that the only path she travels is the fact of being alive. Existence itself is her road. There is no literal street, just the metaphysical one of divine connection.

If Other News there be—
Or Admirable Show—
I'll tell it You—

That ending is funny. It has so much of the wry Dickinson attitude in it. She has just told us that she hears only bulletins from immortality, sees only today and tomorrow, maybe eternity, meets only God and walks only the path of Existence. So when she ends with "If Other News there be... I'll tell it You," she seems to be raising an eyebrow, like she’s saying, “if there’s anything else worth knowing, some grand spectacle or exciting gossip, anything you think I’m missing, sure, I’ll let you know.”

Okay, thank you, Emily. We'll stay tuned for more of your bulletins from Eternity. 

    -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Notes: David Preest informs us: "In the summer of 1864 Emily was immured in her cousins’ house in Cambridge, Boston undergoing eye treatment. She there received a letter from Thomas Higginson,saying that he had been wounded in the Civil War. The first stanza of this poem forms part of her letter of reply (L290) to Higginson. She leads up to the stanza as follows: ‘I was ill since September, and since April, in Boston, for a Physician’s care – He does not let me go, yet I work in my Prison, and make Guests for myself – Carlo [my dog] did not come, because that he would die, in Jail, and the Mountains, I could not hold now, so I brought but the Gods – I wish to see you more than before I failed – Will you tell me your health? I am surprised and anxious, since receiving your note.’ Then follows the stanza, saying that her Only News is her ideas for poems recording her intuitions of immortality, ‘Bulletins’ being the apt word for the compressed, telegraphic language of those poems. 

The Luxury to apprehend

The Luxury to apprehend
The Luxury 'twould be
To look at Thee a single time
An Epicure of Me

In whatsoever Presence makes
Till for a further Food
I scarcely recollect to starve
So first am I supplied —

The Luxury to meditate
The Luxury it was
To banquet on thy Countenance
A Sumptuousness bestows

On plainer Days, whose Table far
As Certainty can see
Is laden with a single Crumb
The Consciousness of Thee.

          -Fr819, J815, 1864

Ah, a poem to luxuriate in. So many Dickinson poems are about austerity. But maybe this one is too, when you look close.  

It's a luxury to apprehend 

The Luxury 'twould be
To look at Thee a single time

It's a luxury just to apprehend that it's a luxury to look at you only a single time. That's all that is needed by this poet. Dickinson is luxuriating in luxuriating, but the twist is that it is just a "single" look, that the luxury is based on something so seemingly scant. I think here of Dante seeing Beatrice only a few times and then dedicating all of those love poems to her. This poem, we know, was given to Susan, who Dickinson once referred to as her "Beatrice." No wonder.

All that lux luxury comes down to a single glance from the beloved. Not only is that glance a luxury, it's a luxury to know that this one glance is a luxury.

"An epicure of Me" is a compact line. It means, just this one look makes an epicure of me. An epicurean is someone who loves rich food and drink, so Emily is saying that one glance at the beloved is like feasting on rich food and drink. 

But "An epicure of Me" also reads something like...an epicure made up of "Me-ness." Somehow this line has the feel of completion. It is the beloved that makes the self into a true epicurean. The vision of you, it seems to say, was a pleasure made especially for Me.

In whatsoever Presence makes
Till for a further Food

What does in "whatsoever Presence" mean? It's a mysterious line. Perhaps it means a memory? A letter? And, who knows, maybe even a doppelganger might do. 

I scarcely recollect to starve
So first am I supplied —

Once given the vision of you, says the besotten poet, I'll forget that I'm starving. That single look was enough sustenance for life.

The Luxury to meditate
The Luxury it was
To banquet on thy Countenance
A Sumptuousness bestows

We are going to luxuriate even more in that word luxury in the third stanza. Because that's what this poem is about, luxuriating, even if given just a taste. The poem is a meditation on luxury, on making much of little, the luxury to meditate on what a luxury it was to "banquet on thy Countenance." Sue must've swooned when she read that line. "Countenance" has a biblical resonance, especially when paired with "thy," but we know that Dickinson often wrote to and of Sue using such religious terms, just like Dante places Beatrice at the gate to Paradiso in the Divine Comedy. 

A Sumptuousness bestows

If you are going to top the lush language of using "luxury" four times in a row, you might go with a word like "Sumptuousness." 

 

To banquet on thy Countenance

A Sumptuousness bestows

On plainer Days, whose Table far

As Certainty can see
Is laden with a single Crumb

The Consciousness of Thee.

That single look bestows a sumptuousness on "plainer Days." Look how plain that phrase sounds after all that sumptuous bestowing of luxury.

In the end we have a poet who, instead of complaining about how little she is given, is satiated by it. "As Certainty can see." This speaks to both the object of affection, who must've really been something, and to the disposition of the poet, who was thrifty in the extreme.

Consciousness of Thee is all that is needed for the poet to persist, just a single crumb. In fact, that plain table is "laden" with that crumb. The crumb we "apprehend" is truly a sumptuous banquet. 

Has a little ever gone further than it did with Emily? And has there ever been a more romantic poem?

Bless Emily Dickinson for being so satisfied with that one look of love. May we all be so lucky. 

     -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Study for 'La Charite'by William Adolphe Bouguereau  

P.S. This poem sheds light on all the "crumb" poems Emily wrote. See, especially, the recent one, Fr807, which describes this very poem, a robin's silver chronicle in song given in return for a single crumb.

P.P.S. I very much enjoyed Dandi Meng's take on this poem. I heard the echo of Fr269 "Wild Nights Wild Nights" in this poem too, but Dandi really makes something of this connection.

Given in Marriage unto Thee

Given in Marriage unto Thee
Oh thou Celestial Host —
Bride of the Father and the Son
Bride of the Holy Ghost.

Other Betrothal shall dissolve —
Wedlock of Will, decay —
Only the Keeper of this Ring
Conquer Mortality —


    -Fr818, J817, sheet nine, early 1865


What to say about this poem? It is a fairly straight-forward poem of faith in the Christian trinity, a kind of wedding vow. The narrator, which we assume to be the poet, has given herself in marriage to the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. She feels it is the only true marriage, one that will not decay, and will "conquer mortality."

I think if you lined up all of Dickinson’s poems that explicitly concerned Christian faith and doubt, there would be a few hundred of them. It would make for a great book. Together they must comprise one of the most deeply felt, honest and intellectually nuanced explorations of a spiritual journey on record. What emerges from all of it is almost impossible to pin down. You have to go to the source, and, even then, the tenor shifts from poem to poem, sometimes dramatically.

If you are not careful, it is easy to back up your own views on religion using Emily Dickinson’s poems. If you are an atheist, you can find Dickinson poems that will corroborate your lack of belief. But if you are a believer, you can do the same. This poem falls into the latter camp. As far as I can see, it is without a shred of doubt. Usually you can find some little way to read a Dickinson poem against itself, some thread that when pulled will unravel what you think the poem is all about, some tricky ambiguity.

Perhaps there is a tension in this one in the word "Will." Dickinson says that a “Wedlock of Will” shall dissolve and decay. To marry yourself to Trinity you must believe “Thy will be done,” not “my will be done.” There is a lot of weight on that word "Will." What does it mean for a willful poet like Dickinson to submit?

Dickinson’s will was quite strong, (in a later letter, she would call herself the witch of Endor, a biblical character that defied God’s wishes), but there was a noble ideal that Dickinson aspired to beyond her own desires. There is, at the heart of Christianity, the idea of sacrificing the desires of the self for the sake of others, and that idea, I think, deeply appealed to Dickinson. (See, for instance, the poem preceding this one in the Franklin order, Fr816.)

Dickinson's thoughts on Christianity were far from simple, which is why this simple statement of faith is all the more astonishing. 

In looking online at various articles on Dickinson and her reckoning with faith, I found a letter to Joseph Lyman, written a year before this poem,

“Some years after we saw each other last I fell to reading the Old & New Testament. I had known it as an arid book but looking I saw how infinitely wise & merry it is.

Anybody that knows grammar must admit the surpassing splendor & force of its speech, but the fathomless gulfs of meaning—those words which He spoke to those most necessary to him, hints about some celestial reunion—yearning for a oneness—has any one fathomed that sea? I know those to whom those words are very near & necessary, I wish they were more so to me, for I see them shedding a serenity quite wonderful & blessed. They are great bars of sunlight in many a shady heart.”

We know that there are two copies of this poem, one of which was given to Sue Gilbert Dickinson, who was a professed believer. So it is possible that this poem was written for Sue, and reflects her beliefs, not Emily's. But I take this poem as a declaration on Dickinson's part that she was, in her own idiosyncratic way, making a vow to the "lasting" Christian value. It wasn't long after this that she began to wear a white dress, and become cloistered in her own home, and did, in appearance at least, begin to look like a bride of Christ.

     -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

John Singer Sargent, Fumée d'Ambre Gris, 1880

This Consciousness that is aware

This Consciousness that is aware
Of Neighbors and the Sun
Will be the one aware of Death
And that itself alone

Is traversing the interval
Experience between
And most profound experiment
Appointed unto Men —

How adequate unto itself
Its properties shall be
Itself unto itself and none
Shall make discovery —

Adventure most unto itself
The Soul condemned to be —
Attended by a single Hound
Its own identity.


    -Fr817, J822, sheet 60, late 1865


I find this poem haunting because it leads me to imagine my own death. But it’s also transformative because it leads me to question identity. I’m reminded of Dickinson’s famous statement, “If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.” This poem took my head off.

Let’s start at the beginning. We could spend a while just focusing on the first line of the poem. It’s like a mantra. THIS Consciousness that is aware. This CONSCIOUSNESS that is aware. This consciousness THAT IS aware. This consciousness that is AWARE. 

That first line speaks to pure awareness, a state prior to identity, but the next line gives us two objects of our awareness, which, together, sum up life; neighbors and the Sun.

Neighbors, of course, is a neighborly way of saying “others.” We can only be aware from our own center of consciousness, but then there are all of those other consciousnesses which we can only be aware OF. It is in comparison to these “others” that identity is formed.

The Sun is a compact symbol of life-source and force, of light and warmth, of a power beyond ourselves, and, also, simply, of day. This is a poem, after all, contemplating death. The self is saying goodnight neighbors, so long old Sun.

So if you had to boil awareness down to only two things, it might be neighbors and Sun. And then, finally, the third thing, death.

That lone consciousness…

Will be the one aware of Death
And that itself alone

You were aware of life, and now you will be the “one aware of death.” The singular “one” is echoed in the next line in the word “alone.” All alone you will be…

traversing the interval
Experience between
And most profound experiment
Appointed unto Men —

You will experience this interval between life and death. To think of this as an experiment, indeed, the “most profound experiment appointed unto men” is pure Dickinson. Death as an experiment? What does this mean? It means, I think, that we can’t know the results of our experience with death until we go through the process. What will be the result of this experiment? How will you experience your own death?

How adequate unto itself
Its properties shall be
Itself unto itself and none
Shall make discovery —

This is tough to get and we see here just how formidable a philosopher Dickinson was.

The phrase “adequate unto itself” reflects on the self-sufficiency of consciousness. Dickinson seems to be saying that whatever "properties" the self possesses, they will be adequate (sufficient) for itself, by its own nature. Nothing external is needed for its fulfillment.

That word “adequate” though makes me wonder if this state is something we may achieve, or something that inherently just is?

The answer lives in the tension between being and becoming. Dickinson seems to say the soul is what it is, sufficient unto itself, and no one can know it but itself. But as readers, we may experience that truth as something to grow into, learning to believe in and trust that inherent adequacy, to live from it, not search for it in others’ eyes.

Perhaps that is the quest of the “adventure” pointed to in the next stanza,

Adventure most unto itself
The Soul condemned to be —

Life and death are a kind of epic quest that happens entirely within. The word condemned is a telling one. We are trapped in our own consciousness. The adventure is a scary one, a battle. The adventure is grappling with isolation, and finally, the loss of identity.

It’s heroic in a quiet, harrowing way.

An “adventure unto itself” implies a quest for understanding, yet Dickinson says “none shall make discovery.” Even as the soul journeys inward, it can never fully know itself. Consciousness is bottomless.

Those final lines are the most thought-provoking and transformative.

Adventure most unto itself
The Soul condemned to be —
Attended by a single Hound
Its own identity.

The adventure for the soul is in the attempt to shake the hound of identity. It’s this that makes death such a terrifying prospect.

We're attached to identity because it is our sense of continuity and the coherence of all of our memories, our thoughts and feelings. We build our identities like narratives. We don’t just live, we interpret our lives, and identity is the spine of that interpretation.We're attached because identity gives meaning to our experience. It allows us to be seen and remembered. Without that story, we feel lost.

To let go of identity even for a moment is to fall into mystery, to admit you don’t fully know who you are, aren’t in total control of yourself. 

That’s terrifying. And also, maybe, where freedom begins. When the hour comes, can we best the hound of identity? And how about starting now?

I think of the epitaph on Keats' grave, "Here lies one whose name is writ on water."

And I also think of Dickinson's poem which seems to be about Keats, Fr448, "We talked between the Rooms/ Until the Moss had reached our lips/ And covered up — Our names —"

    -/)dam Wade l)eGraff 

Identity by Alfred Gescheidt

I could not drink it, Sweet,

I could not drink it, Sweet,
Till You had tasted first,
Though cooler than the Water was
The Thoughtfulness of Thirst.

      -Fr816, J818, early 1864


The Thoughtfulness of Thirst. What a thoughtful line. Who else but Emily Dickinson could help us appreciate restraint with so much thusness? 

According to Christanne Miller’s notes in “Poems As She Preserved Them” there is another version of this poem in which “Sweet,” at the end of the first line, is replaced by “Sue.”

Dickinson wrote hundreds of passionate letters and poems to Susan Gilbert Dickinson. In 1852, when she and Sue were still college girls, she wrote, “Susie, will you indeed come home next Saturday, and be my own again, and kiss me as you used to?” 

The poem at hand was written some 12 years later. How's that for sustained thirst!

In another poem to Sue, she wrote:

“Sue—forevermore!”
“Sue, you can go or stay—
But there is a limit, Sue—
To any love—nay, but my love for you—”

That poem, like the one at hand, speaks to an unconditional love.

The poems are rarely so straight-forwardly “romantic” in a conventional sense, and are often coded in ambiguity. Changing the word “Sue” to “Sweet” is one way of moving this poem from the explicitly personal to one of general endearment. Not only does the change keep a sense of privacy, it also allows the reader into the poem, as both potential object and subject.

Another way to "code" is to use symbols. Water, for instance, represents literal refreshment, but it's also a symbol of emotional sustenance.

I could not drink it, Sweet,
Till You had tasted first,

This is a poetic way of saying that Emily is putting Sue’s needs first. Her concern is not for satisfying her own thirst (physical or emotional), but her beloved’s.

Though cooler than the Water was
The Thoughtfulness of Thirst.

This contrast highlights the satisfaction in the act of waiting. The “thoughtfulness of thirst” is not just physical longing but care and restraint, a valuing of love over desire.

"Thirst" usually represents an instinctive desire, but pairing it with “thoughtfulness” suggests that this is no blind craving. 

That act of putting another first transforms ordinary thirst into something sweeter and, ultimately, more meaningful. "Cooler." 

In restraint lies discipline, and in discipline, love. Consideration is more refreshing than self-satisfaction. 

Perhaps there is the hint of the erotic in this poem too. This phrase is telling: “Though cooler than the Water was / The Thoughtfulness of Thirst.” Here, the feeling of wanting, the ache itself, is more powerful than satisfaction. The anticipation is more emotionally charged than the act. This flips the usual hierarchy: wanting is more charged than having. And giving, more satisfying.

         -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Thirst, 1886, William-Adolphe Bougeaureau 

P.S. This poem, read carefully and deeply and often, might be a powerful tonic against addiction. It says, succinctly, that resistance to desire is more quenching than desire itself.

P.P.S. In researching this post I discovered that the letter to "Susie" from 1852, in its entirety is online. It's worth a look.

To this World she returned.

To this World she returned.
But with a tinge of that—
A Compound manner,
As a Sod
Espoused a Violet,
That chiefer to the Skies
Than to himself, allied,
Dwelt hesitating, half of Dust,
And half of Day, the Bride.


    -Fr815, J830, summer 1864. 



The background for this poem is of interest. Thomas Johnson notes: "The copy reproduced above was written in pencil in the summer of 1864. It is addressed "Mrs. Gertrude -" and signed "Emily." On 20 March 1864, Mrs. Vanderbilt was summoned to her back door by cries of distress and accidentally received a pistol shot intended for her maid. Her critical illness but ultimate recovery moved ED to send her two poems, this and the poem that follows."

Imagine, then, being Ms. Vanderbilt and receiving this poem after having gone through such an ordeal.

Did Emily just assume that Mrs. Vanderbilt had returned from her critical state with “a tinge of that?” I suppose anyone who almost dies, especially from the result of a violent crime, would likely experience a bit of “that,” no?

And what is “that?" It’s a loaded question. I think it refers to whatever is on the other side of the veil. THAT. In this poem Emily turns that into something beautiful.

If that is whatever is beyond, than this is the sod, here and now. The sod typically refers to the piece of ground that is laid over a grave, and that connotation is here in this poem, but sod also stands in as a metonym for the earthly realm. Therefore, in a near death situation THIS and THAT come together to make “a compound manner.”

The near death experience is likened to a violet that is “espoused” from the sod and is now “chiefer to the skies than to himself allied.” This is a gorgeous idea, that the quality that develops from earthly woe is a flower which is more of the sky than the ground. It redefines the very idea of a flower to me.

Also, the idea of the sod "espousing" a violet is lovely. The soil speaks a flower. Here poetry is invoked. A poem after all is something one espouses. One could think of a poem, then, as a kind of auditory flower, espoused from the prosaic sod of life. 

The word "espouse" carries within it the word spouse too, which sets us up for the idea of the "bride" at the end of the poem. 

 Dwelt hesitating, half of Dust,
And half of Day, the Bride.

There is a restlessness hinted at the end of the poem in that word “hesitating.” The idea of being half married to dust and half to day is a dramatic way of looking at it. Half-bride of dust! What a way to put it. Here's a question though. What does Day represent? Does "day" here represent the heavenly “Skies” the flower is reaching for, or does it represent “life?" It’s ambiguous. The truth lies, somehow, in that ambiguity.

A flower peaks in that moment of hesitation. Next time you look at a flower imagine it “chiefer to the skies” than the sod, a bride hesitating between day and dust. Next, imagine yourself as that flower.

     -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Violet Girl with Scars and Stars by Hali Kara

Notes:

1. My guess is that this poem was accompanied by a spray of violets. When the coffee table book of Dickinson flower poems, to be sold at florist shops, is put together, this one should be included.

2. In the poem by Hali Kara accompanying the painting above, I read that "Violets heal trauma/ (they say)" Do they say that? Maybe Dickinson was thinking of this when sending Mrs. Vanderbilt the poem. 

3. The idea of a flower being chiefer to the skies than the sod reminds me of this mind-blowing tidbit from the mind of the physicist Richard P. Feynman. "Trees are made of air." 

Soto! Explore thyself!

Soto! Explore thyself!
Therein thyself shalt find
The "Undiscovered Continent"—
No Settler, had the Mind.


     -Fr814, J832, sheet 13, early 1865


This poem was a note sent from Emily to her brother Austin.

It begins with a kind of primal sound, like a piercing bird-call. Soto! That's an attention grabber, emphasized even more by that exclamation point that follows. It’s almost pure exclamation.

I'd imagine Dickinson chose the name Soto partly for that reason. Magellan doesn't have the same sharpness. But there may have been other reasons she chose the name too (see end notes).

Why is this poem in such an excited state from the get-go? What’s with those double exclamation marks?

Why so urgent the command to Austin (and subsequently to us) to make like a great explorer and “Explore thyself!”

Was Emily feeling a sister’s frustration caused by an idiotic brother's behavior? Or, maybe it is just an enthusiastic expression of encouragement.

I hear echoes of “Doctor, heal thyself” in that first line, as well as the Delphic Oracle of Apollo’s command to, “Know Thyself!”

The wisdom that Emily’s imparting to her brother is that the thing he is looking for is already within him.

I'm reminded of the words attributed to St. Francis, "The one you are looking for is the one who is looking."

The poem poses a challenge to us. Can we discover our own “continent” within? Could Emily? I think at this point in her life she was beginning to be more and more self-possessed. Maybe Emily wrote this poem for herself first and that’s why the it is so exclamatory.

The last line of this poem is powerful. No settler, had the mind. No settler has the mind you do. No settler has the mind to settle there. The idea of “settling” your own mind is hard to fathom. Who, or what, is it that is settling the mind?

The idea there that the one thing most worth settling is your own mind because it is the one place that only you can truly explore.

I've never seen this poem printed with a comma in the last line. I’ve included it here, though, because it seems to be pretty clearly marked in the original handwritten letter.

The poem is deep enough without that comma there, but with the comma a whole new amazing idea comes into play.

"No settler, had the mind."  

If you truly had your own mind, you wouldn’t be a settler at all, in all senses of the words “settle.” The true mind does not settle. The mind is always in motion! It's more verb than noun, more flow than Florida. 

Dickinson’s mind cannot be settled, and did not settle, but always seemed to be motion, and, wonder of wonders, still is, through the alchemical magic of her poetry in the ear.

         -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Hernando De Soto 

* De Soto was a pretty despicable dude it turns out. Check out these 10 facts about him for a (bad) taste of his exploits, such as slave trading and native-American massacres. Maybe Dickinson knew this and it factors into her reason for invoking De Soto? Another possible reason perhaps is that De Soto's parents wanted him to be a lawyer, just like Austin's.

How well I knew Her not

How well I knew Her not
Whom not to know has been
A Bounty in prospective, now
Next Door to mine the Pain.


   -Fr813, J837, July 1864


I learned from David Preest that “this poem is a whole letter sent to Emily’s friend, Maria Whitney, whose sister Sarah had died 9 July 1864 at Plymouth, Connecticut.” That’s a helpful note. We can put the clues together. Emily must have heard about the sister from Maria but never gotten the chance to meet her. She had always looked forward to the prospect of the Bounty of meeting the sister, but now there is just the pain of the loss which has come to live ‘Next Door.”

For me a personal poem like this begs a question. Does it work as a poem for a general reader? I think so. Removed from its original purpose, it becomes about not letting the chance pass by to get to know someone, a reminder that there can be a serious loss that comes from failing to reach out and engage with others.

The poem dramatizes this, and even more so when you learn about its original circumstances. Imagine your friend has told you all about her sister, and you look forward to meeting her and then learn she has died. Now you’ll never know her at all, let alone get to know her "well." You can feel the frustrated grief, and the shared sympathy, in the expression of this poem. 

How well I knew Her not

Even in a simple poem of condolence, though, Dickinson’s language is mind-bending. The paradox in that first line creates tension. Can you “well” not know someone? It's as if Dickinson is saying that the lack of connection is something that has grown large in her awareness. Absence creates a presence, which you can get to know well. 

There is a sense in this poem that Dickinson already well knows this kind of pain, because the last line of the poem says that the pain has moved next door to "mine." In other words, she's already well-familiar with this feeling of absence. That sense of sympathy is part of Dickinson's strength. She understands Maria's, and our, pain. (See the gist of Fr780, which ends with the lines, "Our Contract/ A Wiser Sympathy.") 

The phrasing of that first line has a slightly formal tone, which gives us a sense of timeless reflection. It is this tone that takes the sentiment out of the “personal” realm of the circumstances with Maria and helps turn it into a poem for a general audience about regret.

The regret is emphasized through the irony of the line. Starting with “How well” leads us to expect a positive memory. Ending with “knew her not” pulls the rug out from under us. It mirrors the speaker's experience.

The strange phrasing slows the reader down and sets the tone for a poem that’s all about missed intimacy and the pain of possibility unfulfilled.

    -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

P.S. I can't help but think about Dickinson's poetry on the whole here. I often feel a sense of wonder that she entrusted all of her careful work to an uncertain future. I think about how many other poets' and artists' works have been lost, and how easily that could have been the case for Emily. We are grateful that her prospects have been fulfilled and are bountiful. 

Love reckons by itself—alone—

Love reckons by itself—alone
"As large as I"—relate the Sun
To One who never felt it blaze—
Itself is all the like it has—


     -Fr812, F826, early 1864

It is helpful when reading this poem to put a full stop after the "I" in line two, so that it reads as two separate sentences. 

This poem is describing something indescribable -Love. Love is not comparable to anything else. It can’t be measured against anything else. It “reckons by itself.” To reckon means to describe. So Love defines itself. (much like "beauty" does, see Fr797.)

There is an interesting move at the end of line one, that “alone” sitting there after the dash — alone. If love is about connection with another, then what is that “alone” doing there? This tension is in the next line too. “As large as I.” It doesn’t say as large as We. That I, like the word “alone,” has a solitary feel to it. This continues throughout the poem. You have the word “One” and then “Itself is all the like it has.” In this last phrase you can hear an echo, “Itself is all…it has.”

You are left with the feeling that Love is actually solitary, which is insightful.

That “One” “Alone” “Self” though? It blazes like the sun. When one feels its true measure, it is like emerging from a dark room and experiencing the sun for the first time.

The most powerful line for me here, set off in quotes, is “As large as I.” I hear in this God telling Moses in Exodus, “I am who I am.” I-consciousness is awareness itself. Mystics say the universe is pure awareness. That’s how large “I” is. We are all “I.” I know I am! And, conversely, “I” is all. We are together, then, in this One Alone Self. This is true Love.

This poem invites us to come out of the cold and dark and feel the blazing heat and light of this Love. You are that large, "As large as I."

    -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

The sound of the sun is comparable to cathedral bells 

according to this article from NPR

Notes:

David Preest points out that "Emily also used the impossibility of explaining the Sun ‘to Races – nurtured in the Dark’ in poem Fr436. It's worth going back to that Prowling Bee entry to read Susan's terrific take on it, as well as the comments, but it's also worth restating the poem here,

I found the words to every thought
I ever had – but One –
And that – defies me –
As a Hand did try to chalk the Sun

To Races – nurtured in the Dark –
How would your own – begin?
Can Blaze be shown in Cochineal –
Or Noon – in Mazarin?

There is a June when Corn is cut

There is a June when Corn is cut
And Roses in the Seed—
A Summer briefer than the first
But tenderer indeed

As should a Face supposed the Grave's
Emerge a single Noon
In the Vermilion that it wore
Affect us, and return—

Two Seasons, it is said, exist—
The Summer of the Just,
And this of Ours, diversified
With Prospect, and with Frost—

May not our Second with its First
So infinite compare
That We but recollect the one
The other to prefer?

     -Fr811, J930, early 1864


It takes a while to unravel the complex weave of a poem like this, and then, once you do, it is still pretty mystifying.

The one thing that makes this poem easier to understand is if you take “The Summer of the Just” to be referring to the past instead of some future "Summer of the Just" (heaven perhaps). Other readings of this poem I have read interpret “Summer of the Just” as a future heavenly summer, but that doesn’t make sense to me. This is a poem about a late feeling of a false summer surpassing the real (or "just") summer of the past.

Okay, with that in mind, here’s my take on this poem, stanza by stanza.

There is a June when Corn is cut
And Roses in the Seed—

This poem begins, as many of Dickinson’s do, with a sort of riddle. What kind of June is it when the corn is cut and the roses are in the seed?

The literal answer would be what I called growing up as a kid “Indian Summer.” This name is no longer socially acceptable. We've finally dropped the original misnomer, "Indian." Took us long enough! Sometimes we call this season Second Summer, or False Summer. (In Bulgaria they call it “Poor man’s summer,” which is terrific). In the next two lines we get another riddle to help clue us in…

A Summer briefer than the first
But tenderer indeed

What summer is briefer than summer, but also tenderer? Now we are getting into poetic territory with that word tender. We know the “Second summer” is shorter than summer. But why is this second summer tenderer? It’s at this point that I start seeing the metaphoric meaning of a second summer here. If a year is analogous to a life, then, as we enter the winter of our life, we get a late life efflorescence, we get a "Second Summer." I do find as I get older that the beautiful summer-like moments are more meaningful and tender, first because I know they are waning, and second because I've come to appreciate them more. This poem speaks to both of those reasons.

Another thing that clues me into a late-life-resurgence idea in this poem is the images of corn being cut and roses in seed. These read as poignant signs of maturity. “Cut” is a violent verb, and you can see it, perhaps, as the down side of growing older, even if it means some good bread might be made from the corn. Roses in seed, however, is an extremely hopeful image, the upside of growing older. Roses to come!

As should a Face supposed the Grave's
Emerge a single Noon
In the Vermilion that it wore
Affect us, and return—

This is a shocking image. This second summer is compared to seeing a face that we thought was in the grave emerging at noon (noon=summer) with all the blood (vermilion) having returned to it. Wouldn’t that be affecting? That’s what it’s like to grow old while still feeling your youth. It’s haunting, but because its haunting, it's greater. We'll see why in the last stanza.

Two Seasons, it is said, exist—
The Summer of the Just,
And this of Ours, diversified
With Prospect, and with Frost—

I’ve already argued that Summer of the Just here means Summer of the Past. “Summer of the Just” is a pretty great phrase if you think about it. We all get our “Just” summer, the time which we are justified in being young. If I read this poem as a younger man, I’d hone in on that phrase as a way to excuse my youthful behavior. "Summer of the Just" also carries, perhaps, a sense of passing quickly. It's already fall? It was "just" summer!

So, the shorter Second Summer is richer because it still has prospects, but now these prospects are balanced with knowledge of the oncoming frost, which signifies winter and death.

Okay, that all sets us up for the idea in the final stanza,

May not our Second with its First
So infinite compare
That We but recollect the one
The other to prefer?

Because of our nearness to frost, to the grave, the second summer of our old age will be be infinitely better than the summer of our youth. The last two lines can be taken a few ways that I can see. The first, and to me strongest, is that we no longer take our "Just” summer, our youth, for granted. Now we are in the in-between time, the time between “cut” and “seed,” between “prospect” and “frost,” which is richer for carrying a sense of both sides of the equation. We can’t know how great the first summer was because we had nothing to compare it to. This Second Summer is infinitely better then for two reasons, first, because we know what it means to experience summer, having lived it. We are now nostalgic for it! But, secondly, we have become aware what it means to be losing it.

Being in my fifties with two daughters who will leave home in a few years, I can really feel the weight of this poem. I took them to Rockaway Beach today. I could feel my own youth through them, and could also feel my youth slipping away, even as my daughters will. I saw older kids all hanging out with their friends, and knew it wouldn't be much longer that these girls would be hanging at the beach with me. The corn is cut, the roses are in seed. It's almost unbearably poignant, and therefore, yes, better even than youth itself. 

     -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

The Robin for the Crumb

The Robin for the Crumb
Returns no syllable
But long records the Lady's name
In Silver Chronicle.

   

    -Fr810, J864, early 1864


This is such a perfectly Emily Dickinson poem. It can be boiled down to a pretty simple idea, that a little goes a long way, but Dickinson relays this idea through a richly evocative aphorism. The robin doesn’t say a word in thanks for a crumb, just sings his Lady’s name in silver chronicle.

The form of the poem expresses its content. First of all, like the song of its subject, it sounds beautiful. This poem, itself, could be considered a silver chronicle.

Start with the structure. There is a deliberate 6 - 6 - 8 - 6 iambic structure, a pattern which Dickinson most often uses for aphorisms. The idea of the structure is to give extra weight to that third line, as if it were the punchline of a joke. In this case it is especially appropriate because the longest line in the stanza " long records the Lady’s name.”

Within that iambic metrical structure Dickinson syncopates the rhythm by adding two rhyming dactyls, “syllable” and “chronicle,” which gives the poem an extra song-song lilt. 

 

The bird may not need to use syllables, but they are all Emily’s got to work with here. The word "syllable" is a metonym for poetry itself. English verse, after all, is made up of the arrangement of syllables. (Another poem written by Dickinson in 1864, Fr798, makes a similar argument, we can only “conjugate…while nature…creates and federates…without syllable.”)

The consonant soundscape of the poem is masterful. She weaves together RN, CR and SL sound clusters which satisfyingly culminates in the sound of the last line, “iN SiLver CRoNiCle.”

In the very feel of the musical language Dickinson gets across the idea that even the littlest offering to the poor will result in music. It’s as if the whole of nature becomes filled with music, all coming from that one little crumb.

The synaesthetic use of the visual word "silver" to describe auditory birdsong is also part of the poem's beauty. (This comparison is not unique to this poem. Dickinson also uses it in Fr902, ”Split the Lark — and you'll find the Music —Bulb after Bulb, in Silver rolled —”)

I notice that the bird isn’t necessarily singing in gratitude. The robin is just singing, and because one has given it a crumb, and nourished it, it gets to keep singing. That continued song becomes the “chronicle” of generosity. it’s not a transactional tit for tat.  This is a subtle point. You give because the bird is hungry. The bird sings because it is fed.

The lovely idea of a “Lady’s name” being told by “no syllable” is worth stopping to wonder about too. Nature’s music is able to tell the name of the benefactor without saying a word!


  -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Notes:

1. This poem was sent in a letter to Dickinson’s aunt Lucretia Bullard, probably as a thank you note. The aunt had given a gift to Emily, I would guess, and Emily, the Robin, sings this poem in response.

2. The “Robin and Crumb” theme is a common one for Dickinson. Here are a few more, Fr210, Fr195, Fr359 and Fr501. And here's one more Robin poem with a sentiment that fits well with the poem at hand.

If I can stop one Heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain
If I can ease one Life the Aching,
Or cool one Pain,
Or help one fainting Robin
Unto his Nest again,
I shall not live in vain.

3. I mentioned above that Dickinson typically uses a 6-6-8-6 stanza form for aphorisms. I don’t know if this is an innovation of hers, or a common aphoristic form? Here another good one for the sake of comparison.

The Pedigree of Honey (6)
Does not concern the Bee — (6)
A Clover, any time, to him (8)
Is Aristocracy — (6)

4. There were several “interpretations” of this poem up on The Emily Dickinson Museum’s FaceBook page. Here are two I liked. 

Gastropher1 wrote, “Please and thank you are but platitudes. Being is the greatest appreciation.” Perspicacious! 

 Starrynightrob wrote, “Who among us cannot spare at least a crumb for those less fortunate? Our good deed will echo through time like a musical report, when before the world was silent. The recipient may seem to take the bounty and run but their posterity assures their gratitude. Emily wrote another poem about a choir of birds and ends that one in song, too:

Twas the Winged Beggar —.
Afterward I learned
To her Benefactor
Making Gratitude

Good to have had them lost

Good to have had them lost
For news that they be saved!
The nearer they departed Us
The nearer they, restored,

Shall stand to Our Right Hand—
Most precious— are the Dead—
Next precious, those that rose to go
Then thought of Us, and stayed—


    -Fr809, J901, early 1864


You can read this poem in a very straight-forward religious way, which the poem invites you to do with its use of the term “saved” and the biblical allusion to standing at God’s “Right Hand.”

If you are a believer, which most of the people in Dickinson’s circle were, then this poem might be helpful in bringing comfort to you after a loved one has died. The person isn’t lost, they are saved in heaven! The nearer they were to us when we died means the nearer they will be to us in heaven where they will stand with us at God’s right hand. 

But then the final two lines complicate this idea. Why call out as “next precious” those that choose to stay behind? What does it mean to choose to stay behind because of the "thought of Us?" Huh? What does this have to do with standing at the right hand of God after death? This is a left turn that throws everything else in the poem into question. Suddenly we wonder if we are talking about actual death here, or, something else, like, perhaps, the loss of a relationship. After all, to choose to stay sounds like something a lover, or friend, would do, not a dying person. 

If the loss is referring, then, to the loss of a lover, everything else in the poem takes on a new meaning. Being “saved!” and at “Our Right Hand,” for instance, now has a more sly and wry meaning.

If this is a poem written to a lover, then the one that “chooses” to stay at the end is the unassuming hero of this story.

The “most precious” are those gone from us not because they were the most loving, but because their absence is total. They are beyond failure, or even forgetting. In contrast, the living, even those who choose to stay, exist in an unstable world. Their love is still being tested. Their presence is valuable, but still unfolding.

Those who “rose to go / Then thought of Us, and stayed” are precious in a different way. Dickinson is drawing our attention to a deliberate choice. They had the freedom to leave, but chose to remain for our sake. That act of self-sacrifice makes all the difference. By calling them “next precious,” Dickinson’s not diminishing them, but giving them a different kind of reverence.

By ranking the “dead” and the stayers, Dickinson helps us to confront the complexity of love. Do we most value those who are gone? Or do we cherish most those who could have left and didn’t?

Perhaps Dickinson is subtly critiquing us. We tend to overvalue what we’ve lost and undervalue what we still have. So maybe she’s saying to look closely at those who stayed? They are not forgotten, they are “next precious.” Don’t wait until they’re gone to make them most.

     -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

P.S. It's noteworthy how often Dickinson subverts religious language to talk about the interpersonal. We mark that in Emily's earliest love letters to Sue, when they were 19 year old school friends, she often conflated religious and romantic language. I tend to read the poem at hand as part of a tradition of love poems to Sue that continued a decades-long conversation. Using religious language, complicated by the fact that Sue was a professed believer and Dickinson wasn't, ultimately underscores the nature of their human relationship by comparison.

P.P.S. One more thought. Might this poem be a warning to its recipient? "If the precious one I love leaves me, I'm going to love the "next precious" one I'm with. Probably not, but the suggestion is there with that word "next." 

The lovely flowers embarrass me,

The lovely flowers embarrass me,
They make me regret I am not a Bee -

     -Fr808, late spring 1864

This poem was sent as the opening lines of a thank you card for a gift of wisteria from Emily’s aunt Lucretia Bullard. The entire letter runs thusly,

The lovely flowers embarrass me,

They make me regret I am not a Bee -
Was it my blame or Nature's?
Thank you, dear Aunt, for the thoughtfulness, I shall slowly forget -
The beautiful Plant would entice me, did I obey myself, but the Doctor is rigid.
Will you believe me grateful, who have no Argument?

Truly,
Emily.

The thing about Emily’s letters is that they were full of poetry and it’s often hard to tell where the prose stops and the verse begins. This letter is a good example. Can the “poem” really be separated from the letter? I’m not so sure. Franklin decided to do it here, probably because he was charmed by this couplet. But there are dozens of other metrical “couplets” in letters that he did NOT include, and you can see many brilliant examples of these in a terrific book I discovered in my school library, “New Poems of Emily Dickinson.”

One short “poem” (extracted from a letter) I remember reading in that book is, “Emerson’s intimacy with his ‘Bee’ only immortalized him.” Dickinson is referring to Emerson’s great poem “The Humble-Bee,” but the sentiment in that one liner is similar to this couplet. Emerson becomes immortalized because he captures in that poem “intimacy” with the bee. Dickinson wishes to me be more intimate, but because she is human, and, especially because of the circumstances under which this poem was written, she cannot. This is a condition she finds embarrassing. 

Dickinson wrote this letter when she was in Cambridge undergoing treatment for her eyes, which is why she says about the gift of the wisteria: “The beautiful Plant would entice me, did I obey myself, but the Doctor is rigid.” (See end note.) She is embarrassed to be so removed from nature, and wishes she could be enticed by the wisteria to go out. She would “slowly forget” what flowers were like, cooped up inside, if it were not for her Aunt’s thoughtfulness.

When I was searching online for information on this couplet, I came across a post on The Emily Dickinson Museum's FaceBook page which asked for interpretations of it. There were some pretty interesting ones, but one recurring idea that I found can be seen in this comment by Jennifer Berne, “My interpretation: Emily is embarrassed when thinking about flowers because she relates to and desires to take on the creatively active "male role" of the bee who pollinates the flower, rather than relating to the "female role" of the flower in being passively pollinated. I think it is a poem about gender-identity discomfort.”

Seeing as this was a thank you note to Dickinson’s aunt, I would doubt that Dickinson was thinking of "gender-identity discomfort” here. This is a good example of why extracting a poem from a letter might be problematic? 

The main thing I take from the couplet, and the letter, though, is that Dickinson can’t fully attend to either the flowers, nor to her aunt, as she wishes she could.

I like that last line of the letter, “Would you believe me grateful, who have no argument?” In the context of the letter I think she might be saying here, “I’m grateful, if you can believe it, for the doctor’s rigidity, and I have no good argument against his orders.” She also might mean, "Would you still think I'm grateful for your invite, even though I've got no good argument against my doctor for coming to see you?" I'm not totally sure. But the reason I like the line is that, taken by itself, it could mean other things, including the idea that we would live in gratitude if we only didn't argue so much against doing so. 

   -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Note:

From Thomas Johnson: "This note ED wrote probably in 1864, when she was in Cambridge undergoing treatment for her eyes. It acknowledges thoughtful attentions from her Aunt Lucretia. The above was written after receiving flowers, said to be wistaria; it was therefore presumably written in May. Evidently an invitation to call was declined. Mrs. Asa Bullard was Edward Dickinson's eldest sister, and the Bullards resided in Cambridge, at 24 Center Street."

Away from Home are some and I —

Away from Home are some and I —
An Emigrant to be
In a Metropolis of Homes
Is easy, possibly —

The Habit of a Foreign Sky
We — difficult — acquire
As Children, who remain in Face
The more their Feet retire.


    -Fr807, J821, early 1864


I wonder if the dash at the end of the first line is meant to be a thought trailing off. The way this first stanza reads to me is a kind of mimesis of thought, jumping from one to another quickly, without showing all of the work. The first line cuts off and the thought is overrun by the next one, which is that for some people it might possibly be easy to be an immigrant. But then the next thought comes in quickly on the heels of that “possibly.” Yes, the poet says, it may be possible that it's easy, but probably not, because foreign skies must be as difficult to get used to as it is to get used to children leaving home. 

Though the poem is in strict meter, and obviously worked out, the first stanza feels casual and in the moment, as if the poet were talking to herself, a bit confused. In other words, the elided lines and irregular punctuation is difficult to follow, which gives us a sense of the displacement felt by the narrator, who is trying to make sense of something new. (Dickinson makes a similar mimetic move in the poem, "I sometimes drop it,  for a quick-") 

The line also has a similarly bewildering effect on the reader, who is suddenly a bit lost him/herself and displaced by a grammar that doesn’t seem to quite coalesce.

Away from Home are some and I —

You have that “I" just hanging there. Is that "I" the object of the line or the subject of the next? Normally the object of a sentence is "me" not "I," but the next line seems to begin a new subject. This kind of lexical hall of mirrors gives us vertigo. We are made a little unsure by the syntax. But this sets up the point of the poem,  which is displacement. What does it mean, to some, to feel homeless? 

Dickinson says it might be easy, "possibly."  But she has a nice home, doesn't she? In other words, she wouldn't know. Or maybe she's saying she too feels homeless, in a way, and is wryly admitting that while this feeling might possibly be easy for some, it is not to her. Is she at home or not? That indeterminate "I" hanging at the end of the first line could be read both ways. I get the sense, though, that she is at home and considering those who are not. 

The second stanza is in a different voice, more wise and coherent, answering the first stanza with a proverb.

The Habit of a Foreign Sky
We — difficult — acquire

That word “Habit” can carry a couple possible meanings. The most likely one is the sense of habit as an acquired way of doing things. A foreign sky has different habits, a different way of doing things. 

Prince knows how hard it is to get used to snow in April. 

But, perhaps Dickinson was also playing with the idea of a nun’s dress when she speaks of acquiring the Habit of a foreign sky. A nun's Habit is not easy to acquire either. Dickinson, you might say, with her famous home-made white dress with pockets sewn in, did acquire one, of sorts. We put on the clothes of a spiritual adept when we attempt to go outside of our comfort zone.

It’s the final lines of this poem that I find so affecting.

As Children, who remain in Face
The more their Feet retire.

I think this means that the more your children’s feet retire away, the more you will see their face before you. I have a couple of teenage daughters, so this line gets me, knowing how deeply I will miss their faces when they are no longer living at home. Lucky Mr. Dickinson, I suppose. 

That is what the opposite end of the spectrum, homesickness, feels like too, though, like your childhood home has retired from you, but you still see its face in front of you. This image gets at both sides of the heartache.

This poem becomes even more affecting when we know that its author never left her home for long. For some reason Dickinson did not leave her childhood home behind, and, we can see in retrospect, that perhaps that was for the best. It allowed her to write poems in the financial comfort of her father’s home with few demands on her time. She never wanted for any material comfort, but a poem like this goes a ways to show that her heart was often bereft.

Thomas Johnson helpfully notes that “the poem may have been inspired in a moment of longing for home, shortly after Emily arrived in Cambridge, a district of Boston, in late April 1864 for eye treatment.’

One can't help but read Dickinson's poems biographically, because her story is so unusual in its way, but maybe doing so minimalizes the serious import of the poem, which is, after all, including in its scope immigrants with a much more serious problem than a reception in Cambridge.

This poem comes, in the Franklin order, soon after poem Fr805, which is an admonition to those who do not welcome in the immigrant,

These Strangers, in a foreign World,
Protection asked of me—
Befriend them, lest Yourself in Heaven
Be found a Refugee—

Perhaps this slightly earlier poem was also written in Cambridge in response to a chilly reception. Who  knows? At any rate the two poems seem in keeping with each other in that the earlier one is addressed to the comfortable one at home, and this latter, to the distressed one away from home.

This is a poem that leaves us with the haunting question of what it means to have no home.


         -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Luigi Ono, "Abandoned," 1875

from Eclectic Light collection of homeless paintings from the 19th c.

Partake as doth the Bee,

Partake as doth the Bee,
Abstemiously.
The Rose is an Estate—
In Sicily.


     -Fr994, J806, sheet 29, early 1864


This poem is coming from a different angle than “don’t forget to stop and smell the roses.” It seems to be saying, rather, don’t overindulge in smelling the roses.

I once read that the 12th century Islamic mystic Rumi’s poems sometimes contradicted each other because they were given to specific people for specific purposes. For instance, one person might need to learn to indulge more and another, to indulge less. This poem is for the latter audience. I learned from David Preest that, “Emily’s cousin, Perez Dickinson Cowan, recorded in his diary for 26 April 1864 that he had received from Emily a very fine bouquet together with this commandment-poem.” So this poem was specifically given to a young man, which makes it more…pointed.

But Richard Sewall comments that Emily could sometimes be wary of excess of the good, herself, for example stating in poem Fr312 that, ‘the least push of Joy/breaks up my feet/and I tip – drunken.’ So this poem is in keeping, whether written as a reminder for herself, or for her cousin Perez.

Let’s look at the poem. The first line, if we did not have that word “Abstemiously” following it, would read to me very differently. Bees do sometimes take a little from here and a little from there, abstemiously, but sometimes they seem to be careening luxuriously in one flower for a long time, drunk on pollen. So I would likely read the line as saying to partake deeply. But “abstemiously” changes this dramatically, as it means to partake in a way that shows restraint. I assume Dickinson means, to partake delicately and methodically, without destroying the flower.

Seeing the rose as an estate in Sicily opens up a whole new dimension to the flower. The fragrance of the rose opens us to something as luxurious and exotic as can be imagined. So on one hand the rose is like an estate in Sicily, and we should partake, but on the other hand, we should only visit such a grand estate now and then, like on a vacation. Dickinson raises the rose to swoony heights, but even as she does so, she warns us to take our swooning in measure. It's like telling us how incredibly amazing chocolate is and then telling us to not eat too much.

But I love this idea. It’s like imagining yourself in a Swiss Chalet with each bite of that chocolate, or a vineyard in France with each sip of chardonnay. I'm left with the idea of making each indulgence really count, and, in fact, making it count so much that we need not overindulge.

Next time I’m tempted to overindulge in the fragrance of a rose (which I confess happens often,) I’ll think of this poem and, instead, will just try to inhale deeply. 

         -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

 

P.S. I’m reminded of Sarah Silverman’s advice to Make It A Treat (M.I.A.T.)

These Strangers, in a foreign World,

These Strangers, in a foreign World,
Protection asked of me—
Befriend them, lest Yourself in Heaven
Be found a Refugee—


      -Fr805, J1096, early 1864


This is a rare straight-forward poem from Dickinson, and one that speaks to our moment now as well as any. One can imagine this poem inscribed on the Statue of Liberty, or written on a sign held by any one of the millions of protesters last week at one of the "No King" rallies.

The poem recalls Matthew 25: 41-46: "Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: For I was hungry, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee hungry, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me."

Is this poem meant, as it seems, to be a proverb for the general public, or is there something more personal in its use of the pronoun "me?" Thinking about the issues of her time, I wonder if slavery is on Dickinson's mind here. Her “preceptor” and friend, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, was a famous and outspoken abolitionist. There is a really great book about Dickinson’s friendship with Higginson called “White Heat” by Brenda Wineapple, that gives a lot of context for all of this, and also serves as terrific character study of Higginson, who was quite the guy. Dickinson never wrote directly about the issue of slavery, for whatever reason, but there are many oblique references to it, and perhaps this poem is one of them.

If the “me” is not just a generalized “me,” but, in fact, the author, then we could ask, what protection might have been asked of Dickinson? Here I think of that passage in Whitman’s Song of Myself,

“The runaway slave came to my house and stopt outside,
I heard his motions crackling the twigs of the woodpile,
Through the swung half-door of the kitchen I saw him limpsy and weak,
And went where he sat on a log and led him in and assured him,
And brought water and fill’d a tub for his sweated body and bruis’d feet,
And gave him a room that enter’d from my own, and gave him some coarse clean clothes,
And remember perfectly well his revolving eyes and his awkwardness,
And remember putting plasters on the galls of his neck and ankles;
He staid with me a week before he was recuperated and pass’d north,
I had him sit next me at table, my fire-lock lean’d in the corner.”

On the whole I tend to favor Dickinson’s poems over Whitman’s, but here I find Whitman’s testimony much more moving and inspiring for its specificity than Dickinson’s. Whitman is bravely putting himself out there and doing, through his poem, what Dickinson only suggests in hers. 

So, perhaps Dickinson is chastising herself here for not doing more?

The turn around in this poem is well-put. You will eventually become the stranger that you turn away. It’s a truth well worth reflecting on, then and now.

      -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Ample make this Bed—

Ample make this Bed—
Make this Bed with Awe—
In it wait till Judgment break
Excellent and Fair.

Be its Mattress straight—
Be its Pillow round—
Let no Sunrise’ yellow noise
Interrupt this Ground—


     -Fr804, J829, early 1864


Dickinson gave a rare title to an early version of this poem, “Country Burial.” You can imagine why she removed this title though, and it is an object lesson in the problem with titles in the first place. They can over-determine a reading. If this poem is only about a burial, it is far less powerful. By removing the title, the bed in this poem becomes suggestive of a marriage bed. You may also read "bed" as a place of birth, too, like, for instance, a garden bed, where seeds gestate below the surface and no sun can “interrupt.” Minus the title, the bed takes on the fullness of life; birth, marriage and death.

The result is that the poem becomes very resonant. The poem itself, just like the bed, is "ample," and like the pillow, is “round." The poem is making its own bed. The folding in of birth, marriage and death in the metaphor of the bed all seems to be happening under the surface of the “yellow noise,” residing in the netherspaces of the subconscious.

You can see what I mean if you look at the scene of Kevin Kline reading this poem to Meryl Streep in the film Sophie’s Choice. Here the poem is used for romantic purposes, and it rings with aura. This wouldn’t have worked if the title, "A Country Burial" had stuck.

 
Though even if the poem did carry the title, and functioned as mere elegy, it would still be powerful. Dickinson presents death not with fear, but with tranquility and a hint of hope. Death is imbued with amplitude and awe, with the promise of excellence and fairness, and finally, is presented as a place where you can rest uninterrupted.

But as a love poem, I think this poem is even more powerful. It speaks to the moment, right now, through the incantatory spell of this poem; let us make our bed ample and full of awe. And let’s close the curtains so we can sleep in.

Ample make this Bed—
Make this Bed with Awe—

Already, in the opening sound of the first word of this poem, there is a feeling of ampleness. Aaaaample. (Whitman also uses this word to excellent effect in “A Farm Picture,” which begins, “THROUGH the ample open door of the peaceful country barn”) Not only does the poem start with that open vowel feel, but it’s also in trochaic meter, instead of the more usual iambic, which means it begins with an emphasized syllable. In other words, this openness is emphasized. There’s a big difference between “Make this bed ample” and “Ample make this bed.”

The repetition of “make” in the second line is part of what gives this poem its incantatory power. And "make" is an interesting imperative too. Is it a command? A suggestion? A plea? A prayer? All of it. And then finally you get to that “Awe” which also carries the open vowel sense of amplitude and falls on an emphatic beat. Because the line ends on the half beat there is an extra ringing out of the sound of that "awe." These are subtle effects, but they really do make a difference in the feeling of the words, which carry the meaning of the poem.

In it wait till Judgment break
Excellent and Fair.

The word “break” is doing some heavy lifting here. Judgment breaks excellent and fair? You can take that a few ways. You can see a dozen different ways that Dickinson uses the word break in the Dickinson lexicon, and more than a few of them work for this poem. One meaning of break is change, or conversion. Judgment will bring a changeover into excellence and fairness. That’s the first and most obvious reading of break here, but that word “break” is hard to read without thinking of something being disrupted, and in that sense the "excellence and fair" are implied to be broken by judgment. Fair has a double meaning here too. In the first reading it means “just,” referring to Judgment, but in the second it carries, I think, its more archaic meaning of “beauty." So is the Judgment excellent and fair, or is it interrupting the excellent and fair? 

The main feeling I get is that Judgment will eventually break the ampleness and peace of the marriage/death bed, which, though perhaps is as it should be ("excellent and fair") is still, like the “yellow noise,” a disruption nonetheless.

Be its Mattress straight—
Be its Pillow round—

The incantatory sense of trochaic repetition continues in these lines. "Make this...make this...Be its...Be its.." Spells are cast in trochees. Think of the witches in Macbeth. This poem puts a spell on you.

I’m taken with just how much Dickinson is able to suggest with the dialectic between straight and round here. The straight can be read as a symbol of the masculine, associated with rigid structure, logic and the law (Judgment) while the round has a more feminine quality, connected to comfort, softness, the womb, the moon, the inner world. This brings in a sense of sacred balance to the grave-bed (or marriage-bed.)

“Straight” implies linearity, time that moves forward, from life to death to judgment. “Round” implies eternity. The bed, then, becomes a space where linear time and cyclical time meet, where the body dies, but something else (soul? memory? love?) may continue or return.

A straight mattress could symbolize the formality of death, the thing we can't escape. A round pillow suggests comfort, perhaps an openness to what comes after death, or in the case of the marriage bed, to love and trust.

By pairing just two shapes, “straight” and “round”, Dickinson encodes a whole universe of opposites: life/death, male/female, body/soul, finite/infinite, law/grace.

Let no Sunrise’ yellow noise

Interrupt this Ground— 

“Yellow noise” combines the visual and auditory, creating a kind of synesthesia, where color sounds, and sound glows.

The phrase “yellow noise” is unnatural because we expect “yellow light,” not “yellow noise.” That jolt forces attention and opens the image to multiple meanings. It turns the sunrise from something life-giving into something invasive, almost violent in its disruption. Usually sunrise symbolizes hope and resurrection, but Dickinson flips that. The line dramatizes a desire to protect stillness from the clamor of life.

“Sunrise’ yellow noise" is an entire world intruding; morning, light, sound, time, life. Dickinson takes something ordinary, like sunrise, and makes it strange and unsettling, but in so doing, she defends the quiet, the hidden, the profound, even against something as radiant as morning.

      -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Notes:

1. In his blog, Frank Hudson gets underneath the Aubade quality of this poem, which is helpful. Frank writes, "An aubade is a poem where two lovers wish for the morning to never arrive. Since it is, in fact, arriving, they will deny it, wishing for their night together to remain forever. By using this traditional poetic trope, Dickinson has thrown a rich ambiguity into her 34 words. Although Christian religious belief has its variations, the traditional judgement day is the day of eternal salvation and the universe’s perfection. “Ample make this Bed” compares the morning of divine perfection to the morning that separates the lovers in an aubade. Is this a statement that the sensuousness of human love can be judged greater than eternal salvation? Or is it a puritan statement that any such love will face its final end and judgement? Could it even be both, balanced on a knife’s edge?"

2. A further breakdown of trochaic structure of this poem here.