So the Eyes accost—and sunder
In an Audience—
Stamped—occasionally—forever—
So may Countenance
Entertain—without addressing
Countenance of One
In a Neighboring Horizon—
Gone—as soon as known—
-Fr792, J752, Fascicle 37, 1863
That opening line is so curt and to the point. There is a violent thrust to the sound of that word "accost," and a feeling of finality with that word "sunder."
These eyes accost the narrator and sunder her from what? From herself? From society? From reality? From happiness?
And whose eyes are these that have accosted the narrator? We are left to wonder. It is part of the mystery.
These eyes, though, we are told, accost and sunder "in an audience." Why is there an audience? It's as if it is a play we are witnessing. And who is in this audience? Us? We are witnessing the Witnessing.
Perhaps this intense gaze is just the glance of a would-be lover who is passing by in a crowd. But there is also a sense of a divine Countenance that the poet is facing. I get this idea from the sense of deity that the word "Countenance" connotes, but also from two poems mentioned earlier in this fascicle, Fr773, and Fr783. Both of these poems are also about a mysterious and divine visitation. If you read the three together, the mystery just deepens.
This visitation, which may be earthly in origin, but begins to seem almost supernatural, had a profound effect on the poet, imbuing in her a sense of Eternity:
Stamped—occasionally—forever—
Imagine the gaze that must have stopped Emily Dickinson in her tracks and stamped forever upon her. She turns the gaze here into mythic territory, into divine Countenance itself, conflating the human realm with the Heavenly. It's signature Dickinson. In many of her poems the human and divine appear to be inextricable.
Stamped "occasionally." This might mean that this kind of thing happens "occasionally," ever so often, once in a while. But I think here it more likely means, "upon a single occasion." It happened upon one occasion. The occasion becomes eternal when the eyes meet. Then it is that "now" is stamped with "forever." I love when Dickinson brings eternity into the moment. She does this most famously in Fr690, "Forever is composed of Nows." The poem continues,
So may Countenance
Entertain—without addressing
Countenance of One
In a Neighboring Horizon—
Entertain "a countenance of One/ in a Neighboring Horizon" without addressing it? No names are spoken. Perhaps no names are known? This encounter is, perhaps, just an anonymous passing-by on the street. Have you had that encounter with someone, a momentary connection, that feels somehow eternal? By the way, this could also be describing a visitation from an author, who is entertaining us without addressing us.
But, on a deeper level, this line gets at something about the possessive need to name (address) and own the present, instead of freely allowing oneself to be entertained in the moment.*
I take the "Countenance of One/ in a Neighboring Horizon" in this poem to refer to the poet Herself. The Countenance of God, or lover, or passer-by on the street, is entertaining, but does not deign to address the poet. Hey, says the Poet, there is a "Countenance of One" over here on this side too! It's as if she is saying, "I've got a Countenance to match yours," but you wouldn't know, because you left, as soon as you came...
Gone—as soon as known—
The moment was intense, and in it, something came to be Known, but now that moment is gone.
Do you think Dickinson is happy with this ephemeral, but eternal encounter, or would she rather have been properly introduced and addressed?
Ultimately, for me, this poem is about the potential immediacy and intensity of any moment of true Witness. The poem itself, like its subject, peers through reality into something Beyond.
-/)dam Wade l)eGraff
In a Neighboring Horizon—
Entertain "a countenance of One/ in a Neighboring Horizon" without addressing it? No names are spoken. Perhaps no names are known? This encounter is, perhaps, just an anonymous passing-by on the street. Have you had that encounter with someone, a momentary connection, that feels somehow eternal? By the way, this could also be describing a visitation from an author, who is entertaining us without addressing us.
But, on a deeper level, this line gets at something about the possessive need to name (address) and own the present, instead of freely allowing oneself to be entertained in the moment.*
I take the "Countenance of One/ in a Neighboring Horizon" in this poem to refer to the poet Herself. The Countenance of God, or lover, or passer-by on the street, is entertaining, but does not deign to address the poet. Hey, says the Poet, there is a "Countenance of One" over here on this side too! It's as if she is saying, "I've got a Countenance to match yours," but you wouldn't know, because you left, as soon as you came...
Gone—as soon as known—
The moment was intense, and in it, something came to be Known, but now that moment is gone.
Do you think Dickinson is happy with this ephemeral, but eternal encounter, or would she rather have been properly introduced and addressed?
Ultimately, for me, this poem is about the potential immediacy and intensity of any moment of true Witness. The poem itself, like its subject, peers through reality into something Beyond.
-/)dam Wade l)eGraff
With apologies to Oscar Hammerstein (South Pacific, 1949):
ReplyDelete“Some enchanted evening
You may see a stranger,
You may see a stranger
Across a crowded room
And somehow you know,
You know even then
That somewhere you'll see her
Again and again.”
Maybe Hammerstein read ED’s poem, ya think?
Hammerstein is inimitable, but Adam parses the poem well:
ReplyDelete“This encounter is, perhaps, just an anonymous passing-by on the street. Have you had that encounter with someone, a momentary connection, that feels somehow eternal?”
ED outdoes her typical obscurity in ‘Entertain—without addressing’. It helped to use the Emily Dickinson Lexington (EDL) for clues to her meaning, but when that failed, Oxford English Dictionary (OED) saved the day:
Stanza 1
Accost: meet
Sunder: separate
Audience: group of observers
Stamped: (OED) marked
Countenance: Other; Face
Stanza 2
Entertain: Receive, welcome
Address: Speak to
Neighboring: Adjacent
Horizon: line that terminates the view when extended on the surface of the earth
ED enjambs Line 4 Stanza 1 and Line 5 Stanza 2. The poem’s first editors, Bianci and Hampson (1929, ‘Further Poems’), published the two-quatrain poem as a single eight-line stanza, which makes sense to me.
An enjambed interpretation of ‘So the Eyes accost—and sunder’:
So the Eyes meet — and separate
In a Group of onlookers —
Eyes marked empathic — occasionally — forever —.
“So” — “One” Face may
Welcome — without speaking to —
Another Face — Someone empathic —
In a “Neighboring” Universe —
Gone — as soon as known —
For ED, I think that empathic someone was Reverend Charles Wadsworth, who has “Gone” so “soon” to San Francisco, a “Neighboring” but unseen Universe from hers.