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 the line, though, has a slightly formal tone, which gives us a sense of timeless reflection. It is this, more than anything, 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 the poems were not published in her lifetime and that she entrusted all of her careful work to an uncertain future. I think about how many other poets' and artists' work has been lost, and how easily that could have been the case for Emily. Imagine the "Bounty in prospective" of all of that work from other artists that we shall never know. We are all that much more grateful, therefore, that in Dickinson's case, the promise of the prospects has been fulfilled and is 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