All forgot for recollecting

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

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

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

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


     -Fr827, J966, Fascicle 40, 1864


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

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

     All forgot for recollecting
     Just a paltry One—

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     Estimate— who can—

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

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

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

     Home effaced— her faces dwindled—

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

     Nature— altered small—

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

the incomparable Susan Gilbert Dickinson

P.S. At some point I think we should also talk about the fact that some may read Dickinson's assertions of dependence on the beloved as a tad troubling. Her absolute love is inspiring, but it can seem exhausting too, and maybe even...expiring. 

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