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.
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
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."
ReplyDeleteThe uncertain boundary between life and death
Have you ever been letting out an exclamation of "Wow!", the moment you discovered a flower while pulling out weeds? Violet, which is quite small and cute, is one of those flowers.
‘So unsuspected Violets
Within the meadows go-’ (J90)
When I read the first two lines of this poem, I was reminded of the painting ‘They did not expect him (1884-88)’ by Ilya Repin. Mrs. Gertrude's return to this world from the threshold of death overlaps with this picture,
The word ‘that’ in the second line would be ‘that world’ or ‘death’.
As Adam mentioned, ‘sod’ seems to be the realm of the earth. Then the other one is the realm of heaven or sky, which expands to death.
Now, Emily's beloved violet appears. By the way, violets are closer to the sky (death) than sod (life) and ‘a Sod Espoused a Violet’: A Compound manner.
(Violets symbolize modesty or faithfulness but they also represent fleeting attributes such as death or sorrow due to their short blooming period)
In the end, the boundary between life and death is ambiguous and cannot be distinguished. We cannot help but ‘hesitate’ between ‘half of Dust, And half of Day, the Bride’.
It‘s truly difficult for me to guess the last two lines of the poem. In the flow of the poem, all I can do is just look at them within the framework of life(this world, sod, dust) and death(that world, violet, sky, day)
According to the ED lexicon, ‘DAY’ also means ‘sky (see Genesis 29:7)’.
Actually we can’t count DUST or Day, because we live in the world where life and a tinge of death are intertwined in A Compound manner.
Note
Why did Emily pick up violets?
[Ophelia to GERTRUDE] I would give you some violets, but they wither’d all when my father died.
Polonius, Ophelia’s father, is accidentally killed by Hamlet. Here, the violets reveal transience.
Emily is using the Queen GERTRUDE to write poems related to Mrs. GERTRUDE. How could Shakespeare's lover Emily miss this!
S.H. Moon
Thank you, Moon. I took some time with that painting by Repin. I hadn't seen it before. The look on the returning man's face captivated me. As did the window behind the maid. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_Did_Not_Expect_Him
ReplyDeleteNice connection with violets and Gertrude in Hamlet!
Oh my gosh, Feynman! I had never seen that clip. Loved it.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful commentary, Adam. And I appreciate S. H. Moon’s comment too. It occurs to me that the ambiguity of this Dust/Day ending, which recapitulates the ambiguity of the violet and, more than that, of every flower, rising from the sod, reaching to the sky — this ambiguity applies to each of our lives as well! We begin in the particulars of our family, our hometown, our country, embedded in the social and cultural and material structures of our lives, and then we grow out of them. We individuate, as Jung put it, and reach for a more consciously chosen identity. Do we peak at our moment of hesitation too? When we die do we return to dust or day?