"Unto Me?" I do not know you—

"Unto Me?" I do not know you—
Where may be your House?

"I am Jesus—Late of Judea—
Now—of Paradise"—

Wagons—have you—to convey me?
This is far from Thence—

"Arms of Mine—sufficient Phaeton—
Trust Omnipotence"—

I am spotted—"I am Pardon"—
I am small—"The Least

Is esteemed in Heaven the Chiefest—
Occupy my House"—

    -Fr825, J964, Fascicle 40, 1864


This poem is a conversation between the poet and Jesus. It starts in a very Dickinsonian way. Christ uses the same truncated language the poet does. “Unto me?” It’s like shorthand, encapsulating in two words the whole question. No set up, no pre-amble, and no extra words.

Dickinson loved that preposition “unto” and used it in several poems, usually love poems, and always with gravity. Here she opens up the poem with the open vowel of the word, which immediately brings us “unto” the poem itself. 

“Unto” is a strange word if you think about it. The etymology of the word is a merging of “until” with “to,” but it has come to mean something more totalizing. In King-James-Bible terms it has the connotation of moving exclusively toward something. Matthew 11:28 says, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Dickinson shortens all of this to just the essential “Unto me?,” but the rest of the scripture is implied. The translator of the original Hebrew could have just written, “Come TO me,” but there is more of a sense of all-inclusiveness in that word “unto.” There is also a hint of “into.” Come into me.

Our sense of the connotation of this word matters. Dickinson writes in one letter to Abiah Root, “I have perfect confidence in God & his promises & yet I know not why, I feel that the world holds a predominant place in my affections. I do not feel that I could give up all for Christ, were I called to die.” To come “unto” Christ could be seen, then, as total, as giving “all up.”

Dickinson’s letters to Abiah are worth reading for their frank confessions of religious reckoning. You can read some of the excerpts Here. These letters were written when Emily was 19. This poem, written 18 years later, has years of Dickinson’s extremity of thought and feeling behind it.

If you read this poem directly after the poem that precedes it in fascicle 40, which is about the affliction and agony that comes from leaving home, the illness that comes from “Illocality,” then you also get the sense of the weight that is insinuated in Dickinson's answer, “I do not know you/ Where may be your house?”

Dickinson was attached to “home,” and to the “world,” and so for her, to give “home” up for some unknown “house” was a reigning concern.

So this poem starts off with that sense. Unto you? “I do not know you— Where may be your House?”

We hear in the tone of this reply, and the one in the next stanza, Dickinson’s playful impudence: You want me to come to you? I don’t even know you, sir!

Jesus answers, “I am Jesus late of Judea, now of Paradise.” We see a little bit of humor in this answer too. Christ saying He is "late of Judea,” but has moved to Paradise, makes it almost seem like we are talking about Paradise City, California rather than THE paradise.

Wagons—have you—to convey me?
This is far from Thence—

Again, asking Jesus if there are wagons is cheeky. And by the way, this is how we know it is the poet speaking here and not just some general narrator. Only Emily would answer Jesus with her tongue so firmly planted in her cheek, not to mention the turn from humor to pathos taken in the following line, “This is far from Thence.” You live in Paradise? Oh, well, I’m nowhere near there. We wince with the implied agony of this understated "Far from Thence." There is still a touch of humor in the understatement, but it is drying up. Things are getting more humble and real.

"Arms of Mine—sufficient Phaeton—
Trust Omnipotence"—

But they are not fully there, yet, because to have Jesus use a term that comes from Greek mythology is still pretty cheeky. It's clever too. A phaeton is a light, four-wheeled, open carriage popular in Dickinson’s day, but it is also mythological figure. In Greek mythology, Phaeton was the son of Helios, the sun god, who attempted to drive his father's sun chariot, resulting in disaster.

That alluded to disaster informs the following line. “Trust Omnipotence.” Trust? Wait, what happened to Phaeton again?

Still though, “arms of mine” has the implication of an embrace of love. We sense the poet leaning a bit closer to that embrace, trying to trust.

She admits,

I am spotted—

Jesus answers, 

"I am Pardon"—

The brevity and these lines is breathtaking. I am spotted. You have a sense here of the poet truly seeing her own limitation and weakness. She aspires to a Christ-like love and falls short. “I,” itself, falls short. “I” am “spotted.” The self is spotted by its isolated and inherently selfish nature. All of that is implied in this brief line.

And conversely, Christ is pardon. Christ is forgiveness. When we forgive, including forgiving ourselves, we become Christ-like. That is Christ. “I am Pardon.” (If you are not religious, you can still enter this poem through the understanding of forgiveness. That is the gist of it.)

I am small—"The Least
Is esteemed in Heaven the Chiefest—

This is the essence of Christ’s teaching. From Matthew 25:40, “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.” (There’s that “unto” again.)

The poem begins with some arrogance, but by the time you get to “I am small” you have turned the corner into humility. And this humility is “esteemed in Heaven the chiefest.” We love Dickinson for her humor and attitude, but we also admire her ability to go deeper. In this poem we watch that happen.

"Occupy my House"—

Christ finishes the conversation with an invitation that also reads as an imperative. 

We note at the end of this poem that the “house” is still not a “home,” a distinction that would be clear to Dickinson. But she seems, in this poem anyway, to be moving toward making it into one.

    -/)dam Wade l)eGraff