We can but follow to the Sun—

We can but follow to the Sun—
As oft as He go down
He leave Ourselves a Sphere behind—
'Tis mostly—following—

We go no further with the Dust
Than to the Earthen Door—
And then the Panels are reversed—
And we behold—no more.


       -Fr845, J920, Sheet 4, 1864


I dreamt last night that I only had a few days left to live. There was an absolute finality to this, but it was an eerily calm one. I realized when I woke up that reading this poem before bed must have been the catalyst for the dream.

That sense of the finality of death is always with us, even though some of us are more in denial about it than others. We soothe ourselves with ideas of the afterlife, or through distractions and a hundred other ways.

This poem brings us back to the hard truth. Whatever may be on the other side of that “Earthen Door,” we cannot know for sure. The panels are reversed and we “behold—no more.”

This poem establishes a link between a day and a life. The first stanza gives us the idea of a day, and how we follow the sun:

We can but follow to the Sun—
As oft as He go down
He leave Ourselves a Sphere behind—
'Tis mostly—following—

We do follow the disappearance of the sun with our own disappearance into unconsciousness when we sleep. Our circadian rhythms take us to sleep just as “oft” as the sun goes down. We are left behind in a sphere of darkness both literally and figuratively. 'Tis mostly—following— One thing that "mostly" can mean here is that some of us stay up all night and sleep all day, but that's a rare individual.

The second stanza is more final. Here we compare the end of life with the end of the day, as put forward in the first stanza. There is no “mostly” in this one. Most of us go to sleep at night, but all of us die.

We go no further with the Dust
Than to the Earthen Door—
And then the Panels are reversed—
And we behold—no more.

The wonder is that we are able to go as far as we have with the dust at all. From dust to dust goes the old saying, yet so much depends upon the “to” between dust and dust. Still, when we get to that final door in the earth, the grave, the door locks behind us. Or, as Dickinson imaginatively puts it, “the Panels are reversed—/ and we behold—no more."

Just as there is so much in the "to" between dust and dust, so is there a world in that verb “behold.”

In one of Emily Dickinson's letters she writes, “I know nothing in the world that has as much power as a word. Sometimes I write one, and I look at it, until it begins to shine.” The word "behold" is a good one to hold up and look at. Behold the word “Behold.” It can mean to pay attention to or to be in awe of or to wonder about or just simply to hold, as in, to love. 

Beyond reminding us that we have this one life, there is also in this poem a kind of resignation as discipline, an acceptance that following is “mostly” what life amounts to. We are followers of the sun, followers of the dead, never leaders, never all-seeing. That sober acceptance is its own kind of truth.

Is there any consolation in this poem beyond what we have in the present? Well, if every death poem ended with consolation, the consolation would cheapen. By refusing it here, Dickinson makes room for other poems to carry that weight. This one simply records the boundary.

The point of this resignation is to hold us at the edge of the mystery, the horizon, the coffin lid, and make us feel what it is to be left behind. Rather than filling the silence with dogma or false comfort, Dickinson insists on the stark experience of mortality, following, then no more.

But she does leave us with that one amazing thing we can do for now, “behold.”

Behold!

     -/)dam Wade l)eGraff