I want—was chief it said
When Skill entreated it—the last—
And when so newly dead—
I could not deem it late—to hear
That single—steadfast sigh—
The lips had placed as with a "Please"
Toward Eternity—
-Fr851, J731, Fascicle 38, 1864
We present below the second of Anthony Madrid's four posts for the Prowling Bee. Anthony is a poet and critic and wrote the introduction for Face to Face, by Martha Dickinson, which is an account of Martha (Mattie) Dickinson growing up with her favorite Aunt, Emily.
Here is Madrid's helpful gloss:
If I’m right about this one, you have to understand “Skill” (line 3) as accusative case, not nominative. In other words, it’s not skill that’s doing the entreating. It’s the “it” from the first line that’s doing the entreating. “It”—is begging for skill.
Here, I’ll venture a translation/paraphrase:
I want, it pleaded all its life. I want was chiefly what it said, when it begged for skill, on its last day, and even when it was newly dead.
I could not deem that plea too late, when I heard that singleminded sigh that the lips had emitted, like the word “Please” aimed at eternity . . . .
If I’m right, the piece shows Emily Elizabeth respecting and justifying the eternal sense of inadequacy a poet feels. She’s saying a poet’s soul (that’s the “it”) does right to perpetually entreat for skill—to the very end of life and beyond.
Sentiments like that prompted me, years ago, to compare Dickinson to her great Urdu contemporary, Ghalib. His poetry, too, is full of appreciating and respecting agony, begging, dissatisfaction….
Here, I’ll venture a translation/paraphrase:
I want, it pleaded all its life. I want was chiefly what it said, when it begged for skill, on its last day, and even when it was newly dead.
I could not deem that plea too late, when I heard that singleminded sigh that the lips had emitted, like the word “Please” aimed at eternity . . . .
If I’m right, the piece shows Emily Elizabeth respecting and justifying the eternal sense of inadequacy a poet feels. She’s saying a poet’s soul (that’s the “it”) does right to perpetually entreat for skill—to the very end of life and beyond.
Sentiments like that prompted me, years ago, to compare Dickinson to her great Urdu contemporary, Ghalib. His poetry, too, is full of appreciating and respecting agony, begging, dissatisfaction….
-Anthony Madrid
And what skill too, the way she placed those plosives pleas among the sinuous sibilance in those last few lines.
ReplyDeleteCool, Anthony! I agree about the accusative skill thing. But maybe skill is something a little bigger than being good at poetry. Like, maybe skill is free will. I agree that since she's not deeming late the sigh, that she's telling us the there's something essential about the hunger. It's not something you get past. But the sigh and the end also seems kinda pregnant with ease and resolution. Like the ask becomes a prayer.
ReplyDeleteGreat insight Nate. It captures the overwhelming heart-stopping feeling of that last sigh. Thinking of that final "please" as the please to end all pleases, one which leads to a kind of pleasing, "pregnant with ease and resolution," is just a beautiful thought. And it gets at the reason for something explored in the commentary for Fr838, Emily's intense fascination with the moment of a soul passing over into death, and the portent she sees there that few of us do. That we take our plea with us until the end, even in the final sigh, is very moving, and points toward either a cold existential irony, or to a soul at white heat, depending on how you see it, I suppose. I feel both fire and ice in this poem.
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ReplyDeleteMadrid's sentence flipped on a light for me, but maybe not as you expect:
ReplyDelete"If I’m right, the piece shows Emily Elizabeth respecting and justifying the eternal sense of inadequacy a poet feels."
If Elizabeth Barrett Browning deserves her short moniker, EBB, why should I be calling Emily Elizabeth Dickinson "ED"?
Henceforth ED becomes "EED" in my comments because I abhor reading "Emily", .
We don't call Robert Frost "Robert", and "Emily Dickinson" takes too long to type, so EED she shall be.
I hope other explicators and commentators will follow suit and honor her with more formality, less familiarity, as if she's our bosom buddy, or even girlfriend.
EED deserves it.
PS: I know, I'm in love with her too, and have named my trusty red trike "Emily", but still . . . .
PPS: One further reason to moniker Emily Elizabeth Dickinson EED is because George Henry Gould, a close friend and confidant she met while they were both young adults in Amherst, gave her and Lavinia the famous "Ebon Box" (F180, 1860) as he left Amherst for a teaching job elsewhere. On the top of the box he painted their names:
“EMILY E. AND LAVINIA N. DICKINSON”
Presumably, EED's good friend, George, knew the sisters well enough to know they would like that:
https://iraf.substack.com/p/dickinson-stops-the-clocks#:~:text=Dickinson%20Stops%20the,it%20was%20%E2%80%9Calive.%E2%80%9D
Madrid nailed it, especially the Dickinsonian inversion riddle, “When Skill entreated it”, so all I can say is to Adam: That last sentence in your last comment is a freezing allusion, nicht wahr?
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