As One does Sickness over In convalescent Mind, His scrutiny of Chances By blessed Health obscured —
As One rewalks a Precipice And whittles at the Twig That held Him from Perdition Sown sidewise in the Crag
A Custom of the Soul Far after suffering Identity to question For evidence't has been —
-F917, J957, sheet 11, 1865
Surviving illness brings a heightened awareness of vulnerability. That's what this poem is about on the surface. Under the surface I think there is wrestling here with the idea of Grace too.
Let’s break it down.
As One does Sickness over In convalescent Mind,
The body is convalescing, getting better, and the mind reflects back upon the illness. But the phrase “does Sickness over” gives you a sense that reflecting on sickness is itself a sickness. You are doing Sickness all over again. And for what? It's like you are stuck in the suffering.
His scrutiny of Chances By blessed Health obscured —
Upon recovering from an illness, presumably a serious one, we think about the chance of death. I am reminded of the classic doctor’s diagnosis here; “Ms. Vinrace, you have a 50/50 chance.” But there is something else going on too I think. The idea that these “Chances” are, normally, by “blessed Health obscured” means that it takes an illness to bring this "chance" to light. Dickinson's poetry often causes me to stop and really look at a word. I pick it up and turn it around. "Chance" can mean probability, but it can also mean “risk” and “opportunity.” We have a "chance" to live, so we have to take this "chance." We can easily forget that when we are in "blessed health." It takes an illness to wake us up to it.
Another meaning of “chance,” though, is randomness. I think this meaning plays into the poem in the second stanza when we are presented with the idea of contingency. Is there a purpose to life, or is it random? As One rewalks a Precipice And whittles at the Twig That held Him from Perdition Sown sidewise in the Crag
Dickinson presents us with an analogy. Scrutinizing the recovery of an illness is like falling off of a cliff, being saved by a twig on the side of the cliff, and then going back to examine the twig. Not only do we look at the twig, but we “whittle” at it too. That’s interesting. It suggests that by examining the thing that saved us, we are actually making it more fragile. There is a sickness not only to examining the sickness, but perhaps even to looking at what kept us alive.
The word Perdition here adds a whole new element to the poem. Perdition primarily refers to eternal damnation; the state of being spiritually lost and punished forever after death. So now there is the suggestion that we are not just talking about a physical illness, but a spiritual one. If this is so, then the twig that saved us is no longer a thing of “chance,” but an instrument of Grace. This is why it has been “sown” into the crag, as if by design. The message I get is, don't question Grace or you will whittle it down to nothing.
“Sown” is an interesting word choice, but so is “sidewise.” It makes me think of Emily’s love of the word “slant" and these famous lines from a much later poem by Dickinson,
Tell all the truth but tell it slant - Success in Circuit lies Too bright for our infirm Delight The Truth's superb surprise
The twig that saves us has been sown there, but it isn't coming in from an angle we can recognize. It's coming in sidewise.
A Custom of the Soul Far after suffering
Custom is another word you can pick up and turn around. I think the “does sickness over” and “whittles at the twig” both give us a sense that it might be better not to reflect upon the illness. Better to move forward.
Identity to question For evidence't has been —
Here you are questioning identity itself. The poem turns existential. If I can die so easily, or, worse, become damned for eternity, then who am I? Does life have any meaning at all?
But then we remember all those twigs sown sideways into all of those crags, the millions of chances that had to be surmounted just for us to be here in the first place.
-/)dam Wade l)eGraff
P.S. An old joke:
Jack was walking along a steep cliff one day. He accidentally got too close to the edge and fell. On the way down he grabbed a branch, which temporarily stopped his fall. He looked down and to his horror saw that the canyon dropped straight down for more than a thousand feet.
He couldn’t hang onto the branch forever, and there was no way for him to climb up the steep wall of the cliff. So Jack began yelling for help, hoping that someone passing by would hear and rescue him.
“HELP! HELP! Is anyone up there?”
He yelled for a long time, but no one heard him. He was about to give up when he heard a voice. “Jack, Jack. Can you hear me?”
“Yes, yes! I can hear you. I’m down here!”
“I can see you, Jack. Are you all right?”
“Yes, but who are you, and where are you?”
“I am the Lord, Jack. I’m everywhere.”
“The Lord? You mean, GOD?”
“That’s Me.”
“I’ll do anything, Lord. Just tell me what to do.”
“Okay. Let go of the branch.”
“What?”
“I said, let go of the branch. Just trust Me. Let go.”
Drab Habitation of Whom? Tabernacle or Tomb — Or Dome of Worm — Or Porch of Gnome — Or some Elf's Catacomb?
-F916, J893, Sheet 11, 1865
This poem is only six lines long, but it spans religion, mortality, biology, folklore, magic and mystery all at once. Drab Habitation of Whom?
In the first line an existential question is posed. Who are we in this drab habitation? We are presented with an open-ended riddle. Eventually this question turns toward death, but not yet. A "Whom," after all, follows from being someone, from being alive. If there is a habitation, there is living going on. So the question is posed to you. You look around the room to see... Whom? There is no one else around. Perhaps you notice that your habitation is a bit drabber than it needs to be.
Tabernacle or Tomb —
This is confusing at first because a Tabernacle and a Tomb are "Whats" not "Whoms." So I think we are to understand that the place defines the inhabitant, or, put another way, the inhabitant defines the place. Is the habitation you are living in a sacred place where God’s presence resides or a dead place of nothingness? Is your room more tabernacle or tomb?
Or Dome of Worm —
Now the riddle is revealed. The "drab place" must be a burial mound, for what else could a dome of worm be? “Dome of Worm” is a memorable phrase. The body is shown to be, on one level, mere worm-food.
The word “worm” seems to derive from the “tomb” in the line above, but the word “Dome” ties back to “Tabernacle.” This doubling up of metaphor is cunning. We can infer that the church itself may be infested with worms.
Or Porch of Gnome —
Now we are back among the living again, but not among the real, not in any factual realm. The Gnome, though, for a moment of inspired imagination, is at home, and this mound is his porch. It’s magical, like a child's fairy garden. The imagination has transformed the worm-riddled mound into something wondrous.
But maybe this fantasy is naive? This thought sets us up for a return to the dark. Is this some magical creature's porch,
Or some Elf's Catacomb?
One way you can read this poem is as a question: is there life after life? That's a mystery that occupied Dickinson, as it does so many of us. But another way to read this poem, one that is, I think, more valuable, is to ask: is there life among the living? Is life merely a set-up for the harsh reality of being worm-food, or is it lit up with the magic of the imagination?
I think this poem has it both ways. It acknowledges reality, but also dwells in possibility.
We go back to the beginning of the poem and take note again of that "Whom." It's not “What” life and death are that is being defined here, it’s “Whom.” The power to transform one's home is, at least on this side of the veil, ours to own.
-/)dam Wade l)eGraff
Notes:
1. "Porch of Gnome" may be riffing off of the idea of a "porch gnome," a fad which was already in vogue in the 19th century and is still popular today.
2. The word gnome was coined by the 16th-century Swiss alchemist Paracelsus. He derived it from the Greek word genomos, meaning "earth-dweller"
3. The form of this poem, 33223, is the same as a limerick. (I don't think I've seen Dickinson use it before?) The effect is to heighten the fairy-tale elements of the poem.
4. The child-like word-play in this poem is a lot of fun. Whom/ Tomb/ Dome/ Worm/ Gnome/ some/ comb. The over-riding sound is OM, the sacred Hindu syllable. I doubt Dickinson was familiar with this Indian root-word, so I think it is more likely the poem functions as a meditation on the word “Home.” That word is conspicuously absent here. We have "habitation" followed by a series of words that rhyme with home.
What shall I do when the Summer troubles— What, when the Rose is ripe— What when the Eggs fly off in Music From the Maple Keep?
What shall I do when the Skies a'chirrup Drop a Tune on me— When the Bee hangs all Noon in the Buttercup What will become of me?
Oh, when the Squirrel fills His Pockets And the Berries stare How can I bear their jocund Faces Thou from Here, so far?
'Twouldn't afflict a Robin— All His Goods have Wings— I—do not fly, so wherefore My Perennial Things?
- F915, J956, Sheet 11, 1865
This poem presents a classic trope. The sun is shining in the summer, but for the broken-hearted it might as well be midnight in the dead of winter. I can think of many poems (including a few others by Dickinson) that deal with this theme. I can think of a few great songs too, including this one.
Dickinson adds her own spin, and in the meantime she regales us with music from her Maple keep. One reason this poem feels so alive is that Dickinson doesn't merely describe summer, she invents a language that seems to behave like summer: What shall I do when the Summer troubles— What, when the Rose is ripe— What when the Eggs fly off in Music From the Maple Keep?
You can spend some time looking at the effect Dickinson achieves by the interweaving of those W and R sounds in the first two lines, the way she wields the vowels, the way the lines flow so mellifluously and then end on those hard Ps. It’s so rhythmically perfect and in keeping with the subject. One swoons with summerness.
The eggs are flying off in music from the Maple Keep. "Keep" is a medieval word for the fortified tower of a castle. Suddenly the maple is a fortress. (See F912, where trees are “sentinels.”) The nestlings are escaping into the world, flying off in Music, as though music is the air they travel through.
But in the midst of this music we know that there is trouble. The phrase “Summer troubles” is one of a few in this poem that is memorable. It would make for a good title.
What shall I do when the Skies a'chirrup Drop a Tune on me—
Another memorable phrase, “Skies a’chirrup.” Like the eggs flying off in music, the atmosphere itself seems to be made up of bird song. But this doesn’t cheer the poet. Rather the skies “drop” a Tune on her head as if it were a piano falling from a building. (I think of F597, “The emperor with Rubies pelteth me.”) Happiness is an assault to one who is unhappy. When the Bee hangs all Noon in the Buttercup What will become of me?
"Hangs" is perfect. The word captures the lazy suspension of a summer afternoon. The line stops, again, on that P sound at the end of Buttercup, and you are, for a moment, hanging in the air, before the painful question returns, "What will become of me?"
Oh, when the Squirrel fills His Pockets And the Berries stare How can I bear their jocund Faces Thou from Here, so far?
It’s such a simple phrase, “the Berries stare,” but much is going on there. We’ve seen a similar idea in Dickinson before, the most famous example being, “We passed the fields of gazing grain," from F479.
The berries are imagined as having “jocund faces.” They're little cheerful people, but also, the poet feels exposed by their happiness. Everything around her seems to be looking at her loneliness, cheerfully insensitive, obliviously happy.
The berries are staring because the poet is staring at them so intensely. A stare is persistent. It won't leave the poet alone. The berries confront her with beauty, and therefore with absence.
'Twouldn't afflict a Robin— All His Goods have Wings—
A robin would not suffer like the poet because it can fly to where it needs to. Everything the robin values, its “Goods,” is mobile. The poet, however, is bound to one place. This is especially poignant with Dickinson who famously never left her home in the last 15 years of her life.
I—do not fly, so wherefore My Perennial Things?
("Wherefore" is an antiquated poetic word for "why.")
"If I cannot fly," she seems to be saying, "why do I keep having these recurring (perennial) attachments and hopes?"
"Perennial Things," I think, can mean recurring emotional needs that return year after year, just as the seasons do. The poet is questioning why she has been given desires and attachments that reach toward someone distant when she lacks the freedom to follow them. But, conversely, perhaps, she is admiring those who can live life on the wing. It reminds me of the William Blake poem, "Eternity".
He who binds to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy.
He who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in Eternity's sunrise.
Well, Dickinson may feel out of season with summer, but her poetry gets her as close to it as can be. It's interesting to see the trochaic pattern in the stanzas. 4343 4343 4343 3343. The loss of the expected beat in the last stanza adds a plaintive feeling when you are reading it out loud.
A Door just opened on a street — I — lost — was passing by — An instant’s Width of Warmth disclosed - And Wealth — and Company.
The Door as sudden shut — And I — I — lost — was passing by — Lost doubly — but by contrast — most - Informing — Misery.
-F914, J953, sheet 10, 1865
The speaker is lost out in the cold. Then she gets a glimpse into a warm home through an open door. When that door is shut (in her face presumably), she feels even worse than before, "Lost doubly." Why? Because she had a brief glimpse of home, of “Wealth - and Company,” and now she knows what she is missing.
This idea, of being worse off after a glimpse of joy than you would have been if you had never gotten it in the first place, is a common one in Dickinson’s poetry. Usually this idea is about lost love, which always makes me wonder: is it true that "it is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all," or would it actually be better to have never loved at all? Dickinson wavers, but she generally seems to fall on the side of better never to have loved at all.
The poem may be read as a metaphor for love lost, but the words “Wealth” and “Warmth” makes one think of those who are poor and cold; the homeless.
The heart goes out. One wants that door to open all the way. But will it?
The “I” in this poem is mentioned three times, with a kind of doubled-up emphasis in the second occurrence:
The Door as sudden shut — And I — I — lost — was passing by —
The poem is iambic, but that second "I" there is trochaic, the beat on the first syllable. This rhythmic hiccup stands out. You are forced for a moment to reverse the beat. It creates a kind of stutter effect. You falter under the weight between those two “I”s.
...And I — I — lost — ...
There is a pregnant pause between the two stanzas and in the drama of that moment is born a bitterness.
There is another potential “I” in this poem, the one who is hidden in their wealth and warmth behind that door. Perhaps that is us. The poet, then, aligns us with the downtrodden, with the nobody. "I'm nobody - who are you?" Dickinson always sides with the poor.
Dickinson wasn’t poor, not financially. She lived all of her life in a warm and wealthy home. So the “I” here is, at some level, "another," a projection. As Dickinson says in a letter to a friend, "When I state myself, as the Representative of the Verse - it does not mean-me - but a supposed person."
Perhaps this poem is, then, designed to be a way for the poet, and the readers of the poem, to feel for those outside of her (our) comfort zones.
The poem accomplishes this in a couple of striking ways. First of all it begins in medias res. We are suddenly in the moment. “The door just opened on a street—” We are there, on the street, standing in front of the opened door.
Secondly, the first person perspective allows us to inhabit the role of the narrator and therefore empathize with the anguish. What would it be like to be homeless? What would it feel like to be cold and hungry and have that “instant width of warmth disclosed." What would it be like to be so all alone. What would feel like to be in such a forlorn state and then have a little taste of warmth and Company? And finally, what would it feel like, then, to have the door shut on us? The more we try to imagine this situation, the more our hearts, like doors, open up.
-/)dam Wade l)eGraff
P.S. I found the following on FaceBook from a writer named David Mosey. It is insightful: "For some reason this poem always seems to remind me of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, probably because of the contrast of the “Width of Warmth” of the festivities inside with the cold snow-blown street outside. But it is a salutary reminder that Dickinson’s selection of her “Own Society” was not without cost. It is as elegant, concise and heartrending a self-examination as she ever confided to paper."
A Man may make a Remark — In itself — a quiet thing That may furnish the Fuse unto a Spark In dormant nature — lain —
Let us deport — with skill — Let us discourse — with care — Powder exists in Charcoal — Before it exists in Fire.
-F913, J952, sheet 10, 1865
Slowly going through Dickinson’s poems feels like being adrift in an endless sea of surprises. Every poem has hidden aesthetic pleasures. Every one has secrets to reveal.
This one begins with one of those small aesthetic pleasures, the way the M and K sounds work together:
A Man may make a Remark —
The M is the softest of syllables, the K is the sharpest. Concentrated together they sound remarkable. A Man may make a Remark — In itself — a quiet thing
There is a short story I love by Haruki Murakami called Cream. In this story a boy gives up playing the piano because of a quiet remark:
“When we played that piece together, she gave me a sour look every time I hit a wrong note. She was a better pianist than I was, and I tended to get overly tense, so when the two of us sat side by side and played I bungled a lot of notes. My elbow bumped against hers a few times as well. It wasn’t such a difficult piece, and, moreover, I had the easier part. Each time I blew it, she had this Give me a break expression on her face. And she’d click her tongue—not loudly but loud enough that I could catch it. I can still hear that sound, even now. That sound may even have had something to do with my decision to give up the piano.”
I think that is what Dickinson is getting at here. One very quiet line can change a person’s life for better or worse.
a quiet thing That may furnish the Fuse unto a Spark In dormant nature — lain —
If one quiet remark can cause someone to “give up music,” it can also cause them to take it up. The spark that lays dormant in nature can be ignited by others.
My wonderful mother-in-law, Ada George, likes to say about teaching that you can only give students flammable material, but they have to provide the spark. But here Dickinson puts it the other way around. The flammable material is already inside, “in dormant nature — lain —,” and we can help provide the spark.
I love that “lain” set off there in between dashes. It highlights that the dormant spark has been "lain" there, by God or nature or what have you. For better or for worse we have the power to set that powder keg off. So... Let us deport — with skill — Let us discourse — with care —
“Deport” as Dickinson uses it here does not carry its contemporary meaning of sending someone out of the country. It means “to behave or comport (oneself) especially in accord with a code.”
The practice of this “skill” is a life-long pursuit. You could say that all of Dickinson’s poetry is an extremely careful discourse.
The stakes are great. One “wince” as someone sings out of tune can be enough to stop them from ever singing again. One laugh at someone else's dancing, even if the laughter is meant to be in delight, can keep them off the dance floor. On the other hand one quiet remark may also be enough to keep them singing and dancing for life.
As a teacher, parent and friend, I don't think these words could be more meaningful.
Powder exists in Charcoal — Before it exists in Fire.
Dickinson ends the poem with a tight little aphorism, dense as charcoal. Charcoal is an interesting metaphor because it is made by heating wood in the absence of oxygen. This process allows it to burn hotter, cleaner and with a longer duration than regular wood.
To my quick ear the Leaves—conferred— The Bushes—they were Bells— I could not find a Privacy From Nature's sentinels—
In Cave if I presumed to hide The Walls—begun to tell— Creation seemed a mighty Crack— To make me visible—
-F912, J891, sheet 10, 1865
There’s a crack in this poem. You can hear it in the very word, which comes at the climax of the poem, not just any crack, but a mighty Crack. It’s a great word. First of all, the word is onomatopoeic. It sounds like what it is, so you feel it in the body. The word has power. It winds up with CCCRRR then sails through AAA and ends on a resounding CKCKCK. I’m exaggerating to make the point felt, but if you say the word out loud, you can feel its power for yourself. Dickinson amps up this power even more by giving us an extra CR in the word “Creation,” which kickstarts the line.
Creation seemed a mighty Crack—
There’s also another Crack in this poem; the stanza break. The poem appears as if it has been rent in two. (There are other Dickinson poems that make a similar move, but I can’t currently recall them. If you do, please let me know.)
Like the audible Crack, this visual one serves a purpose. There are no words in that stanza break. There is only the white of the page (the screen), only silence. It reminds me of Leonard Cohen’s line, “There is a crack in everything/ that's how the light gets in."
Notice that the poem begins with a hint of this mighty climactic "Crack" in the sound of “Quick.”
To my quick ear the Leaves—conferred—
(See how quick Dickinson’s ear is? She heard the Crack even before it came. It was there in the quick.)
"Leaves" here might be read as the leaves of books. To read the leaves of a book of great poetry, such as Dickinson was attuned to, is to have a quick ear.
But the primary source of imagery here is nature itself, the leaves of the trees. Nature comes alive to speak to Dickinson, to confer to her ear. To confer can mean to exchange ideas, or seek advice, or to formally bestow an honor. All of this do the leaves confer to Emily. The Bushes—they were Bells—
What a juicy line. How does Dickinson do it? The lines sing, each and every one, just as the landscape does, the very bushes themselves. I could not find a Privacy From Nature's sentinels—
The first question here is why would you want privacy from conferring leaves and ringing bushes? It reminds me a little of the line from F597, “The emperor with Rubies pelteth me.” It’s like being protected from being overwhelmed. The idea of these bushes and trees being “sentinels,” watching over the poet, adds a wrinkle too. Why would you want privacy from the thing that is watching out for you? Nature is presented, in this first stanza as wholly good: conferring, ringing, and protecting.
I think “privacy,” in this first stanza at least, is meant to be ironic. There can be no privacy when all of nature rings and sings along with us.
But after that visual Crack between stanzas the tone changes a bit. The need for privacy, the hiding, takes one into the darkness. In Cave if I presumed to hide The Walls—begun to tell—
The self wants to hide, puts itself in a cave. But even the cave walls begin to tell. One thinks of Plato’s cave here. (I wonder if Emily did?) Plato’s cave is a metaphor telling us that we can’t know outside reality from within our own mental caves. We can only see shadows on its walls that hint at the truth. In Dickinson’s cave it’s more like the walls themselves are dissolving into light. The “walls began to tell.” Maybe those cave walls are echoing the poet's song back to herself?
The idea of nature “telling” is a revelatory one. We see this idea play out often in Shakespeare. The line "stones have been known to move and trees to speak" is spoken by Macbeth after seeing Banquo's ghost, suggesting to us that nature itself exposes the truth behind his hidden actions.
Creation seemed a mighty Crack— To make me visible—
This idea of the poet becoming visible in the “crack” is resonant on many levels, though we can start with hearkening back to that Leonard Cohen line: the "visible," the light, gets through the Crack in the stone of the cave. The truth comes through in the very place where there has been violence and injury.
A certain level of irony can be seen in this poem when we know a little about the poet. She was famously reclusive. I think in this poem she may be calling herself out for this tendency. She’s admitting to herself that it is in her vulnerability that she sings as a poet. Her poems are often the result of heart-break.
The tell is also in the scars. This poem is the second one written on “sheet 10” (as Miller numbers them.) If we look at the first poem Dickinson wrote down on that sheet, F911, then we see the result of this crack. It is presented there as a permanent"gash," a "crease" and a "stain."
When you read these two poems together you get a bigger picture. You see the reason for wanting to hide in the first one, whereas this subsequent poem presents the problem with hiding.
As Frost is best conceived By force of its Result — Affliction is inferred By subsequent effect —
If when the sun reveal, The Garden keep the Gash — If as the Days resume The wilted countenance
Cannot correct the crease Or counteract the stain — Presumption is Vitality Was somewhere put in twain.
-F911, J951, Sheet 10, 1865
The Lexicon of this poem is largely in latin. The result is a dry and academically abstract tone. This cold legalistic language seems to be part of the freezing effect of the subject in the poem. Frosty words for a frosty poem.
The wonder is the way she makes these sharp-angled words flow so smoothly within the confines of the common hymn meter.
This poem is a cold counter-example to the aphorism, “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.” Where there are wilted flowers, there’s been frost.
This is a gardening metaphor, and it is understood that the frost in question is one that is out of season. It’s one of those late unexpected frosts that destroy the early bloomers.
Frost is best conceived By force of its Result —
When we see that plants aren’t making it, we can understand the full import of the reason, we can then “conceive of the force” of frost.
The metaphor is, I think, meant to tell us that when we see someone who is depressed, who has a “wilted countenance,” drooping like a frost-damaged dahlia, there is a “force” behind it. We didn’t fully understand the strength of this force until we saw the “subsequent” damage.
Affliction is inferred By subsequent effect —
The garden (and all that word implies) cannot be completely healed. It “keeps the gash.” The wilted countenance (face) of the damaged person cannot correct the crease created by the damage, nor counteract the stain. Gash, crease and stain here are violent words. Notice that they are all both verbs and nouns. When you gash, crease and stain, you are left with a permanent gash, crease and stain. Perhaps Dickinson is alluding to emotional cruelty, but there may be something even worse implied here, a physical effect of violence that far outlasts the emotional intensity of the moment.
Presumption is Vitality Was somewhere put in twain.
In other words, we presume there is a real reason, some invisible frost, that has caused a person’s Vitality to weaken. The depression is a symptom of real, or perceived, violence. PTSD.
I think of all that icy imagery in Dickinson’s poetry here, like in the famous poem that ends, “As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow –/ First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go –.”
I also think of those tragic lines from F841, “Sun—withdrawn to Recognition—/ Furthest shining—done—”
Our actions can effect serious permanent damage upon the growth of others. Have patience with those who are having trouble thriving. Take care of your people and your plants, and take care of yourself. Grow indoors when the temperatures threaten to take a downward spike.
P.S. Aside from the deft handling of the latinate, there are some other shining moments of Dickinson's craft that are worth noticing in this poem.
There is the way that the steady iambic tri-meter (3 beats) in the first 10 lines sets up the push into tetrameter (4 beats) in the 11th, creating extra emphasis on that word “Vitality,” and then, the way this tension resolves back to tri-meter in the final line, “Was somewhere put in Twain.” It’s like the breath was held a bit longer at the climax of the poem and then released.
Another impressive moment is in the consonant cluster of C T N and R sounds in “countenance/ Cannot correct the crease/ Or counteract.”
P.P.S. The subtle use of the word "force" here reminds me of Sylvia Plath's poem, "The Rabbit Catcher" which begins, ominously, with a very Dickinsonian line of iambic tri-meter, replete with a dash,
Finding is the first Act The second, loss, Third, Expedition for The "Golden Fleece"
Fourth, no Discovery — Fifth, no Crew — Finally, no Golden Fleece — Jason — sham — too.
-F910, J870, sheet9, 1865
Our guest poster for this poem is Nate B Hardy. Nate is a frequent commenter on the Prowling Bee and has subsequently become a friend. Here's Nate's take on this poem:
As far as Emily sticking the knife in goes, this is one of my favorites:
Finding is the first Act
The second, loss,
Third, Expedition for
The “Golden Fleece”
Fourth, no Discovery —
Fifth, no Crew —
Finally, no Golden Fleece —
Jason — sham — too.
Cold!
It reminds me of a Tom Waits spoken word number called Children’s Story, which is apparently taken directly from a granny in the Georg Büchner play Woyzeck:
Once upon a time there was a poor child
With no father and no mother
And everything was dead
And no one was left in the whole world
Everything was dead
And the child went on searching day and night
And since nobody was left on the earth
He wanted to go up into the heavens
And the moon was looking at him so friendly
And when he finally got to the moon
The moon was a piece of rotten wood
And then he went to the sun
And when he got there
The sun was a wilted sunflower
And when he got to the stars
They were little golden flies
Stuck up there like the shrike
Sticks ‘em on a blackthorn
And when he wanted to go back down to earth
The earth was an overturned piss pot
And he was all alone
He sat down and he cried
And he is there till this day
All alone
When I read this, what I feel is elation. It’s one delightful surprise after another.
I get that same electric feeling from Emily’s poem. It’s just as fresh and savage.
Maybe Tom Waits would make it a polka, like a wry grin. My ear was saying we needed space. So I aimed the mic at the wall behind the piano, and the crickets behind the guitar. I thickened the crickets with tambourine, and whacked on toms. I sang the poem, and let the harmonica have the last word. It’s like a resigned shrug.
Because the Bee may blameless hum For Thee a Bee do I become List even unto Me.
Because the Flowers unafraid May lift a look on thine, a Maid Alway a Flower would be.
Nor Robins, Robins need not hide When Thou upon their Crypts intrude So Wings bestow on Me Or Petals, or a Dower of Buzz That Bee to ride, or Flower of Furze I that way worship Thee.
-F909, J869, sheet 9, 1865
This poem grabs you right away with the sound of its bee phonics, its buzz and hum. First of all there is that bold triple B of Because/ Bee/ blameless, which sounds to my ear a little like an engine idling. Both “because” and “blameless” have a buzz sound in them too. Then there is the "hum" sound, that triple M in the first line which continues through the stanza: may/ blame/ hum/ become/ Me. The whole stanza fairly hums along. In other words, Dickinson is turning herself into a bee, which is exactly what the stanza is about,
Because the Bee may blameless hum For Thee a Bee do I become
Dickinson, in her poem, has become pure delight of sound and being. Beeing.
List even unto Me.
“List” carries a wonderful double meaning here. It’s primarily an antique way of saying “listen.” I will become a bee so you will want to listen to my buzz. But “list” also means to lean. The image I get is of the flower listing toward the bee so it can be nearer to it. Isn’t that what we are always doing when we read a poem by Emily Dickinson? We lean into the music of it.
There is a sexual innuendo, perhaps, of bees and flowers that is at play in this poem, and one senses desire in the listing of that flower. Usually the flower is seen as passive, but here it’s leaning in toward the bee.
The construction “Even unto” has biblical connotations: “Even unto death...” Psalms 48, and “Even unto the end of the world..." of Matthew 28. This combined with the Thees and Thous in this poem give it the tone of the sacred.
Because the Flowers unafraid May lift a look on thine, a Maid Alway a Flower would be.
In the second stanza we have switched to the perspective of the listing flower. Who in the relationship is the flower and who is the bee? Both are both. The flower here is portrayed as unafraid, just as the bee was depicted as beyond blame. To follow the sexual subtext, we have the idea of desire being followed fearlessly and beyond society’s blame.
The flower is lifting up, unafraid to look "on thine.” "Thine" is curious here. It’s a possessive form so it begs the question: unafraid to look on thine…what? Thine…desire? Thine…pollinator?
A “Maid,” in the old sense of the word, means a young unmarried woman, a virgin. Because of the way Dickinson wields syntax you can switch the subject and object of “a maid always a flower would be.” This can mean the maid is always going to be a flower, but also that a flower will always be a maid. So, if I’m getting this correctly, the flower is not afraid of being visited by the bee, because it knows it is still just as much a flower after the conjugal visit, that it will stay as pure and blameless as a maid. It’s a beautiful notion.
Nor Robins, Robins need not hide When Thou upon their Crypts intrude
Dickinson spins this poem a whole different way with the intrusion of those “Crypts” there. The flower, being visited upon by the bee in the first stanza is now the “Crypt” of the Robin being intruded upon in the second. It’s a weird parallel. It’s hard to read “Crypt” without the sense it has of “grave,” but perhaps Dickinson must mean it more in the older sense of the word. Crypt comes from the Greek word for “hide” and became the Latin "crypta" which means vault or cavern. Dickinson seems to be playing off of this here. The Crypt then is the hidden nest of the Robin, and in that sense it’s the opposite of death. it's the place where eggs are protected. It’s amazing to me that Dickinson is able to get a sense of both birth and death into one word like that.
So why is “Thou” intruding on this crypt/nest? If Thou is the flower in the first stanza, and then becomes the bee in the second stanza, who or what is it now? What is trying to get into the nest, or the grave? What is intruding? Both the word "crypt" and the word "intrude" throw a complicating shadow on the poem.
The last two stanzas are fused together as one long one. If I had to guess, I'd say Dickinson did this to subtly pick up speed, to give the poem a feeling of escalating excitement. Taking the stanza break away is like taking one’s breath away.
So Wings bestow on Me Or Petals, or a Dower of Buzz
This poem becomes a kind of prayer here. Make me one with nature is the plea. Bestow wings on me, or petals, or dower of buzz. Dower of buzz is a great line. A dower is a dowry. The buzz, the energy, the life-sound of the poet is her dowry.
A dower of Buzz The bee to ride,
If you enjamb and fuse these two lines together, as the lack of punctuation after "Buzz" asks you to do, then you get something like, "The bee rides on its own dower (gift) of buzzing." Dickinson is buzzing on her own poetic prowess.
or Flower of Furze
Flower or Furze is a such a pleasing rhyme for “dower of buzz" that it just lifts the poem right off of the ground, gives it wings so to speak. Furze is a bush, more commonly known as Gorse. (According to Christanne Miller’s notes on this poem there was a saying in Dickinson’s day, “When the furze is in bloom, my love is in tune.”)
Dickinson becomes fluid with nature itself in order to worship "Thee," which may refer to Lover, God, Nature or take your pick. Her way of becoming is through poetry’s mimesis. It buzzes and hums. It's floral. It has wings. We list even unto it.
_/)dam Wade l)eGraff
P.S. Dickinson loved Emerson’s poem about The Humble-Bee, and said of it, “Emerson's intimacy with his 'Bee' only immortalized him." That poem, incidentally, is like the experience of riding on the back of a bee.
P.P.S. My daughter drank a cup of tea today and I noticed that hanging out of the cup was an Emily Dickinson quote, “Beauty is not caused. It is.” Because I was thinking about this poem, this quote came to life. Did Emily "cause" the beauty of this poem to happen? Or did she just tune into the hum and buzz of what already is?
They ask but our Delight— The Darlings of the Soil And grant us all their Countenance For a penurious smile.
-F908, J868, sheet 9, 1865
Emily Dickinson loved flowers. She famously grew them both indoors and out, including a few rare ones that were notoriously difficult to maintain. Sometimes these flowers accompanied poems she would send to her friends. These poems were often about the flowers themselves. My guess is that this poem was of that nature.
Flowers are perfects hosts. They ask nothing of us, except that we delight in them. That's not asking much, just that we accept the gift. After all, they give us all of their beauty, all of their “countenance.” But we, poor creatures that we are, can barely manage a “penurious smile” in return for all of this providence. The least we can do is give our full countenance back to the flowers, give as good as we get.
That notion itself is enough to make this a great poem. It reminds me of the ancient Sufi poem by Hafez which goes, "Even after all this time, the sun never says to the Earth , 'You owe me.' Look what happens with a love like that... It lights the whole sky."
But Dickinson's flower poems always have another layer to them.
Here are the clues. The first one is “Darlings of the soil.” The word "darling" comes from the Old English word deorling, which literally translates to "little dear one." "Darling of the soil" then can also be read as a young child that has died and been buried. To equate this child with a flower is already meaningful, but there's more going on here. The poem unfurls in a profound way when you replace flower with child.
Just as the flowers grant us all of their "countenance," a child granted us all of theirs. The old sense of the word “countenance” is face. We got to know this darling face, and now that there is nothing further to do, we are asked only to delight in having gotten to know it. Yet all we can seem to muster is a penurious smile. The penurious smile here takes on a different meaning when you replace flower with child. Penurious is a word with a double meaning. It can mean "stingy," which is the way we read it in the primary "flower" reading of this poem, but it can also mean "destitute" which is how we read it in relation to "child." In the first case, the smile is poor because it is in comparison to the flower's, but in the latter case, the smile is poor because we are grieving.
Once you work out the two simultaneous meanings of the poem a kind of alchemy takes place wherein the dead child becomes the flower. We are reminded that all of nature, including the child, is there to delight us, and that we may find comfort in its countenance.
Like the double meaning of the word "penurious," both meanings of "countenance" come into play in this poem. The way this poem is semantically arranged, "countenance" may be both a noun or a verb. The verb "to countenance" means to give one mental composure and moral support. The flowers countenance us from the very place in the earth where the countenance of the darling has been laid to rest.
The death of children was extremely common in Dickinson’s time. The survival rate for children was around 50%. I wonder if this poem might have been sent as a note of condolence to a grieving family, along with a bouquet of flowers. This context would’ve made the double nature of this poem very poignant.
That is solemn we have ended Be it but a Play Or a glee among the Garret Or a Holiday,
Or a leaving Home, or later, Parting with a World We have understood, for better Still to be explained—
-F907, J934, sheet 9, 1865
This is a meditation on the solemnity of endings.
The word "solemn" derives from the Latin adjective sollemnis, meaning formal or ceremonial. It reminds me of the opening line from one of Dickinson’s most famous poems, “After great pain a formal feeling comes.”
It’s worth noting that Dickinson provided two alternate words for “solemn” here, “sacred” and “tender." Solemn has a grave connotation, whereas sacred hallows the event that came before it. With the word "sacred" you are not so much sad it is over as you are happy it happened. “Tender” brings the idea of endings into the world of emotions, and leans toward the sentimental. If you put them all together you have something richer than any of the words alone could get across. I’ve heard it argued (I forget by whom) that the alternate words Dickinson supplied should be read as part of the poem, and I tend to agree with this. Obviously for the tight metrical structure of the poems this doesn’t work, but if we are trying to get at Dickinson’s meaning, it can help.
The first line of this poem “That is solemn we have ended” is semantically a bit odd. It seems to describe the end of a relationship, one which is already over, but the next lines show us this line is meant to be conditional and universal, not past-tense and personal. This confusion is probably purposeful. Dickinson could’ve easily written something like, “It is solemn when the end comes” which would make the general nature of the poem much more clear from the get-go, more like an aphorism. The effect is that the poem has the feeling of personal loss, which heightens the emotional sincerity of the poem. The “ending” has already occurred, emotionally, but is still pending philosophically, “Still to be explained.”
The poem starts with small things, a play, a song, and it builds to more major ones, leaving home and death. It reminds me of Elizabeth Bishop’s villanelle “One Art” which tells us to practice losing small things like keys, and then build to larger things, like entire countries.
Be it but a Play
There's an echo here, I think, of Macbeth's famous soliloquy, "Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more." I think there is a sense in this poem too of life being "but a Play"...
Or a glee among the Garret
"Glee among the Garret" a wonderful phrase. “Glee” is a word for joy, but also for an acapella part-song. Garret is “a small, cramped, dismal living space located directly under the roof of a house or building and is historically associated with cheap urban housing for struggling writers, students, and 'starving artists.'" So if you combine the two, you think of a happy moment of harmonious singing even while living in poor conditions. The fun will come to an end and someone will have to get a real job, or starve to death, but it is the very essence of living while it lasts.
The Artist's Garret by Thomas A. De Nobele, 1850
The last lines of the poem tell us something about Dickinson's understanding of the afterlife, which is that it is "Still to be explained."
Parting with a World We have understood, for better Still to be explained—
There is a wry move in the last two lines here. If there was a dash after "better," then we would read this as saying “we have ended...parting with a world we have understood, for better." But the line doesn't end there, it enjambs (a poetry term meaning continues on to the next line), so we get instead, "we have ended...parting with a world we have understood, for better still to be explained.” Dickinson doesn't assume any knowledge about what is coming. Maybe it will be better, or maybe not. The unknowability is essential here, part of what makes the ending so solemn. This unknown quality of what comes next is inextricable from what makes this play called life all the more sacred and tender.
-/)dam Wade l)eGraff
P.S. It is interesting to look at Mabel Loomis Todd’s transcription of this poem, which you can see here. You can see how much Todd (who was Emily's brother's mistress) has edited the poem to fit into the standards of the day. She’s given it a title, “Endings,” and crossed out the last word “explained” and exchanged it with “unfurled" to rhyme with “World.” She also added an "s" to garret. This all makes perfect editorial sense, but also, in each case, weakens the poem. "Unfurled," is pretty good, but it doesn't give us the subtle sense of whether the next life is better or not, "for better still to be explained," that the original has.
That Distance was between Us That is not of Mile or Main— The Will it is that situates— Equator—never can—
-F906, J863, Sheet 8, 1865
The distance between the poet and her beloved is not due to physical distance, but the Will. Physical distances can be crossed, but changing someone’s mind is a different matter altogether.
That Distance was between Us That is not of Mile or Main—
I had to look up “Main.” It turns out it is an old-fashioned word for the ocean. Shakespeare uses it in Othello: “I cannot ’twixt the heaven and the main descry a sail.” "Mile and Main" works well in Dickinson’s poem as an alliterative way of saying “Land and Sea,” which is to say: every possible geographical separation.
The Will it is that situates— Equator—never can—
It is the Will that situates us where we are in a way that the Equator never can. Two people can live far apart, on opposite hemispheres, and still feel close, or they can be emotionally divided even when living side by side.
Judith Farr thinks Emily intended this poem for Sue. As Sue lives just two hundred yards away, the distance between them is not of land or sea. It is Sue's Will that is keeping them apart, not an intervening ‘Equator.’
That makes sense to me, but there's another way to read this poem, a more hopeful one. If the Will can create an untraversable distance where there physically is none, that means it can also create closeness even if distance separates. If we have the Will to be together, then the physical distance means nothing.
If the Will can “situate” distance, then relationship itself depends on acts of inward orientation.
Split the Lark — and you'll find the Music — Bulb after Bulb, in Silver rolled — Scantilly dealt to the Summer Morning Saved for your Ear when Lutes be old.
Loose the Flood — you shall find it patent — Gush after Gush, reserved for you — Scarlet Experiment! Sceptic Thomas! Now, do you doubt that your Bird was true?
-F905, J861, Sheet 8, 1865
I was first made aware of this poem when I watched the episode of the Apple TV series "Dickinson" called “Split the Lark.” In this episode this poem is sung on an opera stage by Sue.
This made me take a deeper look at the poem and I have since come to view it as one of her best.
Let's start at the beginning, with the word "Split."
The trochaic rhythmic structure of the poem causes this word to be emphasized. (Trochaic rhythm is the opposite of the more common poetic rhythm, iambic meter. Iambic meter goes: ta DA ta DA ta DA. Trochaic meter goes: TA da TA da TA da TA da.) Because this poem begins on the beat, the word “Split” comes down on us like an axe. The effect is to give extra venom to an underlying anger. It's almost as if this word, and therefore this poem, is being spit out, like a metal shriek. SPLIT the Lark!
This move gets carried through the rest of the poem too, especially in the second stanza with the emphasis on the first words of the 5th and 8th line, “Loose” and “Now.” It’s a masterful use of the trochee.
Another brilliant thing about this poem is the way the letters of the word “Split the Lark” continue through the poem, almost as if the phrase itself is being split apart: S L and R sounds, especially, are scattered through the poem. I’ve seen Dickinson do this kind of thing before, using a single consonant cluster of a key word or phrase to inform the sound of the rest of a poem, but this is next level.
Also worth taking note of here is the use of the second person, "you." This is somewhat rare for a Dickinson poem. According to Google, “There is no single, publicly verified count of exactly how many of Emily Dickinson’s nearly 1,800 poems use the second person." I can think of a few. “I’m nobody, who are you?” comes to mind. In that poem though the "you" feels general. In this one it feels pointed at someone specific. This naturally makes us want to know who, in Dickinson’s wild and complicated private life, was the recipient of this poem? I’m not going to speculate too much here (see end notes), but I will share something which relates to this poem and further deepens the mystery. The second of Dickinson's so-called "Master letters" (L233) begins:
“Master, If you saw a bullet hit a Bird—and he told you he was'nt shot you might weep at his courtesy, but you would certainly doubt his word. One drop more from the gash that stains your Daisy's bosom—then could you believe? Thomas's faith in Anatomy was stronger than his faith in faith. God made me—(Sir) Master—I didn't be—myself. I dont know how it was done.”
(Gosh, I just re-read that letter six or seven times in a row and it got more strange with every pass. The line “Thomas’s faith in Anatomy was stronger than his faith in faith” stopped me in my tracks. It’s so wry!)
We’ve covered the first word, "Split," so now let’s contend with the rest of the first line.
Split the Lark — and you'll find the Music —
There is a long poetic history of the lark. Many of the poets Dickinson knew and loved, including Chaucer, Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, Milton, Bronte, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Emily's favorite) all used the lark in their poetry as a symbol of poetry itself.
What does it mean that if you split open the lark you'll find music?
Much of Dickinson’s poetry, especially in her prolific period from which this poem comes, is born from the pain of loss. It is elegy. She calls it the “White sustenance Despair” and hers is a “Soul at White Heat." (Elegy is, perhaps, at the very heart of poetry. See Elizabeth Bishop’s "One Art," for a prime example, where loss and poetry are posited as "One Art.")
This first line carries anger and sadness in its blood, what Federico Garcia Lorca called duende. It's the sound of heartbreak, like the voice of Merry Clayton on The Rolling Stones' Gimme Shelter when she belts out, “Rape, murder!”
The second line of the poem is equally astonishing,
Bulb after Bulb, in Silver rolled —
I showed this poem to my HS senior English class and I asked them what they thought these bulbs were. I was given many possible answers. It must have something to do with music, because it follows directly from "you will find the music" in the previous line. But bulbs could refer to the bulbous organs found inside the split bird, "in Silver rolled," encased in the silver feathers of the bird. It could be bulbs of blood. It could be the bulb of the bird's throat as it expands over and over to chirp. It could refer to the bulb of the clapper of a silver bell. Bulb after bulb in silver rolled could be bullets that have split open the bird. There is a dense synaesthesia of music and image in these bulbs. The song itself, we are to understand, has a silver sound.
Because of the next line of the poem we might also see the bulbs as flower bulbs, seeds that are:
Scantily dealt to the Summer Morning
The notes of the bird song are like seeds which are scantily dealt. This music, this poetry, is rare.
It's difficult to make the turn between the first two lines of the first stanza and next two, but I think it is key to understanding the poem. The dense syntax of this poem goes something like this. Split the lark and you'll find music. You'll find it alright! gushing out, a profuse outpouring of agony. But the next lines tell us that a song bird doesn't normally gush. It deals its song scantily. You catch a little here and there, if you are lucky, on Summer mornings. The "reserved" song, the rareness, is what preserves it, what saves it for the long run, so that it be...
Saved for your Ear when Lutes be old.
If you can be patient, and just accept the little snatches of song, of love, when they come, then it will last you your whole life, but if your doubt, or your jealousy, causes you to be impatient, or greedy, because you couldn’t wait for the music, you will kill the bird.
"When Lutes be old" could be the two lovers, or Lutes, growing old together. That's how I take it. But it could also mean something like old-fashioned instruments (and ideas) as opposed to music that stays as fresh as the song of a lark.
The gist is that by not having faith and killing the bird you are getting all of its music at once, in this pained outpouring, instead of having it dealt out to you slowly over the long run. It won't last.
After a much needed breath of a stanza break the next gush of blood-song spurts up.
Loose the Flood — you shall find it patent —
Flood is a poignant word here. It rhymes with blood, a word which is not mentioned, but is at the center of this poem’s scarlet imagery. It's a flood of blood gushing out of the split-open bird. But it's also a flood of emotions, a flood to drown in. The word "patent," used in this way, is antiquated. Here it means something like "proof."
Gush after Gush, reserved for you —
This line does the same thing "Bulb after Bulb" did, which is to create a rhythmic surge. Gush gushes.
“Reserved for you” has an interesting double meaning here. It means, on one hand, all of this is for one chosen person. It’s not a general love, but a specific one. But “Reserved” can also mean to hold back. Both meanings play out here. It's reserved for you, and you can have it all now, painfully, or you can have it spread over the years, reserved.
Scarlet Experiment! Sceptic Thomas!
Experiment is an odd word to use in the context of this poem. If this song is about lack of faith killing a song bird, then how does experiment fit in? How is the lover experimenting? Is this poem about infidelity perhaps? However it plays out in the psychological drama at which it hints, “experiment” takes the poem into the realm of science, like the idea that you have to prove the existence of God, or music, through some kind of tangible evidence. If you look at the two previous poems in the sheet this poem was originally written on (the previous two poems on this blog), you’ll see the words “prove” and “doubt.” The poems on this one sheet can all be read in dynamic relationship to one another.
Dickinson adds a whole new idea here with that word “experiment.” When you try to analyze something (like a poem!) you can kill its music. It's like the irony of killing and dissecting a frog to find out how it lives. It reminds me of one of my favorite Kafka aphorisms, The Top, in which a philosopher wants to understand how a top spins, so he picks it up, which stops it from spinning, thus upsetting the kids, who then chase him away.
Dickinson could have written “doubting Thomas” here and it would have scanned just fine in the trochaic rhythm, but by using the word "Skeptic" she doubles up on that SK sound.The double SK sound in this line gives a harshness to the already vitriolic poem. You hear this sound subtly in the first line "Split the larK," and in "Scantily" in the third line, which prepares you for this. It's part of the scathing sound underlying the poem. This is intensified by those two exclamation points.
(The word Skeptic is spelled in this poem with a C. This is confusing because we naturally read this as a different word at first, sceptic as in sceptic tank. I assume though that in Dickinson's day it was just common to spell it with a C and the word should be "Skeptic.")
Thomas, for those of you who don't know the Gospels, is the one who had to touch Jesus' wounds to believe He was real. This reference gives the bird, and thus the "I" of this poem, a Christ-like quality. This poem can be imagined to be spoken by Christ himself.
It’s dazzling, and dizzying, how much is going on in this poem.
We finally end with the plaintive line,
Now, do you doubt that your Bird was true?
All the disbelieving skeptics, all the scientists, all the jealous lovers, indeed, all of us, are hereby admonished. The Love of the poet, of nature, of music, is True. Be patient, it will be scantily dealt to you, saved for you when you get old. If you rush to prove it is true you will kill it. But hey, the poem sardonically reminds us, at least in killing it, you will have your proof!
-/)dam Wade l)eGraff
Notes:
1. David Preest, amongst others, has made the argument that the recipient of this poem was Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Dickinson referred to Higginson in a letter as her Preceptor, which is another term for Master. Also the reference to "skeptic Thomas" in the second stanza may be a sly reference to Higginson's first name, Thomas. I’d personally love to believe it was Higginson instead of Charles Wadsworth, who some believe to be "Master," just because I like Higginson better as a person. I’m also fine with "(Sir) Master" being Emily's sister-in-law Sue. (Johnny Cash's song "A boy named Sue" suddenly comes to mind). Anyway! This poem could be for anyone who sometimes doubts love, which is to say, I suppose, if we are honest, all of us.
2. There is much more to say about the play of consonance and rhyme in this poem, which is mind-boggingly well-composed. One small example I love is the way the sound of "Lutes" in the first stanza sets up "Loose" in the second.
Absence disembodies — so does Death Hiding individuals from the Earth Superstition helps, as well as love — Tenderness decreases as we prove —
F904, J860, 1865, sheet 8
(Note: I wrote the following essay based on the word "Superposition" in this poem where "Superstition" should have been. It has been brought to my attention by a sharp-eyed reader that this is incorrect. I made the mistake of cutting and pasting the poem from an online source without checking with the most recent source, Christanne Miller's "Poems As She Preserved Them." There are several versions online that say "superposition," but I'm going to assume they all came from one erroneous source. I like the poem better with "superposition," but oh well. It did seem like an odd left-field word. I've changed the poem back to say "Superstition," but I haven't changed the essay because I like the discussion of Superposition in the comment section. So be it. Sometimes a mistake can lead to a revelation.)
This poem is chewy like a jawbreaker. (Do you remember those? The good ones had a tart but sweet center that made all of the hard work worth it, not unlike this poem.)
Death, like any absence, takes the body away from us. This leaves us in anguish. But "superposition" and love both help us deal with this pain.
Love is something we each have our own deep feeling for. I guess if I had to define it I would say it is the summation of feeling we have built up for a particular person. But the problem is that it's often iffy whether or not that feeling comes from attachment or concern. It's slippery.
Superposition though? What is that?
Superposition, I take it, is a position above the position, like an overlay. It is a position removed from the position of presence, left behind in the imagination. (Now days the term "superposition" is used in Quantum Mechanics, but not back in Dickinson’s time.*)
One possibility for superposition here is that you hold both the present and the past (your memory with the other person) at once. Hope might be in there too, the possibility of seeing them again someday. There may also be the idea that you are connected together in some kind of immortal sphere, beyond time. The emphasis in the second line of "Earth" helps us see "superposition" as something beyond the earth, a view from above.
The wonder is that Dickinson goes into such far out territory with this one word, as if summing up an entire theoretical understanding. It's tantalizing.
I think the clue to what superposition means can be found in the final line.
Tenderness decreases as we prove —
When we are with someone, when we "prove" our connection through presence, then our tenderness for the other person lessens. That line alone gives us a lot to chew on. It's like the final layer of the jawbreaker, the hardest one yet. It's a line full of irony, like "Absence makes the heart grow fonder." But "tender" is a better word here than "fonder," and one that clues us into the "superposition."
Tenderness is one of those words that shifts as you look at it. Tenderness means sensitivity. But what causes sensitivity? Pain. When we feel pain we therefore become sensitive to the pain of others.
This is, I think, the superposition. We are in pain due to loss and therefore become more tender toward others. Conversely then, when the beloved is near we are, unfortunately, less tender. We may be in a state of bliss, but because we are, we are less aware.
When you see that the corresponding gain of tenderness is in proportion to loss, it helps. There is a painful, but beautiful exchange.There’s a sour dramatic irony there, no doubt, but it's one that still leaves us, in the end, with something sweet too.
-/)dam Wade l)eGraff
Schrodinger's cat, like Emily, in a superposition
* Quantum superposition is, according to Google, a fundamental principle in quantum mechanics where a photon exists in multiple states or configurations simultaneously. Instead of being in one definite state, a quantum object exists in a linear combination of all possible states, described by a wave function, until a measurement causes it to "collapse" into a single, observed result.
The poem uses "Superposition" then almost prophetically in the way that it resembles the language of quantum physics. Uncertainty sustains Love. Proof collapses possibility.
A Doubt if it be Us Assists the staggering Mind In an extremer Anguish Until it footing find -
An Unreality is lent, A merciful Mirage That makes the living possible While it suspends the lives.
-F903, J859, 1865, sheet 8
It seems as if Dickinson purposely made many of her poems to be one size fits all. This one, for example, carries a general idea that anyone can fit into their own situations. All of us have struggled with doubts and insecurities about belonging and being accepted, and all of us find some kind of comfort in a fantasy that helps us deal with this and go on with life. Our doubts lead us to our illusions.
This is an idea worth thinking about. It spurs me to ask myself what constitutes my own merciful mirage. Am I suspending my real life in a fantasy? In asking myself this question I come up against some uncomfortable answers. But I'm glad. I'd rather not "suspend" my life.
It’s mind-boggling to think about how many ways there are to apply this maxim. Here's one. I recently heard that Gen Z was the “parasocial” generation. I asked my 16 year old daughter Sofia what Parasocial meant. She said it basically meant a one-sided relationship with celebrities on social media.* The rise of AI “friends" is another pertinent example. In both cases real Lives are being suspended. There are countless ways to suspend reality.
Okay, let’s take a deep dive into the poem. A Doubt if it be Us
We can apply this poem in our own particular way, but still one is always deeply curious what the poem meant to Dickinson. It’s hard to say what the impetus of this poem was though. The word “Doubt” suggests the anguish of not being a "believer." Dickinson’s struggle with her self-exclusion from the church can be seen in many of her letters and poems.
But there might be another genesis for this poem. The word “Us” may point to a relationship. The lost faith may be predicated on lost love. Either way, this doubt...
Assists the staggering Mind In an extremer Anguish
If doubt assists the mind in an 'extremer Anguish," then that means the anguish was already extreme. When you are deep in extreme anguish, you so badly want to believe in someone or something. To not have the comfort of that belief in the midst of extreme discomfort is doubly devastating.
Until it footing find -
Footing may mean anything that gives you a toehold out of the extremer anguish, but the word "footing" gives us a possible hint as to what Dickinson meant. The word "feet" is almost always code for metrical feet (or verse) in Dickinson's lexicon, so the idea of finding "footing" may be read here as finding poetry.
An Unreality is lent, A merciful Mirage
The Merciful Mirage that Dickinson escaped to may be poetry, but it also might have been a good novel? When I read “Unreality is lent” I suddenly think of a library. Fiction is lent to us from the library. What else could be lending this Unreality? What does it mean that it is lent to us? Are we finding the mirage or is the mirage finding us?
That makes the living possible While it suspends the lives.
Note the contrasting meanings of “living” and “lives” here. It’s a paradox. How is “living” possible if the “lives” are suspended? The false kind of life, the unreal mirage, isn’t really LIVING. Instead, it suspends real life.
“Suspends” is a super interesting word. It has a double meaning. The Unreal mirage suspends our lives, like a castle in the air, but it also causes us to suspend, or put off, really living.
I also hear an echo in this poem of the phrase that was coined by the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge in his 1817 work Biographia Literaria, which I'm sure Dickinson must have read: "that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith."
We suspend our disbelief, so that we may live. But deep down? We can't believe it.
“Parasocial relationships, ersatz intimacies, are shaping Gen Z in ways we are only beginning to understand. From the rise of finstas (secondary Instagram accounts where users post more personal, unfiltered content) to ceaseless online commentary lamenting the paucity of real-life relationships, it’s clear that Gen Z craves authenticity and connection. And yet members of Gen Z are more likely than those of older generations to bail on commitments and reflexively distrust the very peers they long to connect with. This simultaneous craving for, and retreat from, the real is symptomatic of a crisis of belonging.”
Too little way the House must lie From every Human Heart That holds in undisputed Lease A white inhabitant—
Too narrow is the Right between— Too imminent the chance— Each Consciousness must emigrate And lose its neighbor once—
-F902, J911, 1865
Dickinson often does a funny thing where she speaks of her subject in a purposefully indirect way.
House…undisputed Lease…white inhabitant…Right…emigrate…neighbor? For a minute I thought this poem had something to do with white property owners and immigrant rights. That wouldn't be a very Dickinsonion theme though so we are suspect. Sure enough, with a closer reading, this line of thought appears to be a ruse. It seems as if the poem purposely misdirects you.
This misdirection does a few things. First, I think it is a way of making a meta-commentary on both the subject and the metaphor. It adds a layer of meaning and gives a deeper dimensionality to the poem. (For instance, to follow one possible thread of thought, I think the metaphor in this poem may be making a subtle side-swipe at the narrow-mindedness of the rich in the line, "Too narrow is the Right between—").
Another thing about this misdirection is that, though frustrating, it adds to the power of the poem to pull you in. That puzzle-loving part of us is awakened. We want to see the puzzle, and therefore the poem, completed. But Emily doesn't make it easy.
After a few readings of the poem, paying attention to all of the clues at our disposal, we come to the conclusion that House means grave. Once we see this, then “white inhabitant” becomes "corpse." Okay, we have a starting point.
Too little way the House must lie From every Human Heart
Life is short and the grave is close. The Human Heart brings in the idea of life-force, but also, love.
That holds in undisputed Lease A white inhabitant—
Does "That" refer to the Human Heart or the grave? Both, perhaps. Both hold a body in undisputed Lease; the Heart in memory, and the grave in physical residence.
Death as a permanent undisputed lease is a provocative idea. The idea of paying “rent” here has a dark humor. It makes me think, in contrast to an undisputed lease, about how difficult it is to pay rent when you are living. Your rent is always in “dispute” when you are alive. Too narrow is the Right between—
This line seems to further the “Too little way” in the first line. If it does, then it means something like: our life-time is too narrow between birth and death. In this case, we have a kind of “Right” to life, though it is a very limited one. It also carries the sense of "Right now." This is your in-between, don't miss it.
The line could also easily mean the “narrow” space in the ground, the space of the grave, where the body has its lease. In this case “Right” could mean a number of other possible things, the "Right" to be dead, for instance. More dark humor.
It’s a bit mind-boggling how Dickinson pulls off simultaneous readings. Does the "narrow... between" refer to time or space? And, if so, why is it "Right" between?
Too imminent the chance—
What Dickinson means by “chance” here is pretty hard to pin down too. It might mean something like the “chance” to really live while we still can. This is the reading I prefer. I suppose this exposes my optimistic idealism, because there's another way to read the line. If the thing that is imminent is the House (grave), then it might also be referring to the chance of death. Death is the imminent chance. To think of death as a chance is darkly funny too. It's not a chance, but a certainty.
There is another option I can think of for the meaning of "Chance" here, which is introduced in the next lines about emigrating. "Chance" could refer to escaping the grave after death, the chance of the spirit being released into Paradise. If so, there is perhaps the suggestion that there is something we can do to increase that chance. Each Consciousness must emigrate And lose its neighbor once—
These lines could mean that since our consciousness must emigrate to the house of the grave, we should embrace our neighbors while we can.
But, following the other track of meaning, these lines could mean that each consciousness must (should) emigrate from the grave to Paradise and lose the neighborhood of corpses it once had.
Both meanings have power.
The “once” at the end of the poem is poignant. It could mean that we only get "once" to be here, only one go around. But if you take “death” as the “Right” in this poem, then the “once” refers to the joy of leaving this earth and going to paradise, like in the old spiritual: "Some bright morning when this life is over, I'll fly away."
I far prefer the former reading, the one which seems to say to us, "Take the chance of life while you can." But the latter reading, the wish to emigrate from the House of the grave to the spirit in the sky may be more in line with Dickinson’s meaning.
On top of this, there is still that subtext about white inhabitants and emigrating at play in the subtext of this poem, whatever we are to make of that.
