Into the Darkness dips away —
Half Her Complexion of the Sun —
Hindering — Haunting — Perishing —
Rallies Her Glow, like a dying Friend —
Teasing with glittering Amend —
Only to aggravate the Dark
Through an expiring — perfect — look —
-Fr868, J938, 1864
The music in this poem sucks you in like a siren song. You can’t stop listening. First there are those strong double Fs that begin the poem, and those Ds coming in with FaDing and Day, echoed in the next line with Darkness and Dip. "D" sounds are like deep dark percussion in Dickinson, the equivalent to bass notes in a piece of music. (I think of Robert Frost here too, "The woods are lovely, dark and deep.")
Then there’s the assonance, that strong ay sound in fair and fade and day in the first line merging, finally, into “away” in the second. The ay of "away" fades away off into the ether. Awaayyyy.
The quadruple Hs in the second couplet, Half, Her, Hindering and Haunting, create an airy push, so that surprising P at the end of the line, “Perishing,” really pops out at you.
There is no knowing where the music is going with Dickinson because the tenor of the thought is leading the way. Somehow though it is always perfect. For example, look at “look” at the end of the poem. There is no set up for the word. It doesn’t rhyme with anything else in the poem. It defies expectation, but is just right.
Suffice to say that there is "fair" music in spades here, a sublime connection between the musicality of this poem and its content.
Let's look at that content:
Fairer through Fading
This is an oxymoron of sorts. How can something become more beautiful when it is becoming less seen? Its impending absence makes the presence more powerful.
— as the Day
Into the Darkness dips away —
The sunset, when day is fading, is the most beautiful part of it. Dickinson doesn’t go there in this poem, but this is also true of the end of the year. Autumn is the most colorful of seasons. Like a day, and a year, a life ends at its most beautiful point, fairer through fading.
Fairer through Fading
This is an oxymoron of sorts. How can something become more beautiful when it is becoming less seen? Its impending absence makes the presence more powerful.
— as the Day
Into the Darkness dips away —
The sunset, when day is fading, is the most beautiful part of it. Dickinson doesn’t go there in this poem, but this is also true of the end of the year. Autumn is the most colorful of seasons. Like a day, and a year, a life ends at its most beautiful point, fairer through fading.
Half Her Complexion of the Sun —
Hindering — Haunting — Perishing —
Hindering — Haunting — Perishing —
At twilight, half the day’s complexion is sun, and half dark.
Hindering — To hinder is to hamper progress. The day, the life, wants to stay, so it's hindering night.
Haunting — We are haunted by the lingering finality of life.
Haunting — We are haunted by the lingering finality of life.
— Perishing — Look at how that stark word is set aside like that between dashes, followed by a break between stanzas, like a pregnant pause. What comes during the Perishing?
The next stanza rallies!
Rallies Her Glow, like a dying Friend —
The subject is still Day. Day is rallying her “glow,” like a dying friend. I remember hearing my grandmother make a hilarious joke on her 90th birthday. I wasn’t expecting it and it seemed to sum up all of her spirit and wit and verve. She was like dying Friend rallying her glow. It was all the more poignant for being so late in the day, so late in the year, so late in the life.
Teasing with glittering Amend —
What is there for the day to amend? Is the day making up for all that noonday sinning with its brilliant “glittering” display of a sunset? Is Emily hinting that it is in atoning that our colors become most rich in tone?
Only to aggravate the Dark
Through an expiring — perfect — look —
Rallies Her Glow, like a dying Friend —
The subject is still Day. Day is rallying her “glow,” like a dying friend. I remember hearing my grandmother make a hilarious joke on her 90th birthday. I wasn’t expecting it and it seemed to sum up all of her spirit and wit and verve. She was like dying Friend rallying her glow. It was all the more poignant for being so late in the day, so late in the year, so late in the life.
Teasing with glittering Amend —
What is there for the day to amend? Is the day making up for all that noonday sinning with its brilliant “glittering” display of a sunset? Is Emily hinting that it is in atoning that our colors become most rich in tone?
Only to aggravate the Dark
Through an expiring — perfect — look —
This glittering is in defiance to the Dark. It’s flipping off the void. What does it mean to “aggravate the Dark"? It’s almost like some kind of battle of good and evil. Living life to the nth, to the last, is our final battle cry. Aggravate the dark and leave this “light” in a glittering golden display of rebellion,
Through an expiring — perfect — look —
That’s a sunset for you. Or an Autumn trove of trees in New England. Or Emily herself. The end of the poem is the poem's, the poet's, final perfect look, straight at us.
It’s not one that could be predicted. There is no set up rhyme for it, yet it’s perfect.
Glittering.
-/)dam Wade l)eGraff
Through an expiring — perfect — look —
That’s a sunset for you. Or an Autumn trove of trees in New England. Or Emily herself. The end of the poem is the poem's, the poet's, final perfect look, straight at us.
It’s not one that could be predicted. There is no set up rhyme for it, yet it’s perfect.
Glittering.
-/)dam Wade l)eGraff
My daughter Lucia in the glitter of a sunset
Stay tuned. In the next poem Dickinson continues her meditation on perfection.
Could it be that the Rallied Glow, glittering Amend, and that last perfect look will only make the darkness that inevitably follows feel even more unbearable?
ReplyDeleteMaybe. I guess it depends on perspective.
DeleteI see in it a fiery defiance. To "aggravate the dark" is a double negative, making for a positive, something"fairer," even if fading.
But you could read this poem from the vantage point of the darkness, from the one left behind grieving. In that case, yes, that final look would aggravate.
"might" aggravate. It might inspire too.
ReplyDeleteHere is an excerpt from Amy Levy’s book THE NEW OTHER that reminded me of this poem:
ReplyDeleteWhile there is pain in loss, we may also behold some splendor along the way. Freud’s 1916 paper, “On transience,” feels apt when he reminds us that transience enhances the beauty in what is being lost. He wrote the article during the midst of the demolition caused by the First World War. In it, he describes walking through the countryside with a “young poet” a year before the war started. The young poet appreciates the fact of the beauty around them, but cannot enjoy it because he is troubled by its transience. Our present situation, with the impending rise of AI, seems to me not dissimilar. Perhaps there is solace to be found in Freud’s position. He writes,
“The proneness to decay of all that is beautiful and perfect can, as we know, give rise to two different impulses in the mind. The one leads to the aching despondency felt by the young poet, while the other leads to rebellion against the fact asserted. No! it is impossible that all this loveliness of Nature and Art, of the world of our sensations and of the world outside, will really fade away into nothing. It would be too senseless and too presumptuous toe believe it. Somehow or other this loveliness must be able to persist and to escape all the powers of destruction.
But this demand for immortality is a product of our wishes too unmistakable to lay claim to reality: what is painful may none the less be true. I could not see my way to dispute the transience of all things, nor could I insist upon an exception in favour of what is beautiful and perfect. But I did dispute the pessimistic poet’s view that the transience of what is beautiful involves any loss in its worth. On the contrary, an increase! Transience value is scarcity value in time. Limitation in the possibility of an enjoyment raises the value of the enjoyment.”