A South Wind — has a pathos

A South Wind — has a pathos
Of individual Voice —
As One detect on Landings
An Emigrant's address.

A Hint of Ports and Peoples —
And much not understood —
The fairer — for the farness —
And for the foreignhood.


    -Fr883, J719, fascicle 39, 1864


One intriguing pattern I’ve noticed in Dickinson’s poems is the reversal of signified and signifier. For instance, in this poem, what is it that is signified? Is it the South Wind or the Emigrant? At first it seems to be the South Wind that’s the subject and the Emigrant, the metaphor. But it’s the other way around. Once you make that turn-around, then you realize it’s the Emigrant that carries “a pathos of individual voice,” not the wind. 

So when you get to that line “And much not understood,” the pathos becomes clear. 

In the last two lines of the poem the poet shows her affinity for the foreigner:

The fairer — for the farness —
And for the foreignhood.

By tying the F R N sounds of "fairer— for the farness—" to "foreignhood," Dickinson makes it all seem like a natural fit. Also she coins a term here, "foreignhood," which has the advantage of making a solid rhyme in both sound and meaning with "understood." 

Here the poet leads us from the pathos of separation toward an attitude of welcome and acceptance, a message as necessary today as it was back then. 

    -/)dam Wade l)eGraff