Bereaved of all, I went abroad —

Bereaved of all, I went abroad —
No less bereaved was I
Upon a New Peninsula —
The Grave preceded me —

Obtained my Lodgings, ere myself —
And when I sought my Bed —
The Grave it was reposed upon
The Pillow for my Head —

I waked to find it first awake —
I rose — It followed me —
I tried to drop it in the Crowd —
To lose it in the Sea —

In Cups of artificial Drowse
To steep its shape away —
The Grave — was finished — but the Spade
Remained in Memory —


        -Fr886, J784, fascicle 39, 1864


The poet is utterly bereft. “Bereaved of all.” 

“All” here may mean, possibly, the loss of a great love. Sometimes you feel all meaning drain from you when a relationship ends. Though there are other things that can leave one feeling completely bereft, like trauma. 

Ultimately, we don’t know what may have left the poet bereft. Once again Dickinson brings us into her overwhelming pain by leaving the "why" unanswered and thus letting us entertain our own reasons.

Let’s look for a moment at the little word “of” in the first line. Chris Stroffolino wrote recently about the “quasi-tragic pathos” in the word “of.”  Chris was writing about Clark Coolidge's poem "Polaroid," but one might say the same of Dickinson’s “of” here in this first line. Bereft of all.

So what can one possibly do to get away from all that you are bereft of. Well, you can try travelling, but the poet doesn't think that will work in her case. That's how bereft she feels. The only thing to look forward to in a foreign land it would seem would be the same grave, which has followed the poet overseas. The grave, given agency, hounds the poet down. 

This is dramatic. There is a part of me that wants to say, come on Emily, give it a try. Go abroad. Go to Tuscany or Santiago and then tell me you are feeling bereft of all. But I don't want to diminish the level of anguish here. What do I know?

Traveling might not have worked for Emily. She was a homebody. That’s where I think the tragedy of this poem secretly lies. Dickinson loved her home, but her home had become a kind of grave due to some tragedy, one that remains a mystery to us. (We have our theories). Home is gone for good, and no other will do.

You see this homeless theme throughout Dickinson’s oeuvre, and in particular in this fascicle, #39. In Fr881, for instance, the poet writes, "To wander now is my abode."

Traveling doesn't work, but neither does being social:

I tried to drop it in the Crowd —

 Even drugs and alcohol don't help:

I tried...in Cups of artificial Drowse
To steep its shape away —

This is grief, it would seem, beyond remedy.

The most chilling part of this poem is the end. The poet, who can now do nothing else but lay down in her grave, still remembers the spade that dug it. What, or who, dug this dire grave? What made the poet lose herself? It must have been devastating. whether caused by a lover or assailant. 

...but the Spade
Remained in Memory —

You want the spade to remain "in Memory," so the poet can use it to dig herself back out of the grave. She's being buried alive. But maybe escape is too easy. Maybe the value of this poem is just to acknowledge and feel the depths of an unnecessary and overwhelming loss for those who are feeling it.

In Victorian America, the most significant figurative usage of "spade" was in the phrase "call a spade a spade," meaning to speak plainly, even bluntly, even if the truth was unpleasant. There is something blunt about this poem. It offers little relief for absolute grief other than death. 

This escape from bereavement, this death-wish, is counteracted, somewhat, in the idiosyncratic beauty of the language. But poetry must've seemed like cold comfort at the time. 

       -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

P.S. This poem reminded me of the Hemingway line, “you can't get away from yourself by moving from one place to another.” I disagree with that though. You can't get away from yourself that way, but sometimes you can find yourself.