'Twould ease — a Butterfly —

'Twould ease — a Butterfly —
Elate — a Bee —
Thou'rt neither —
Neither — thy capacity —

But, Blossom, were I,
I would rather be
Thy moment
Than a Bee's Eternity —

Content of fading
Is enough for me —
Fade I unto Divinity —

And Dying — Lifetime —
Ample as the Eye —
Her least attention raise on me —


      -Fr888, J682, fascicle 39, 1864


This is a very slippery poem. Who is the flower in this equation and who the bee and butterfly? What "capacity" does the bee and butterfly have, in representational human terms, that the blossom doesn't? Who is Her at the end of the poem? Is it the Ample eye that of the bee and butterfly or of the flower? Does that ample eye belong to the adorer or adored? There is a lot to work out. How you work it out will color your reading of the poem, which will in turn reflect you.

Here’s my reading, this time.

In the first stanza we have the idea that a flower eases and elates the bee and the butterfly, but does not have their capacity, which I take to mean, cannot fly away.

I think of Emily at home, able to ease and elate (relating to the two ends of poetry, Truth and Beauty) through her poetry, but self-restricted to her home. 

In the second stanza she says she would rather be “Thy” singular moment, meaning the blossom's, than that of the eternal prowler, the bee. There are some sexual politics here perhaps; the feminine is often depicted as rooted, while the bees, and the butterflies, root around.  Who does "Thy" refer to? David Preest thinks Emily is talking to herself here, and that makes the most sense to me too. But there are other possibilities.

By the third stanza the poet has become the blossom, accepting that she is fading and that her glory is behind her.

Content of fading
Is enough for me —

The next line is a beauty:

Fade I unto Divinity

There is an acceptance of death here in the satisfaction of knowing that you were, for a moment, that full blossom visited by the nectar-seeking bee, and, for a time, could be the easeful place to rest for the butterfly. Being content with this, one can fade into the divine, which means, I suppose, resting in peace.

And Dying — Lifetime —
Ample as the Eye —
Her least attention raise on me —

In dying, though, there’s the memory of a Lifetime, ample as the eye that saw it all. And in that ample eye, what is most precious is just the least moment of attention from “Her” ample eye.

It’s a poem that accepts that the one glance is not only "enough," it's more than enough, it's "ample." The flower as it is fading is all gratitude.

    -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

P.S. This Tanya Tucker song comes to mind:

Delta Dawn, what's that flower you have on?

Could it be a faded rose from days gone by?

And did I hear you say he was a-meetin' you here today

To take you to his mansion in the sky?