Her sovereign People

Her sovereign People
Nature knows as well
And is as fond of signifying
As if fallible -


    -Fr892, J1139, 1865


This poem is difficult to parse because what does it mean that Nature knows Her sovereign people “as well?” And why would nature be fallible for signifying these people?

It helps to know that this poem was given as a note to Sue Dickinson (L336) with a flower. The heading for the note was “Rare to the Rare.”

There are a number of ways to take this poem, but my best guess here is that Emily and Sue are the sovereign People, and that even Nature “knows” or recognizes them as such, but is fallible for signifying this. Nature should be impartial, but it appears to give special attention to certain people.

Beyond being a love poem, though, I think this poem can be read as cautionary. The key word here is fallible. It can be read as an admonition to not get too caught up in partiality. Emily may have seen herself as fallible for signifying the sovereign, yet also realized that to do so is in our "Nature."

It’s also worth mentioning the flower that came with the poem. 

When Emily sent a note with a flower, the accompanying poem most often pertained to the flower itself. Flowers, like Sue and Emily, are Nature’s sovereign people and we all may be fallible for "signifying them." We are drawn to them, seduced by their beauty and fragrance. I’m reminded here of Whitman from Song of Myself, where he pushes back against the fallibility of seduction:

“Houses and rooms are full of perfumes, the shelves are crowded with perfumes,
I breathe the fragrance myself and know it and like it,
The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it.

The atmosphere is not a perfume, it has no taste of the distillation, it is odorless,
It is for my mouth forever, I am in love with it,
I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked,
I am mad for it to be in contact with me."

Emily knew how special she and Sue were, and even though she wasn't wrong, and even Nature would have to agree with her, it still makes her fallible. She's susceptible to a hierarchy of preferences, which in this poem she seems to both accept and find fault with. Both signifying and sovereignty are suspect, and yet, who, besides Walt Whitman, can resist the perfume of the flower?

     -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

P.S. The Rare to the Rare. It's worth comparing this poem to the one just before it in Franklin's ordering, Fr892.

Fame's Boys and Girls, who never die
And are too seldom born—

     -