Be Mine the Doom —

Be Mine the Doom —
Sufficient Fame —
To perish in Her Hand!


      -F919, J845, sheet 12, 1865


This brief poem has a timeless aura, with all the drama and sexiness of a poem by Sappho. “To perish in Her Hand!”

“Her Hand,” I believe, refers to Emily’s sister-in-law and beloved friend, Susan Dickinson.

Perishing in the hand of the woman you love, this is sufficient fame for Emily. This is a doom that the poet can welcome as her own. It’s terribly romantic.

I would be willing to bet (at 7 to 1 odds) that this poem was sent to Sue and accompanied by a flower. The flower, once in Sue’s hand, would soon perish. It would be perishing even as she read the poem and held the flower, surely some prize from Emily’s garden. Imagine being Sue in that moment, reading this poem with the dying flower in your hand. You would understand that the flower is Emily.

I am sufficient for her, you would understand. I am hers in life and in death.

***

This poem doesn't need any biographical details to have meaning. Dickinson is hard to pin down with her pronouns. Sometimes we have a he and sometimes a she. Sometimes him can be deified as Him, and her as Her. There is a fluidity with both the male/female and the mortal/Deity in Dickinson's pronouns. The object of this poem may be exemplified in a single Her (such as Sue) or it can stand for the whole of Nature. It's powerful to read this poem if you read Her as meaning Nature.

***

It's such a miniature jewel of a poem, with that unique stanza structure of 2/2/3. It begins with that heavily syncopated first line, "Be Mine the Doom" and ends its brief iambic run with an emphatic exclamation point.

***

"Be Mine the Doom" is defiant. As long as it is in your hands, dear, bring on the Doom! There is also a bit of humorous over-the-top quality in this line, as if it is winking at us. I imagine the poet histrionically arching her eyebrows as she writes this line, making fun of her own penchant for drama. Yet the sentiment couldn't be more sincere.

*** 

I think the “sufficient Fame” is interesting here. There are enough Dickinson poems that dicker with the notion of Fame that we can be sure it was something the poet considered deeply. She knew her own worth as a poet. Even though she published almost nothing (less than a dozen poems) while she was alive, she gained a kind of mythic stature in Amherst and beyond. Sue was famous as a host and entertained the likes of Emerson and Francis Hodgson Burnett (author of The Secret Garden) in her salon. I'm sure she must've sung Emily's praises to the guests. There were also a number of other famous people of the time that Dickinson had a personal relationship with, either in person, or through letters. (See the end notes for a short list.) All of this would've helped create a local mystique. But Emily wasn't looking for fame. She repeatedly turned down offers to publish her poems.

The irony is that the more Dickinson pushed away society, the more intriguing and famous she became. (This same quality can be seen in her poems by the way; the more they try to elude us, the more we want to know what they have to say.) Still, had she not left so many great poems (nearly 2000) behind for us to find, no one would remember the locally-famous recluse. She would have her true international fame posthumously, where it wouldn't be a bother to her.

While alive  Dickinson closed her society to include just a few friends, and especially Sue, her most beloved friend for more than half of her life. That was “Sufficient Fame” for her.

And in fact this poem is a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy: Emily did, in the end, perish in Sue’s hand. Sue was with Emily when she died. Afterward it is reported that Sue designed a white flannel robe for Emily and laid her in a white casket. She carefully placed heliotrope, lady's slipper orchids, and a knot of blue field violets at Emily's neck and in her hands symbolizing devotion and faithfulness. Sue also personally lined Emily’s final resting place with evergreen boughs. 


         -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

blue violet symbolizing devotion and faithfulness

Note: a short list of famous people Emily knew, all of whom helped make her a myth in her own lifetime.

Thomas Wentworth Higginson: A decorated Civil War colonel, abolitionist, and literary critic. He and Dickinson exchanged letters from 1862 until her death, acting as her literary mentor. After her death, he helped co-edit her first published poetry collection.

Helen Hunt Jackson: A highly successful novelist and poet. She was a childhood friend of Dickinson's and tried (unsuccessfully) to convince Dickinson to publish her poetry during her lifetime.

Samuel Bowles: The highly influential editor-in-chief of the Springfield Republican newspaper. He was a close family friend, and Dickinson sent him several of her poems.

Charles Wadsworth: A prominent and nationally famous Presbyterian minister from Philadelphia. Dickinson heard him preach in the 1850s, and they struck up a correspondence; he became one of the most important intellectual confidants in her life.

Mary Lyon: A pioneering educator for women, famous for founding the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary. Dickinson attended the seminary during the 1847–1848 academic year and studied under Lyon's instruction.

Josiah Holland: A well-known Massachusetts doctor, writer, and co-founder of Scribner's Monthly magazine. He and his wife, Elizabeth, were close family friends and frequent correspondents.