Of Tolling Bell I ask the cause?

Of Tolling Bell I ask the cause?
"A Soul has gone to Heaven"
I'm answered in a lonesome tone—
Is Heaven then a Prison?

That Bells should ring till all should know
A Soul had gone to Heaven
Would seem to me the more the way
A Good News should be given.

     -F933, J947, sheet 15, 1865

This poem reminds me of John Donne’s famous line, “For whom the bell tolls.” But here the question changes to, “For why the bell tolls.”

Is the bell tolling to extol our pain or our joy? The basic impulse of this poem is that we take the funeral bell to be a bad omen, but, if we are going to heaven, shouldn’t the sound of the bell signal Good News?

This poem is a slippery one though, full of little reversals.

One of the first things I needed to make sense of in this poem is what it means when the S of “Has” in the first stanza turns into the D of “Had” in the second. The poem considers the difference between “A Soul haS gone to Heaven” and “A Soul haD gone to heaven.” That single change of letter changes the tense which makes the difference between a soul haS left, sad, and a soul haD arrived, happy.

Of Tolling Bell I ask the cause?

The response to the question comes not from the tone of the bell, but from the "lonesome tone" of the one being questioned. The “tone” is a reflection of the person, in other words, not the bell.

"A Soul has gone to Heaven"
I'm answered in a lonesome tone—

A follow up question might be: who is it that the poet is asking? Is this some random person out on the street? (It could be, Dickinson's bedroom writing window faced a main road that lead to a graveyard only a few hundred yards from her house, the same one she is buried in now).  Or is the poet asking herself? Who is it that is feeling lonesome?

This seems to be a poem, on the surface, that calls out the hypocrisy of believers, asking them why, if they truly believe, they are treating celebration like a loss. Death should be a celebration! But I think that is a facile reading. If you read the poem backwards, which one should try to do with a Dickinson poem, the "lonesome" reasserts itself and the celebration turns back into what it is for the mourner, a loss. 

Is Heaven then a Prison?

Read frontwards this question is asking us why we would grieve death if it frees us from life. But read backwards, this line points to the living, and to the less-lonely past. Is heaven then a prison? There's a contravalence in this poem, a tension introduced in that telling word, “lonesome.” It's the secret hinge in this poem.

What good is the bell's musical chime of celebration to the one left behind? It serves as a reminder, perhaps, of the hope of something better for the bereaved, but it doesn’t take away the pain of the loss. The pain of loss is so great that it makes the bells themselves sound mournful.

That Bells should ring till all should know
A Soul had gone to Heaven
Would seem to me the more the way
A Good News should be given.

I like the rolling cadence caused by the enjambment of the second stanza, like a bell ringing out. Try it in one breath. It isn’t easy because there is no place to breathe in that stanza unless you make one. This breathless ringing is drawn out even further by the extra half-measure of the feminine-rhyme of "heaven" and "given."  

There’s another subtle reversal in the final two lines. "Good News" immediately evokes the Gospel itself. Gospel literally means good news. So if you read the poem forward then it is saying that the Good News is we don’t die, if we are believers, and therefore should rejoice at the sound of the bells.

But if you've read much Emily Dickinson, then you know the idea of Heaven is a troubled one, to say the least. And if you've learned to read the poems backward, you see that bells perhaps shouldn’t be ringing at all. Silence might be more appropriate.

Christian doctrine says that Heaven is infinitely better than Earth. Human behavior says that death is tragic. Dickinson hears irony in the ringing of those bells. Why is it that believers behave as though they don't actually believe? There’s a gap between belief and behavior that is clear as the tone of the bell.

  

     -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

P.S. As for the idea of reading a poem backward, note the discussion on the subject in the post for F849. Also, check out this scrap-musing from Emily, about the need to read certain poems backwards: 

Did you ever

read one of

her Poems back-

ward, because

the plunge from

the front over-

turned you?

I sometimes

often have-

many times have-

a something

overtakes the

Mind-

Our little Kinsmen—after Rain

Our little Kinsmen—after Rain
In plenty may be seen,
A Pink and Pulpy multitude
The tepid Ground upon.

A needless life, it seemed to me
Until a little Bird
As to a Hospitality
Advanced and breakfasted.

As I of He, so God of Me
I pondered, may have judged,
And left the little Angle Worm
With Modesties enlarged.


    -F932, J885, sheet 15, 1865


I’m surprised this is not one of the more famous poems. It’s funny and dark, sweet and sour, signature Dickinson.

Our little Kinsmen—after Rain
In plenty may be seen,

We start with a riddle. It’s a pretty simple one though and if you haven't figured it out by the first stanza, then you probably will by the time you get to the bird breakfasting in the second. Worms are our kinsmen. On one hand this implies a kinship among all living things (sweet) but on the other, the poet is comparing us to worms (sour).

If we are like worms, we can begin to ask a question here. Do we also come out “after Rain”? What does it mean to come out after rain? Does it mean we are metaphorically tired of the solitary pain (rain) and long for the open communion of the sun? 

A Pink and Pulpy multitude
The tepid Ground upon.

Pink and pulpy. What a pair of descriptors for humanity. Together it sounds repulsive. And why is the ground “tepid?” It’s like an alien Yelp review of humanity. "I checked out the humans and found them to be pink, pulpy and tepid. Zero stars.” (It reminds me of Thomas Hobbes review of life, “nasty brutish and short.")

A needless life, it seemed to me
Until a little Bird
As to a Hospitality
Advanced and breakfasted.

This pink, pulpy and tepid worms, our kin, seem "needless" to the poet until she notices that the worms make an excellent breakfast for birds. The implication is that we humans, if we can at least provide sustenance for the “birds,” may be worthwhile after all.

This begs the question of what it might it mean, metaphorically, to give ourselves up to feed the birds?  One answer might be in the song-like nature of Poetry. Emily, in her poems, is giving the “higher nature” in each of us, our inner bird, poems to sing. She is feeding us the poetic sustenance of Truth and Beauty.

But anything that adds purpose to our lives, that gives us wings, may do. How to do that is a question each of us must answer for ourselves.

As I of He, so God of Me
I pondered, may have judged,

This is a pithy way to say, “Judge not, lest ye be judged.” I’m judging the worms, and, by comparison, humanity itself, says the poet, but am I not human? And it is perhaps even implied that we are worse than the worms, because at least the worms aren't judging anyone.

And left the little Angle Worm
With Modesties enlarged.

 Is it the worm or poet who is "left... with Modesties enlarged"? It's neat how Dickinson's use of grammar here conflates ourselves and the worms.

This realization (this... “Angle”?) of being comparable to, and indeed worse than, the Angle Worm is what gives us humility. Humility shows us Truth and Truth, set in the frame of Beauty, gives us poetry.

I’m reminded of a line from the new Odyssey film by Christopher Nolan. “The clearest view of man is from below.“ Odysseus becomes reduced to a humble beggar at the end of his Odyssey and therefore can see mankind for what it is. But here, Dickinson gives us a gorgeous metaphor for what we can aspire to be, a humble banquet for the song birds.

This poem pairs well with an earlier one, F359:

A Bird came down the Walk—
He did not know I saw—
He bit an Angleworm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw,

And then he drank a Dew
From a convenient Grass—
And then hopped sidewise to the Wall
To let a Beetle pass—

He glanced with rapid eyes
That hurried all around—
They looked like frightened Beads, I thought,
He stirred his Velvet Head—

Like one in danger, Cautious,
I offered him a Crumb
And he unrolled his feathers
And rowed him softer Home—

Than Oars divide the Ocean,
Too silver for a seam—
Or Butterflies, off Banks of Noon
Leap, plashless as they swim.

The rain/pain drives us out to the sun where we can be seen and, therefore enjoyed, by the birds, giving them sustenance for flight and song. We can offer the bird only crumbs, but it may be enough for him to "unroll his feathers" and row softer home, plashlessly dividing the "Everywhere of Silver."

      -/)dam Wade l)eGraff