Not all die early, dying young—

Not all die early, dying young—
Maturity of Fate
Is consummated equally
In Ages, or a Night—

A Hoary Boy, I've known to drop
Whole statured—by the side
Of Junior of Fourscore—'twas Act
Not Period—that died.


        - F937, J990, sheet 16, 1865

“Maturity of Fate.” What an idea. Fate presents a philosophical question, one that is deeply embedded in our mythic consciousness. I think of the 2500 year-old play Oedipus Rex. Oedipus tries to escape his fate, which is, ironically, what leads him to it. Character is destiny. So the deeper question is, can you change your character? Could Macbeth have decided not to kill the king and thus escape the fate the witches predicted for him? These are questions that are fundamental to who we are, and who we may become. This poem points in that direction. It starts with the confusing but concise line,

Not all die early, dying young—

This basically means that just because someone died young does not mean they died too early. It's provocative. What does the poet mean that someone who died young has not died too early?

Maturity of Fate
Is consummated equally
In Ages, or a Night—

These next lines present a quickening. What does it mean that maturity of fate may be reached in a single night? Sometimes we are forced to grow up very quickly due to painful circumstances. The events of a single night can age us as much as living for “ages" will.

As one does when reading Dickinson, I try to use my own experience to understand. I’m thinking therefore of my sister-in-law who became a nurse and at 21 years old was thrown into a kind of hellscape of working in an emergency room in the early days of the Covid pandemic. She was the baby of eight siblings and sheltered and was suddenly asked by circumstances to mature very quickly. Had she not become a nurse, but, say, an engineer, it may have taken "ages" to reach the same understanding of the exigencies of life and death, not to mention being as useful in the face of it. She brought real solace and joy to many who were forced to die terribly alone. Catherine bravely put her life on the line, but fortunately she lived through it, unlike the hero of this poem:

A Hoary Boy, I've known to drop
Whole statured—

Dickinson has known a “Hoary Boy” who died early, but in full stature. “Hoary” is an adjective that means frost-ridden and implies white-haired. The image here is of a boy who is already Old Man Winter.

We don’t know what "Hoary Boy" Dickinson is referring to, but it’s hard not to think of the young men dying in the Civil War during these years. We know that at least one of her friends, Frazar Stearns, was killed in the Civil War in 1862.

—by the side
Of Junior of Fourscore—

The Hoary Boy is juxtaposed against the Junior of Fourscore (fourscore=80 years). One is an old young man and the other is a young old man.

(If it was Frazar Stearns that Dickinson was thinking of, then perhaps she used the word “Junior” for the old man because Frazar was still a Junior in college when he died in battle.)

—'twas Act
Not Period—that died.

A “period” is merely a span of time. It could be any period, really. But an “act” is willful. The young person who dies may have completed something that the older person hasn't. And therefore, “Not all die early, dying young” has a double meaning. Someone can die old while nevertheless dying young, because the thing that mattered, the “Act,” was never given enough time to mature. Conversely, someone can die physically young but have already reached the full completion of their fate.

It takes maturity to "Act" bravely in the face of death. There are young people who are mature enough to understand this, and old people who probably never will.

Frazar Stearns acted. He put his life on the line for the greater good of the Union. This is especially poignant in Emily Dickinson's case because we know that her own brother didn't do this. In fact, Austin paid $500 for a substitute to replace him in the war. 

This is a poem that, if taken to heart, may inspire us to live with the courage of our convictions. 

      -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Frazar Stearns, 1852

P.S. See the comments below for more on Frazar Stearns.