Good to hide, and hear 'em hunt!

Good to hide, and hear 'em hunt!
Better, to be found,
If one care to, that is,
The Fox fits the Hound—

Good to know, and not tell,
Best, to know and tell,
Can one find the rare Ear
Not too dull—


      -F945, J842, sheet 18, 1865

What an undull poem.

Let’s start with that first line, and the wonderful weirdness of it.

Good to hide, and hear 'em hunt!

If we are talking about an actual Hound and Fox here, then I would presume it would not be so pleasurable to listen to the hounds hunt, even if you were hidden. If the Hound gets you, you’re done. 

Something else is going on. Why would it be good to "hear ‘em hunt?" Dickinson makes being hunted sound down-right pleasurable.

I think this is a meditation on erotic and romantic pursuit. She is recognizing the desire of being desired, and, also, the necessity of evading capture. We have a suitor situation going on here.

Dickinson was reserved and reclusive. She mostly hid from the world. She was a bit like Penelope that way, weaving and unweaving her poems to keep the hounds at bay, until the fitting one, Odysseus, arrived on the scene.

Likewise, in Dickinson's poems she hides from her readers. In a sense, we are all hounds on the hunt for that fox. We are all prowling bees in pursuit of the flower.

In that case then you could say it is we who are the “'em” in “Good to hide, and hear ‘em hunt!”

Funny, right?

Also funny is the use of the word ‘em. You can just hear Emily saying this to her niece Mattie (Susan’s daughter) with whom she was close. Imagine them playing hide and seek with the other cousins. In a closet together Emily whispers in delight, “It’s good to hide and hear ‘em hunt, ain’t it Mattie?”

After that terrific first line Emily goes one better,

Better, to be found,

Better to be found, but then there’s a caveat. It's better to be found by the right hound. We find out at the end of this stanza that it's only a fitting hound that can find the fox. It has to be the right suitor, a dogged Hound as wily as the Fox.  

The next line is great too.

If one care to, that is,

The fox wants the hound to care enough. This is part of why it is so elusive. We have a case of playing hard to get. How much does the caller care? Enough to keep calling? Let's find out.

The next line is the capper,

The Fox fits the Hound—

Not only does the right hunter get the right prey, but the right prey gets the right hunter. The two creatures give each other what they need. The fox's elusiveness intensifies the hound's desire, and the desire, in turn, intensifies and heightens the union.

There is also a very funny pun here on the word “fits." The Fox fits the hound, or, in other words, the Fox has the Hound in fits. 

The second stanza is parallel to the first. They both start by telling us what’s “good.”

Good to know, and not tell,
Best, to know and tell,

Hiding and hearing 'em hunt is good, and, likewise, keeping your secret is good. Being found is better, and, likewise, sharing yourself with someone who genuinely wants to know who you are is better. The hunt is evidence of that desire. There is a pleasure in knowing you are worth pursuing by a hound that is worthy of you.

Can one find the rare Ear
Not too dull—

The way this poem is set up, the Hound and the Ear are one. If the Hound is fitting, or sharp enough (“not too dull”) or, conversely, if the ear is rare enough, or cares enough, then the fox is happy to be caught/ heard. Note that subtle rhyming interplay between "care" in the first stanza and "rare ear" in the second. It is a rare ear that cares enough.

The Ear may be read as that of the reader, whether that was Sue, initially, or you, now. Sue, we know, was an ideal reader for Emily, which is why more poems were given to her than anyone else in Emily’s life. Emily once wrote of Sue that she had learned more from her than anyone else save Shakespeare. The Hound fit the Fox. 

But of course the ear is also that of anyone reading the poem. Emily is telling us, in riddles, who she is. We just have to listen very carefully.

I love this poem because it reminds me that I can't be too dogged in my pursuits, and on the other side of the divide, that I can't be too wily with my secrets.   

-/)dam Wade l)eGraff

A rejoinder to this poem by the great Belle and Sebastian:

"Fox in the snow, where do you go
To find someone that will do?
To tell someone all the truth before it kills you
They listen to your crazy laugh
Before you hang a right
And disappear from sight
What do they know anyway?
You'll read it in a book.
What do they know anyway?
You'll read it in a book tonight."