Absent Place — an April Day —

Absent Place — an April Day —
Daffodils a-blow
Homesick curiosity
To the Souls that snow —

Drift may block within it
Deeper than without —
Daffodil delight but
Him it duplicate —


     -F958, J927, 1865

This poem throws you into a seasonal confusion from the first line. If you read just that line by itself it seems to say that an April Day is an absent place. In other words, it is an April Day devoid of the feeling of spring. But then you read the rest of the poem and the syntax unravels itself until you realize that there is a snow-drift outside. It is not an absent spring, but winter time and April itself is "Absent." This confusion is in keeping with the poem. What does outside weather matter when the weather inside is inclement? It's all an "Absent Place" to souls that snow.

The last two lines of the poem are tricky.

Daffodil delight but
Him it duplicate —

David Preest reads these lines as, "to the man with a snowdrift on his mind in addition to the snow-drift outside, the daffodils, when they come, are a double delight." But the lack of a comma (or dash) after "delight" leads me to read this differently.  "Daffodil delight but (only) him (that) it duplicate." In other words, just as the snow-drift without is duplicated within, the daffodil must be duplicated within as well for it to be delightful. 

This takes us back to the confusion of the first line. Even if we are in April, the daffodils will not delight if the snow-drift within buries them under. Inner weather supersedes outer weather. 

In Preest's reading these last two lines are about the coming relief of spring, but the sense I get from this poem is more of an Absent Place within that is worsened by being misaligned with spring. The self out of alignment with the season is a common theme in Dickinson. (See F686 for one such example.)

This begs the question as to why there is a snow-drift within. An "Absent Place" suggests someone who is absent. Who is absent? This question leads to another possible reading of the final lines. The Him doesn't refer to the subject, but to the object of the poem. The daffodils duplicate Him. It is "Him" that is absent. 

Daffodil delight but
Him it duplicate —

Who the absent "Him" might be for Dickinson is a question which resounds through many a Dickinson poem. But for us it means, at core, a loss of connection.

***

One striking thing about this poem is that “snow-drift” can be read as a compound word split between two stanzas, as if the snow of the first stanza has drifted across the absent space between the stanzas into the drift of the second stanza. 

To the Souls that snow —

Drift may block within it

The way this enters into my mind as I read it is, "To the Souls that snow, snow-drift may block within it." The sense is that April daffodils are blocked for souls that snow. 

     -/)dam Wade l)eGraff