The Luxury to apprehend

The Luxury to apprehend
The Luxury 'twould be
To look at Thee a single time
An Epicure of Me

In whatsoever Presence makes
Till for a further Food
I scarcely recollect to starve
So first am I supplied —

The Luxury to meditate
The Luxury it was
To banquet on thy Countenance
A Sumptuousness bestows

On plainer Days, whose Table far
As Certainty can see
Is laden with a single Crumb
The Consciousness of Thee.

          -Fr819, J815, 1864

Ah, a poem to luxuriate in. So many Dickinson poems are about austerity. But maybe this one is too, when you look close.  

It's a luxury to apprehend 

The Luxury 'twould be
To look at Thee a single time

It's a luxury just to apprehend that it's a luxury to look at you only a single time. That's all that is needed by this poet. Dickinson is luxuriating in luxuriating, but the twist is that it is just a "single" look, that the luxury is based on something so seemingly scant. I think here of Dante seeing Beatrice only a few times and then dedicating all of those love poems to her. This poem, we know, was given to Susan, who Dickinson once referred to as her "Beatrice." No wonder.

All that lux luxury comes down to a single glance from the beloved. Not only is that glance a luxury, it's a luxury to know that this one glance is a luxury.

"An epicure of Me" is a compact line. It means, just this one look makes an epicure of me. An epicurean is someone who loves rich food and drink, so Emily is saying that one glance at the beloved is like feasting on rich food and drink. 

But "An epicure of Me" also reads something like...an epicure made up of "Me-ness." Somehow this line has the feel of completion. It is the beloved that makes the self into a true epicurean. The vision of you, it seems to say, was a pleasure made especially for Me.

In whatsoever Presence makes
Till for a further Food

What does in "whatsoever Presence" mean? It's a mysterious line. Perhaps it means a memory? A letter? And, who knows, maybe even a doppelganger might do. 

I scarcely recollect to starve
So first am I supplied —

Once given the vision of you, says the besotten poet, I'll forget that I'm starving. That single look was enough sustenance for life.

The Luxury to meditate
The Luxury it was
To banquet on thy Countenance
A Sumptuousness bestows

We are going to luxuriate even more in that word luxury in the third stanza. Because that's what this poem is about, luxuriating, even if given just a taste. The poem is a meditation on luxury, on making much of little, the luxury to meditate on what a luxury it was to "banquet on thy Countenance." Sue must've swooned when she read that line. "Countenance" has a biblical resonance, especially when paired with "thy," but we know that Dickinson often wrote to and of Sue using such religious terms, just like Dante places Beatrice at the gate to Paradiso in the Divine Comedy. 

A Sumptuousness bestows

If you are going to top the lush language of using "luxury" four times in a row, you might go with a word like "Sumptuousness." 

 

To banquet on thy Countenance

A Sumptuousness bestows

On plainer Days, whose Table far

As Certainty can see
Is laden with a single Crumb

The Consciousness of Thee.

That single look bestows a sumptuousness on "plainer Days." Look how plain that phrase sounds after all that sumptuous bestowing of luxury.

In the end we have a poet who, instead of complaining about how little she is given, is satiated by it. "As Certainty can see." This speaks to both the object of affection, who must've really been something, and to the disposition of the poet, who was thrifty in the extreme.

Consciousness of Thee is all that is needed for the poet to persist, just a single crumb. In fact, that plain table is "laden" with that crumb. The crumb we "apprehend" is truly a sumptuous banquet. 

Has a little ever gone further than it did with Emily? And has there ever been a more romantic poem?

Bless Emily Dickinson for being so satisfied with that one look of love. May we all be so lucky. 

     -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Study for 'La Charite'by William Adolphe Bouguereau  

P.S. This poem sheds light on all the "crumb" poems Emily wrote. See, especially, the recent one, Fr807, which describes this very poem, a robin's silver chronicle in song given in return for a single crumb.

P.P.S. I very much enjoyed Dandi Meng's take on this poem. I heard the echo of Fr269 "Wild Nights Wild Nights" in this poem too, but Dandi really makes something of this connection.

Given in Marriage unto Thee

Given in Marriage unto Thee
Oh thou Celestial Host —
Bride of the Father and the Son
Bride of the Holy Ghost.

Other Betrothal shall dissolve —
Wedlock of Will, decay —
Only the Keeper of this Ring
Conquer Mortality —


    -Fr818, J817, sheet nine, early 1865


What to say about this poem? It is a fairly straight-forward poem of faith in the Christian trinity, a kind of wedding vow. The narrator, which we assume to be the poet, has given herself in marriage to the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. She feels it is the only true marriage, one that will not decay, and will "conquer mortality."

I think if you lined up all of Dickinson’s poems that explicitly concerned Christian faith and doubt, there would be a few hundred of them. It would make for a great book. Together they must comprise one of the most deeply felt, honest and intellectually nuanced explorations of a spiritual journey on record. What emerges from all of it is almost impossible to pin down. You have to go to the source, and, even then, the tenor shifts from poem to poem, sometimes dramatically.

If you are not careful, it is easy to back up your own views on religion using Emily Dickinson’s poems. If you are an atheist, you can find Dickinson poems that will corroborate your lack of belief. But if you are a believer, you can do the same. This poem falls into the latter camp. As far as I can see, it is without a shred of doubt. Usually you can find some little way to read a Dickinson poem against itself, some thread that when pulled will unravel what you think the poem is all about, some tricky ambiguity.

Perhaps there is a tension in this one in the word "Will." Dickinson says that a “Wedlock of Will” shall dissolve and decay. To marry yourself to Trinity you must believe “Thy will be done,” not “my will be done.” There is a lot of weight on that word "Will." What does it mean for a willful poet like Dickinson to submit?

Dickinson’s will was quite strong, (in a later letter, she would call herself the witch of Endor, a biblical character that defied God’s wishes), but there was a noble ideal that Dickinson aspired to beyond her own desires. There is, at the heart of Christianity, the idea of sacrificing the desires of the self for the sake of others, and that idea, I think, deeply appealed to Dickinson. (See, for instance, the poem preceding this one in the Franklin order, Fr816.)

Dickinson's thoughts on Christianity were far from simple, which is why this simple statement of faith is all the more astonishing. 

In looking online at various articles on Dickinson and her reckoning with faith, I found a letter to Joseph Lyman, written a year before this poem,

“Some years after we saw each other last I fell to reading the Old & New Testament. I had known it as an arid book but looking I saw how infinitely wise & merry it is.

Anybody that knows grammar must admit the surpassing splendor & force of its speech, but the fathomless gulfs of meaning—those words which He spoke to those most necessary to him, hints about some celestial reunion—yearning for a oneness—has any one fathomed that sea? I know those to whom those words are very near & necessary, I wish they were more so to me, for I see them shedding a serenity quite wonderful & blessed. They are great bars of sunlight in many a shady heart.”

We know that there are two copies of this poem, one of which was given to Sue Gilbert Dickinson, who was a professed believer. So it is possible that this poem was written for Sue, and reflects her beliefs, not Emily's. But I take this poem as a declaration on Dickinson's part that she was, in her own idiosyncratic way, making a vow to the "lasting" Christian values. It wasn't long after this that she began to wear a white dress, and become cloistered in her own home, and did, in appearance at least, begin to look like a bride of Christ.

     -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

John Singer Sargent, Fumée d'Ambre Gris, 1880

This Consciousness that is aware

This Consciousness that is aware
Of Neighbors and the Sun
Will be the one aware of Death
And that itself alone

Is traversing the interval
Experience between
And most profound experiment
Appointed unto Men —

How adequate unto itself
Its properties shall be
Itself unto itself and none
Shall make discovery —

Adventure most unto itself
The Soul condemned to be —
Attended by a single Hound
Its own identity.


    -Fr817, J822, sheet 60, late 1865


I find this poem haunting because it leads me to imagine my own death. But it’s also transformative because it leads me to question identity. I’m reminded of Dickinson’s famous statement, “If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.” This poem took my head off.

Let’s start at the beginning. We could spend a while just focusing on the first line of the poem. It’s like a mantra. THIS Consciousness that is aware. This CONSCIOUSNESS that is aware. This consciousness THAT IS aware. This consciousness that is AWARE. 

That first line speaks to pure awareness, a state prior to identity, but the next line gives us two objects of our awareness, which, together, sum up life; neighbors and the Sun.

Neighbors, of course, is a neighborly way of saying “others.” We can only be aware from our own center of consciousness, but then there are all of those other consciousnesses which we can only be aware OF. It is in comparison to these “others” that identity is formed.

The Sun is a compact symbol of life-source and force, of light and warmth, of a power beyond ourselves, and, also, simply, of day. This is a poem, after all, contemplating death. The self is saying goodnight neighbors, so long old Sun.

So if you had to boil awareness down to only two things, it might be neighbors and Sun. And then, finally, the third thing, death.

That lone consciousness…

Will be the one aware of Death
And that itself alone

You were aware of life, and now you will be the “one aware of death.” The singular “one” is echoed in the next line in the word “alone.” All alone you will be…

traversing the interval
Experience between
And most profound experiment
Appointed unto Men —

You will experience this interval between life and death. To think of this as an experiment, indeed, the “most profound experiment appointed unto men” is pure Dickinson. Death as an experiment? What does this mean? It means, I think, that we can’t know the results of our experience with death until we go through the process. What will be the result of this experiment? How will you experience your own death?

How adequate unto itself
Its properties shall be
Itself unto itself and none
Shall make discovery —

This is tough to get and we see here just how formidable a philosopher Dickinson was.

The phrase “adequate unto itself” reflects on the self-sufficiency of consciousness. Dickinson seems to be saying that whatever "properties" the self possesses, they will be adequate (sufficient) for itself, by its own nature. Nothing external is needed for its fulfillment.

That word “adequate” though makes me wonder if this state is something we may achieve, or something that inherently just is?

The answer lives in the tension between being and becoming. Dickinson seems to say the soul is what it is, sufficient unto itself, and no one can know it but itself. But as readers, we may experience that truth as something to grow into, learning to believe in and trust that inherent adequacy, to live from it, not search for it in others’ eyes.

Perhaps that is the quest of the “adventure” pointed to in the next stanza,

Adventure most unto itself
The Soul condemned to be —

Life and death are a kind of epic quest that happens entirely within. The word condemned is a telling one. We are trapped in our own consciousness. The adventure is a scary one, a battle. The adventure is grappling with isolation, and finally, the loss of identity.

It’s heroic in a quiet, harrowing way.

An “adventure unto itself” implies a quest for understanding, yet Dickinson says “none shall make discovery.” Even as the soul journeys inward, it can never fully know itself. Consciousness is bottomless.

Those final lines are the most thought-provoking and transformative.

Adventure most unto itself
The Soul condemned to be —
Attended by a single Hound
Its own identity.

The adventure for the soul is in the attempt to shake the hound of identity. It’s this that makes death such a terrifying prospect.

We're attached to identity because it is our sense of continuity and the coherence of all of our memories, our thoughts and feelings. We build our identities like narratives. We don’t just live, we interpret our lives, and identity is the spine of that interpretation.We're attached because identity gives meaning to our experience. It allows us to be seen and remembered. Without that story, we feel lost.

To let go of identity even for a moment is to fall into mystery, to admit you don’t fully know who you are, aren’t in total control of yourself. 

That’s terrifying. And also, maybe, where freedom begins. When the hour comes, can we best the hound of identity? And how about starting now?

I think of the epitaph on Keats' grave, "Here lies one whose name is writ on water."

And I also think of Dickinson's poem which seems to be about Keats, Fr448, "We talked between the Rooms/ Until the Moss had reached our lips/ And covered up — Our names —"

    -/)dam Wade l)eGraff 

Identity by Alfred Gescheidt

I could not drink it, Sweet,

I could not drink it, Sweet,
Till You had tasted first,
Though cooler than the Water was
The Thoughtfulness of Thirst.

      -Fr816, J818, early 1864


The Thoughtfulness of Thirst. What a thoughtful line. Who else but Emily Dickinson could help us appreciate restraint with so much thusness? 

According to Christanne Miller’s notes in “Poems As She Preserved Them” there is another version of this poem in which “Sweet,” at the end of the first line, is replaced by “Sue.”

Dickinson wrote hundreds of passionate letters and poems to Susan Gilbert Dickinson. In 1852, when she and Sue were still college girls, she wrote, “Susie, will you indeed come home next Saturday, and be my own again, and kiss me as you used to?” 

The poem at hand was written some 12 years later. How's that for sustained thirst!

In another poem to Sue, she wrote:

“Sue—forevermore!”
“Sue, you can go or stay—
But there is a limit, Sue—
To any love—nay, but my love for you—”

That poem, like the one at hand, speaks to an unconditional love.

The poems are rarely so straight-forwardly “romantic” in a conventional sense, and are often coded in ambiguity. Changing the word “Sue” to “Sweet” is one way of moving this poem from the explicitly personal to one of general endearment. Not only does the change keep a sense of privacy, it also allows the reader into the poem, as both potential object and subject.

Another way to "code" is to use symbols. Water, for instance, represents literal refreshment, but it's also a symbol of emotional sustenance.

I could not drink it, Sweet,
Till You had tasted first,

This is a poetic way of saying that Emily is putting Sue’s needs first. Her concern is not for satisfying her own thirst (physical or emotional), but her beloved’s.

Though cooler than the Water was
The Thoughtfulness of Thirst.

This contrast highlights the satisfaction in the act of waiting. The “thoughtfulness of thirst” is not just physical longing but care and restraint, a valuing of love over desire.

"Thirst" usually represents an instinctive desire, but pairing it with “thoughtfulness” suggests that this is no blind craving. 

That act of putting another first transforms ordinary thirst into something sweeter and, ultimately, more meaningful. "Cooler." 

In restraint lies discipline, and in discipline, love. Consideration is more refreshing than self-satisfaction. 

Perhaps there is the hint of the erotic in this poem too. This phrase is telling: “Though cooler than the Water was / The Thoughtfulness of Thirst.” Here, the feeling of wanting, the ache itself, is more powerful than satisfaction. The anticipation is more emotionally charged than the act. This flips the usual hierarchy: wanting is more charged than having. And giving, more satisfying.

         -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Thirst, 1886, William-Adolphe Bougeaureau 

P.S. This poem, read carefully and deeply and often, might be a powerful tonic against addiction. It says, succinctly, that resistance to desire is more quenching than desire itself.

P.P.S. In researching this post I discovered that the letter to "Susie" from 1852, in its entirety is online. It's worth a look.

To this World she returned.

To this World she returned.
But with a tinge of that—
A Compound manner,
As a Sod
Espoused a Violet,
That chiefer to the Skies
Than to himself, allied,
Dwelt hesitating, half of Dust,
And half of Day, the Bride.


    -Fr815, J830, summer 1864. 



The background for this poem is of interest. Thomas Johnson notes: "The copy reproduced above was written in pencil in the summer of 1864. It is addressed "Mrs. Gertrude -" and signed "Emily." On 20 March 1864, Mrs. Vanderbilt was summoned to her back door by cries of distress and accidentally received a pistol shot intended for her maid. Her critical illness but ultimate recovery moved ED to send her two poems, this and the poem that follows."

Imagine, then, being Ms. Vanderbilt and receiving this poem after having gone through such an ordeal.

Did Emily just assume that Mrs. Vanderbilt had returned from her critical state with “a tinge of that?” I suppose anyone who almost dies, especially from the result of a violent crime, would likely experience a bit of “that,” no?

And what is “that?" It’s a loaded question. I think it refers to whatever is on the other side of the veil. THAT. In this poem Emily turns that into something beautiful.

If that is whatever is beyond, than this is the sod, here and now. The sod typically refers to the piece of ground that is laid over a grave, and that connotation is here in this poem, but sod also stands in as a metonym for the earthly realm. Therefore, in a near death situation THIS and THAT come together to make “a compound manner.”

The near death experience is likened to a violet that is “espoused” from the sod and is now “chiefer to the skies than to himself allied.” This is a gorgeous idea, that the quality that develops from earthly woe is a flower which is more of the sky than the ground. It redefines the very idea of a flower to me.

Also, the idea of the sod "espousing" a violet is lovely. The soil speaks a flower. Here poetry is invoked. A poem after all is something one espouses. One could think of a poem, then, as a kind of auditory flower, espoused from the prosaic sod of life. 

The word "espouse" carries within it the word spouse too, which sets us up for the idea of the "bride" at the end of the poem. 

 Dwelt hesitating, half of Dust,
And half of Day, the Bride.

There is a restlessness hinted at the end of the poem in that word “hesitating.” The idea of being half married to dust and half to day is a dramatic way of looking at it. Half-bride of dust! What a way to put it. Here's a question though. What does Day represent? Does "day" here represent the heavenly “Skies” the flower is reaching for, or does it represent “life?" It’s ambiguous. The truth lies, somehow, in that ambiguity.

A flower peaks in that moment of hesitation. Next time you look at a flower imagine it “chiefer to the skies” than the sod, a bride hesitating between day and dust. Next, imagine yourself as that flower.

     -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Violet Girl with Scars and Stars by Hali Kara

Notes:

1. My guess is that this poem was accompanied by a spray of violets. When the coffee table book of Dickinson flower poems, to be sold at florist shops, is put together, this one should be included.

2. In the poem by Hali Kara accompanying the painting above, I read that "Violets heal trauma/ (they say)" Do they say that? Maybe Dickinson was thinking of this when sending Mrs. Vanderbilt the poem. 

3. The idea of a flower being chiefer to the skies than the sod reminds me of this mind-blowing tidbit from the mind of the physicist Richard P. Feynman. "Trees are made of air." 

Soto! Explore thyself!

Soto! Explore thyself!
Therein thyself shalt find
The "Undiscovered Continent"—
No Settler, had the Mind.


     -Fr814, J832, sheet 13, early 1865


This poem was a note sent from Emily to her brother Austin.

It begins with a kind of primal sound, like a piercing bird-call. Soto! That's an attention grabber, emphasized even more by that exclamation point that follows. It’s almost pure exclamation.

I'd imagine Dickinson chose the name Soto partly for that reason. Magellan doesn't have the same sharpness. But there may have been other reasons she chose the name too (see end notes).

Why is this poem in such an excited state from the get-go? What’s with those double exclamation marks?

Why so urgent the command to Austin (and subsequently to us) to make like a great explorer and “Explore thyself!”

Was Emily feeling a sister’s frustration caused by an idiotic brother's behavior? Or, maybe it is just an enthusiastic expression of encouragement.

I hear echoes of “Doctor, heal thyself” in that first line, as well as the Delphic Oracle of Apollo’s command to, “Know Thyself!”

The wisdom that Emily’s imparting to her brother is that the thing he is looking for is already within him.

I'm reminded of the words attributed to St. Francis, "The one you are looking for is the one who is looking."

The poem poses a challenge to us. Can we discover our own “continent” within? Could Emily? I think at this point in her life she was beginning to be more and more self-possessed. Maybe Emily wrote this poem for herself first and that’s why the it is so exclamatory.

The last line of this poem is powerful. No settler, had the mind. No settler has the mind you do. No settler has the mind to settle there. The idea of “settling” your own mind is hard to fathom. Who, or what, is it that is settling the mind?

The idea there that the one thing most worth settling is your own mind because it is the one place that only you can truly explore.

I've never seen this poem printed with a comma in the last line. I’ve included it here, though, because it seems to be pretty clearly marked in the original handwritten letter.

The poem is deep enough without that comma there, but with the comma a whole new amazing idea comes into play.

"No settler, had the mind."  

If you truly had your own mind, you wouldn’t be a settler at all, in all senses of the words “settle.” The true mind does not settle. The mind is always in motion! It's more verb than noun, more flow than Florida. 

Dickinson’s mind cannot be settled, and did not settle, but always seemed to be motion, and, wonder of wonders, still is, through the alchemical magic of her poetry in the ear.

         -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Hernando De Soto 

* De Soto was a pretty despicable dude it turns out. Check out these 10 facts about him for a (bad) taste of his exploits, such as slave trading and native-American massacres. Maybe Dickinson knew this and it factors into her reason for invoking De Soto? Another possible reason perhaps is that De Soto's parents wanted him to be a lawyer, just like Austin's.

How well I knew Her not

How well I knew Her not
Whom not to know has been
A Bounty in prospective, now
Next Door to mine the Pain.


   -Fr813, J837, July 1864


I learned from David Preest that “this poem is a whole letter sent to Emily’s friend, Maria Whitney, whose sister Sarah had died 9 July 1864 at Plymouth, Connecticut.” That’s a helpful note. We can put the clues together. Emily must have heard about the sister from Maria but never gotten the chance to meet her. She had always looked forward to the prospect of the Bounty of meeting the sister, but now there is just the pain of the loss which has come to live ‘Next Door.”

For me a personal poem like this begs a question. Does it work as a poem for a general reader? I think so. Removed from its original purpose, it becomes about not letting the chance pass by to get to know someone, a reminder that there can be a serious loss that comes from failing to reach out and engage with others.

The poem dramatizes this, and even more so when you learn about its original circumstances. Imagine your friend has told you all about her sister, and you look forward to meeting her and then learn she has died. Now you’ll never know her at all, let alone get to know her "well." You can feel the frustrated grief, and the shared sympathy, in the expression of this poem. 

How well I knew Her not

Even in a simple poem of condolence, though, Dickinson’s language is mind-bending. The paradox in that first line creates tension. Can you “well” not know someone? It's as if Dickinson is saying that the lack of connection is something that has grown large in her awareness. Absence creates a presence, which you can get to know well. 

There is a sense in this poem that Dickinson already well knows this kind of pain, because the last line of the poem says that the pain has moved next door to "mine." In other words, she's already well-familiar with this feeling of absence. That sense of sympathy is part of Dickinson's strength. She understands Maria's, and our, pain. (See the gist of Fr780, which ends with the lines, "Our Contract/ A Wiser Sympathy.") 

The phrasing of that first line has a slightly formal tone, which gives us a sense of timeless reflection. It is this tone that takes the sentiment out of the “personal” realm of the circumstances with Maria and helps turn it into a poem for a general audience about regret.

The regret is emphasized through the irony of the line. Starting with “How well” leads us to expect a positive memory. Ending with “knew her not” pulls the rug out from under us. It mirrors the speaker's experience.

The strange phrasing slows the reader down and sets the tone for a poem that’s all about missed intimacy and the pain of possibility unfulfilled.

    -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

P.S. I can't help but think about Dickinson's poetry on the whole here. I often feel a sense of wonder that she entrusted all of her careful work to an uncertain future. I think about how many other poets' and artists' works have been lost, and how easily that could have been the case for Emily. We are grateful that her prospects have been fulfilled and are bountiful. 

Love reckons by itself—alone—

Love reckons by itself—alone
"As large as I"—relate the Sun
To One who never felt it blaze—
Itself is all the like it has—


     -Fr812, F826, early 1864

It is helpful when reading this poem to put a full stop after the "I" in line two, so that it reads as two separate sentences. 

This poem is describing something indescribable -Love. Love is not comparable to anything else. It can’t be measured against anything else. It “reckons by itself.” To reckon means to describe. So Love defines itself. (much like "beauty" does, see Fr797.)

There is an interesting move at the end of line one, that “alone” sitting there after the dash — alone. If love is about connection with another, then what is that “alone” doing there? This tension is in the next line too. “As large as I.” It doesn’t say as large as We. That I, like the word “alone,” has a solitary feel to it. This continues throughout the poem. You have the word “One” and then “Itself is all the like it has.” In this last phrase you can hear an echo, “Itself is all…it has.”

You are left with the feeling that Love is actually solitary, which is insightful.

That “One” “Alone” “Self” though? It blazes like the sun. When one feels its true measure, it is like emerging from a dark room and experiencing the sun for the first time.

The most powerful line for me here, set off in quotes, is “As large as I.” I hear in this God telling Moses in Exodus, “I am who I am.” I-consciousness is awareness itself. Mystics say the universe is pure awareness. That’s how large “I” is. We are all “I.” I know I am! And, conversely, “I” is all. We are together, then, in this One Alone Self. This is true Love.

This poem invites us to come out of the cold and dark and feel the blazing heat and light of this Love. You are that large, "As large as I."

    -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

The sound of the sun is comparable to cathedral bells 

according to this article from NPR

Notes:

David Preest points out that "Emily also used the impossibility of explaining the Sun ‘to Races – nurtured in the Dark’ in poem Fr436. It's worth going back to that Prowling Bee entry to read Susan's terrific take on it, as well as the comments, but it's also worth restating the poem here,

I found the words to every thought
I ever had – but One –
And that – defies me –
As a Hand did try to chalk the Sun

To Races – nurtured in the Dark –
How would your own – begin?
Can Blaze be shown in Cochineal –
Or Noon – in Mazarin?

There is a June when Corn is cut

There is a June when Corn is cut
And Roses in the Seed—
A Summer briefer than the first
But tenderer indeed

As should a Face supposed the Grave's
Emerge a single Noon
In the Vermilion that it wore
Affect us, and return—

Two Seasons, it is said, exist—
The Summer of the Just,
And this of Ours, diversified
With Prospect, and with Frost—

May not our Second with its First
So infinite compare
That We but recollect the one
The other to prefer?

     -Fr811, J930, early 1864


It takes a while to unravel the complex weave of a poem like this, and then, once you do, it is still pretty mystifying.

The one thing that makes this poem easier to understand is if you take “The Summer of the Just” to be referring to the past instead of some future "Summer of the Just" (heaven perhaps). Other readings of this poem I have read interpret “Summer of the Just” as a future heavenly summer, but that doesn’t make sense to me. This is a poem about a late feeling of a false summer surpassing the real (or "just") summer of the past.

Okay, with that in mind, here’s my take on this poem, stanza by stanza.

There is a June when Corn is cut
And Roses in the Seed—

This poem begins, as many of Dickinson’s do, with a sort of riddle. What kind of June is it when the corn is cut and the roses are in the seed?

The literal answer would be what I called growing up as a kid “Indian Summer.” This name is no longer socially acceptable. We've finally dropped the original misnomer, "Indian." Took us long enough! Sometimes we call this season Second Summer, or False Summer. (In Bulgaria they call it “Poor man’s summer,” which is terrific). In the next two lines we get another riddle to help clue us in…

A Summer briefer than the first
But tenderer indeed

What summer is briefer than summer, but also tenderer? Now we are getting into poetic territory with that word tender. We know the “Second summer” is shorter than summer. But why is this second summer tenderer? It’s at this point that I start seeing the metaphoric meaning of a second summer here. If a year is analogous to a life, then, as we enter the winter of our life, we get a late life efflorescence, we get a "Second Summer." I do find as I get older that the beautiful summer-like moments are more meaningful and tender, first because I know they are waning, and second because I've come to appreciate them more. This poem speaks to both of those reasons.

Another thing that clues me into a late-life-resurgence idea in this poem is the images of corn being cut and roses in seed. These read as poignant signs of maturity. “Cut” is a violent verb, and you can see it, perhaps, as the down side of growing older, even if it means some good bread might be made from the corn. Roses in seed, however, is an extremely hopeful image, the upside of growing older. Roses to come!

As should a Face supposed the Grave's
Emerge a single Noon
In the Vermilion that it wore
Affect us, and return—

This is a shocking image. This second summer is compared to seeing a face that we thought was in the grave emerging at noon (noon=summer) with all the blood (vermilion) having returned to it. Wouldn’t that be affecting? That’s what it’s like to grow old while still feeling your youth. It’s haunting, but because its haunting, it's greater. We'll see why in the last stanza.

Two Seasons, it is said, exist—
The Summer of the Just,
And this of Ours, diversified
With Prospect, and with Frost—

I’ve already argued that Summer of the Just here means Summer of the Past. “Summer of the Just” is a pretty great phrase if you think about it. We all get our “Just” summer, the time which we are justified in being young. If I read this poem as a younger man, I’d hone in on that phrase as a way to excuse my youthful behavior. "Summer of the Just" also carries, perhaps, a sense of passing quickly. It's already fall? It was "just" summer!

So, the shorter Second Summer is richer because it still has prospects, but now these prospects are balanced with knowledge of the oncoming frost, which signifies winter and death.

Okay, that all sets us up for the idea in the final stanza,

May not our Second with its First
So infinite compare
That We but recollect the one
The other to prefer?

Because of our nearness to frost, to the grave, the second summer of our old age will be be infinitely better than the summer of our youth. The last two lines can be taken a few ways that I can see. The first, and to me strongest, is that we no longer take our "Just” summer, our youth, for granted. Now we are in the in-between time, the time between “cut” and “seed,” between “prospect” and “frost,” which is richer for carrying a sense of both sides of the equation. We can’t know how great the first summer was because we had nothing to compare it to. This Second Summer is infinitely better then for two reasons, first, because we know what it means to experience summer, having lived it. We are now nostalgic for it! But, secondly, we have become aware what it means to be losing it.

Being in my fifties with two daughters who will leave home in a few years, I can really feel the weight of this poem. I took them to Rockaway Beach today. I could feel my own youth through them, and could also feel my youth slipping away, even as my daughters will. I saw older kids all hanging out with their friends, and knew it wouldn't be much longer that these girls would be hanging at the beach with me. The corn is cut, the roses are in seed. It's almost unbearably poignant, and therefore, yes, better even than youth itself. 

     -/)dam Wade l)eGraff