The Juggler's Hat her Country is –

The Juggler's Hat her Country is –

The Mountain Gorse – the Bee's!

                                                            - F186 (1861)  330

These two lines were sent to Samule Bowles who was quite an international traveler.  It seems to me Dickinson is saying that her country, the USA, is but a hat Bowles juggles as he flits about from one country to another. Mountain gorse is the Bee’s hat. One pictures a bee flitting from one gorse flower to another burying itself in the flower until it seems like a hat. The choice of mountain gorse is appropriate as Bowles enjoyed tramping about the mountains of Europe and Scotland. 

Juggling countries like hats

Bee with gorse flower hat

A Wife – at daybreak – I shall be –

A Wife – at daybreak – I shall be –

Sunrise – Hast thou a Flag for me?

At Midnight – I am but a Maid –

How short it takes to make a Bride –

Then – Midnight – I have passed from thee –

Unto the East –  and Victory –

Midnight – Good Night! – I hear them call –

The Angels bustle in the Hall –

Softly – my Future climbs the Stair –

I fumble at my Childhood's prayer –

So soon to be a Child – no more –

Eternity, I'm coming – Sir –

Master – I've seen the face – before – 

                                                                                              - F185 (1861)  461 

This evocative poem relies on metaphors  too ambiguous to make a  precise interpretation of it possible.  Dickinson’s poetry consistently uses sunrise as a symbol of new life in paradise, of awe and wonder, and also of love. The East is used in similar ways as a stand-in for paradise, but she has also used it to stand for victory and for passion. She explicitly links the East here with Victory, but the nature of the victory is uncertain. Will she be surrendering to a lover? Dying and going to Heaven? The stairway that the Future climbs can figure as easily as a sexual metaphor as a heavenly one. So let’s just work through the poem and see what we find.

            Second stanza: At midnight the speaker goes to bed in her upstairs bedroom. People wish her good night as she retires and she can hear “Angels bustle in the Hall.” She stops to contemplate her situation – and this goes back to the first stanza when she thinks about the magnitude of the change she is about to undergo from midnight to dawn. Midnight – the darkest mystery, is usually set in opposition to the fullness of noon. Here it represents the moment of change: on one side maidenhood; on the other, Bride. The time between is surprisingly short. Again, whether she contemplates her own death or her loss of virginity, is uncertain.

Dickinson Home - Emily's room lit; 
waiting for her "Future" to climb the stairs?

            Her imagery is positive, however. “A Wife” is clearly superior to being “but a Maid” whether she be bride of Christ or bride of a highly-desired lover.  The passing of one state to another represents victory and to complete the image, she wonders if she will get the victor’s flag at daybreak. The “Future” climbs her stair “Softly” and bears a familiar face. Certainly whatever or whoever is coming for her is not fearsome and means no harm. We would know that already, though, by the Angels’ presence making all ready the way nurses bustle about preparing things for the doctor.

            The poem builds in suspense and tension, particularly as the poet fumbles at her “Childhood’s prayer.” The footsteps approach! The moment is at hand – the transformation from “Child” to … what? The last two lines of the poem at first seem to resolve meaning, only to dissolve into more uncertainty. The Future has climbed the stairs and the speaker finishes her prayers. She then addresses the “Future” as “Eternity” – and this indicates that it has, indeed, been Death that she expects to occur after midnight. She addresses Eternity through the representative, “Sir,” and “Master.” She has seen the face of this representative before. So just as we were tempted to say, “Ah, Jesus has come for her to usher her from death into everlasting life,” we must then wonder if she isn’t looking at a dear earthly beloved face and likening it to the coming of Christ to take her to Him. This interpretation is bolstered by her use of “Master,” for as we know she referred to several beloved men as “Master,” and even had a series of frankly passionate letters addressed to “Master.”

            It seems most likely, though, that Dickinson is making the final Mystery as mysterious as possible. Just as young virgins don’t truly know what love’s consummation will be like on their wedding nights, so too we don’t really know what death will be like. We hope it will wear a familiar and beloved face. 

If it had no pencil,

If it had no pencil,

Would it try mine –

Worn – now – and dull – sweet,

Writing much to thee.

If it had no word –

Would it make the Daisy,

Most as big as I was,

When it plucked me?

                                                            - F184 (1861)   921

Dickinson sent this short poem to Bowles, pinned around a pencil stub, while he was visiting her brother Austin and his wife, her beloved Sue. Look at how I’ve worn my pencil down, she is saying, writing so many letters to you. And you don’t answer! Maybe you don’t have your own pencil – so here, use mine.

            There is the poignant juxtaposition of the adjectives “dull” (italicized for emphasis) and “sweet”: the poet has grown dull through care and long hours spent bent over her desk. She is also dulled internally – no spark of wit or romance has come her way. It is a vicious circle – becoming dulled and consequently dull. Yet there is a sweetness involved. The pencil, carrying the freight of so many sweet thoughts has become sweet itself. Dickinson also, as noted in earlier poems, sees what one critic has called “yoked opposites”; in this case, the sweetness in the pain of neglect.

            According to Judith Farr in The Passion of Emily Dickinson, Dickinson “is a daisy in her letters to [Samuel] Bowles and the poems to Master.” Here she is Daisy and she writes oddly of “it” rather than “he” or “you.” This pattern, according to Richard Sewall, is also seen in the third of the mysterious Master letters. These several letters are full of passion, and although no one knows for sure who “Master” is, several prominent (though not all) speculate that it was Bowles.

painting by Paul Hutchinson

            And so there is a bit of a knife twist at the end of the poem. If Bowles, despite the gift of the pencil stub, is still unable or unwilling to write, “If it had no word,” then perhaps it could draw a picture. This is where the shy and vulnerable Daisy comes in to play. Would you at least draw a Daisy, the poet asks. And, oh, would you draw it almost “as big as I was, / When [you] plucked me?”  

            Ouch! That “plucked” is a sexually-loaded term. Even if there was no physical consummation involved, certainly the man pulled the little flower from her stem and removed it. The implication, further, is that the daisy has since shrunk. It is no longer as big as it was. Could the recipient of the pencil stub (talk about sexually-loaded symbols!) at least draw the daisy back to size?

            The image is compact and loaded. A lot of bitterness is packed into the last three short lines.

            Structurally, the poem is in two stanzas, although there is not stanza break. The first makes only the most half-hearted attempt at rhyme, instead concentrating on vocal emphasis. The second and third lines have three spondees out of five feet total: try mine; Worn – now;  dull – sweet. This forces the reader to slow, especially over the dull / sweet juxtaposition. The effect is to emphasize the pathos of the lonely writer. This serves to soften the recipient up for the bitter twist at the end.

            Dickinson employs other techniques to slow the poem down. Use of “w”s lengthen words (Would, Worn, Writing, word, Would) as does the use of long vowels (try, mine, sweet, Writing, thee Daisy, I, me). It would be very difficult to say or even read the second through fourth lines quickly. We feel the long days go by as the pencil gets worn down with writing letters that are never answered.

            The last lines, by contrast, almost fly by. “When it plucked me?” is fast as a knife jab. 

I met a King this afternoon!

I met a King this afternoon!

He had not on a Crown indeed,

A little Palm leaf Hat was all,

And he was barefoot, I'm afraid!

But sure I am he Ermine wore

Beneath his faded Jacket's blue –

And sure I am, the crest he bore

Within that Jacket's pocket too!

For 'twas too stately for an Earl –

A Marquis would not go so grand!

'Twas possibly a Czar petite –

A Pope, or something of that kind!

If I must tell you, of a Horse

My freckled Monarch held the rein –

Doubtless an estimable Beast,

But not at all disposed to run!

And such a wagon! While I live

Dare I presume to see

Another such a vehicle

As then transported me!

Two other ragged Princes

His royal state partook!

Doubtless the first excursion

These sovereigns ever took!

I question if the Royal Coach

Round which the Footmen wait

Has the significance, on high,

Of this Barefoot Estate!

                                                            - F 183 (1860) 

The poet seems to have met a raggedy and tattered man with his two boys traveling in an old wagon pulled by an old horse. But something about the pride or dignity in the man’s bearing must have struck her for he was “too stately for an Earl” and “A Marquis would not go so grand.”  Consider, though, the difference in the way Whitman describes a rustic man in  a lovely passage of “I Sing the Body Electric”:

I knew a man, a common farmer, the father of five sons,

And in them the fathers of sons, and in them the fathers of sons.

This man was a wonderful vigor, calmness, beauty of person,

The shape of his head, the pale yellow and white of his hair and

     beard, the immeasurable meaning of his black eyes, the richness

     and breadth of his manners,

             […]

When he went with his five sons and many grand-sons to hunt or fish,

     you would pick him out as the most beautiful and vigorous of

     the gang,

You would wish long and long to be with him, you would wish to sit

     by him in the boat that you and he might touch each other.

While Whitman is writing a tribute (and writing at about the same time as Dicknson), Dickinson seems to be making light of a poor man’s proud demeanor as she tosses out that he was “possibly a Czar petite – / A Pope, or something of that kind!” King, Czar, Pope – whatever. One pictures the poet smiling behind her hand and then running home to write a description down.

Modern Amherst citizens
might laugh at this man, too

            Here’s the picture: a barefoot freckled man with a rustic palm-leaf hat, a faded blue jacket, two ragged young sons who had seemingly never ventured far from home before, a dilapidated wagon, and an old horse “not at all disposed to run.” When she claims she was “transported” by the “vehicle” she is making a play on the double meanings of “conveyed” and “delighted.”

            I leave it to other readers to each determine whether or not she was writing in admiration of something she saw in the traveler or in mockery (as the raggedy group were probably out of place in the byways of tidy, prosperous Amherst). Nonetheless, she ends by saying that in Heaven this man and his family will have probably even more significance that a real king. And that is a very democratic thing to say so we will forgive Dickinson the giggles here.

The Sun kept stooping – stooping – low!

The Sun kept stooping – stooping – low!

The Hills to meet him rose!

On his side, what Transaction!

On their side, what Repose!

Deeper and deeper grew the stain

Upon the window pane –

Thicker and thicker stood the feet

Until the Tyrian

Was crowded dense with Armies –

So gay, so Brigadier –

That I felt martial stirrings

Who once the Cockade wore –

Charged from my chimney corner –

But Nobody was there!

                                                - 182 ( 1860)  152

Emily Dickinson spent a lot of time in her room. She once showed her niece how to turn the key against intruders and thus have a world of her own. In addition to poetry she wrote many, many letters there. But we can also assume from her poems and letters that she pent a good deal of time looking out her windows. She had two: one facing south and the other facing west – hence the many sunset poems. She had a perfect view! The “chimney corner” was across from the windows.

            It is from this vantage that Dickinson writes about this particular sunset. She adopts both a martial tone and martial imagery. Her repetitions and exclamation marks propel the poem with forward momentum that contributes to the sense of charge.  The Sun is “stooping – stooping – low!” while “The Hills to meet him rose!” The shadow on the window grows “Deeper and deeper” while the feet of darkness stand “Thicker and thicker.”

            Dickinson had probably read this 1854 poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson, valorizing the cavalry men of the Light Brigade in the Crimean War:

Cockade of U.S. Navy
John Paul Jones

  Charge of the Light Brigade

  Half a league, half a league,

  Half a league onward,

  All in the valley of Death

  Rode the six hundred.

            […]

  When can their glory fade?

  O the wild charge they made!

  All the world wonder'd.

  Honour the charge they made!

  Honour the Light Brigade,

  Noble six hundred!

Tyrean Purple

The cadence here is of galloping horses. Dickinson’s poem is more an engaged trot than the full battle charge but it also uses the drum beat of repetition.

            As the shadows begin their victory over the sun the beautiful Tyrian purple of sunset battles in colors “So gay, so Brigadier,” that Dickinson, like Tennyson, feels compelled to honor the battle. But the brilliant colors, like the Light Brigade, are outnumbered by the foe and soon turn dark with the shadow armies. This threatened defeat  rouses the poet who playfully claims that she charged out of her cosy little chimney corner – only, of course, to find that “Nobody was there!”

In Ebon Box, when years have flown

In Ebon Box, when years have flown

To reverently peer –

Wiping away the velvet dust

Summers have sprinkled there!

To hold a letter to the light –

Grown Tawny now, with time –

To con the faded syllables

That quickened us like Wine!

Perhaps a Flower's shrivelled cheek

Among its stores to find –

Plucked far away, some morning –

By gallant – mouldering hand!

A curl, perhaps, from foreheads

Our constancy forgot –

Perhaps, an antique trinket –

In vanished fashions set!

And then to lay them quiet back –

And go about its care –

As if the little Ebon Box

Were none of our affair!

                                                - F180 (1860)  169

In this quiet meditation on memory and time, the poet opens a dusty ebony box and lovingly handles the mementos inside: old love letters, a flower from a potential lover, a curl cut from the locks of an old friend, and a bit of old costume jewelry from another friend or a relative. Many of us have such boxes (although mine is cardboard). I wouldn’t be surprised if the contents of women’s memory boxes don’t share some of the treasures of the poet’s. In fact, Dickinson writes as if of an iconic box with the sort of keepsakes that anyone might keep (although I can’t speak for men…). Consequently there is just an unspecified flower, a nameless letter and curl, and a generic trinket. Modern poetry tends to prefer listing specifics.

Keepsake Box

            But Dickinson goes for the pivot and the twist rather than the lingering over tangible objects that come alive through description. Here it is when the momentos are being replaced in the box and life goes on, seemingly unchanged. Yet the memories sparked as the poet “reverently” gazed at her “stores” are an opportunity to think back over life and all the stories that we tell ourselves. The letter that once “quickened us like Wine” may now seem young and naïve. We think about how we have lost naiveté but perhaps gained perspective. We wonder what might have happened had the dead lover lived – and contrast that to how our lives have gone in his absence. And so although the memory box may seem to be no longer “our affair” it in fact represents the sum of our life’s affairs.

            Time permeates the poem. The first line notes the years that “have flown.” Enough dust has settled on the box that it must be wiped away. Old letters are “Tawny” with age, their letters “faded.” There’s a nice contrast there to the ephemeral and quickening “Wine” that does not bear age well.

            The flower is “shriveled” and, alas, the “gallant” hand that picked it is dead and “mouldering” in the grave. The old friend whose curl has been saved is part of the past, as are the “vanished fashions” represented by the trinket. And ebony, of course, is among the hardest and most durably of woods. This little box will outlast the owner. Some future hand will linger over its contents and wonder about the stories behind each object.

            

A wounded Deer –leaps highest –

A wounded Deer –leaps highest –

I've heard the Hunter tell –

'Tis but the ecstasy of death –

And then the Brake is still!

The smitten Rock that gushes!

The trampled Steel that springs!

A Cheek is always redder

Just where the Hectic stings!

Mirth is the Mail of Anguish –

In which it cautious Arm,

Lest Anybody spy the blood

And "you're hurt" exclaim!

                                                - F181 (1860)  165

Just a couple of poems ago, To learn the Transport by the Pain, poem 178, Dickinson wrote in paradoxical juxtapositions. Here she uses the technique again but to different effect. It is an interesting paradox that a violence engenders liveliness. The shot deer makes a tremendous leap before falling dead in the bushes (“the Brake”).  The “ecstasy of death” the poet calls it, and maybe it is, as if all the remaining life in the animal gathers itself for one final fling. Better, perhaps, than floundering on the ground.

            The “smitten rock” comes from Moses who was told by god to strike a certain rock so that the Israelites, thirsty after wandering for days in the desert wilderness without water, might not die of thirst. The steel trap lies quietly in its place until a bear or fox (or child) “tramples” it and then its deadly jaws spring shut.

Chain Mail
technimetal.wordpress.com/
chainmaking/

            The “Hectic” refers to a severe fever, tuberculosis, or other serious illness. But where the Hectic “stings” the cheeks take on the same ruddy glow as they do after a healthy walk in the cold.  Just as the leaping deer might seem to signal high spirits and strength while it is really about to die, so the consumptive flushes as if restored, only perhaps to lapse into a coma or worse.

            In the fourth stanza Dickinson brings the paradoxes closer to the personal. “Mirth” protects the anguished from being spotted and pitied, just as chain mail protects the knight from injury. It is easy to apply this last analogy to our ordinary lives. When we’ve been hurt by someone or some event, we often put the brave face on and go out smiling and laughing. We are too proud or even too vulnerable to let others see “the blood.”

            The poem is vivid not just because of the dramatic examples, but because of the strong verbs, nounds, and adjectives. The verbs, for example, include leaps, gushes, springs, stings, Arm, spy, and exclaim. Adjectives include wounded, smitten, trampled, and cautious. There aren’t any extra words or phrases to slow the poem down and so it seems to race to a screeching halt at “Mirth is the Mail of Anguish” – which is a beautifully turned aphorism and which suddenly makes the list of paradoxes hit home.

If the foolish, call them "flowers" –

If the foolish, call them "flowers" –

Need the wiser, tell?

If the Savants "Classify" them

It is just as well!

Those who read the "Revelations"

Must not criticize

Those who read the same Edition –

With beclouded Eyes!

Could we stand with that Old "Moses" –

"Canaan" denied –

Scan like him, the stately landscape

On the other side –

Doubtless, we should deem superfluous

Many Sciences,

Not pursued by learned Angels

In scholastic skies!

Low amid that glad Belles lettres

Grant that we may stand,

Stars, amid profound Galaxies –

At that grand "Right hand"!

                                                            - F179 (1860)   168

Dickinson is reworking her lampooning of scholarly (vs. naturalist) science again. We saw her playful take-down of what she feels is a pinch of pretentiousness in "’Arcturus’ is his other name – ”: 

Arcturus" is his other name –

I'd rather call him "Star”!

It's very mean of Science

To go and interfere!

            […]

I pull a flower from the woods – 

A monster with a glass

Computes the stamens in a breath – 

And has her in a "Class"!

In this poem she starts by contrasting nature lovers (“foolish”) who might talk about flowers in their common names or simply as “flowers” versus the botanist “Savants” who “Classify” them and assign Latinate family names such as “scrophulariaceae” or “Compositae.”  The wise, who read their scientific “Revelations” (a reference to the apocalyptic New Testament book of that name in which the Apostle John receives divine revelations of the end of earthly times), shouldn’t belittle those who can’t follow the scientific jargon.

Moses looking over
Canaan

            Yet if we could see the larger picture we would know that a lot of that which passes as important scientific study is actually “superfluous” – not worthy of pursuit “by learned Angels” in their heavenly studies. The poet here imagines herself standing with the Old Testament Moses as he surveys “Caanan,”  the Promised Land, from its border (but because of an instance of unbelief was denied entry).

            As a poet she prays that she could at least stand in a lowly place – a star rather than an impressive galaxy” at the right hand of God. She is being a bit coy here, saying that she – or poetry in general – ranks low on the hierarchy of literature (“Belles letters”).

            In fact, one reading of the entire poem might be, as Dickinson scholar Ruth Miller argues (via David Preest), that it is a response to something her friend (and man she probably deeply loved) Samuel Bowles wrote in the newspaper he edited:

Now in the flower season, let us welcome the kindred flowers of poetry and romance, and never idly fancy the time is lost that is spent in their enjoyment.

Bowles lobs a fat one here to Dickinson who doesn’t miss the opportunity to nail him. No, she counters, you can call poetry “flowers” if you want. Who are we to enlighten your “beclouded” insight? If a Savant like you wants to classify poems with flowers, well go ahead!

            This reading makes better sense of the “Belles letters” reference in the last stanza. Yes, poetry might be low on the literature totem pole (and of course Dickinson as well as probably Bowles himself did not believe this for a second), but the poet would be happy to be included among the brighter literary lights at the “grand ‘Right hand’” of the Most High.

To learn the Transport by the Pain

To learn the Transport by the Pain

As Blind Men learn the sun!

To die of thirst – suspecting

That Brooks in Meadows run!

To stay the homesick – homesick feet

Upon a foreign shore –

Haunted by native lands, the while –

And blue – beloved air!

This is the Sovereign Anguish!

This – the signal woe!

These are the patient "Laureates"

Whose voices – trained – below –

Ascend in ceaseless Carol –

Inaudible, indeed,

To us – the duller scholars

Of the Mysterious Bard!

                                                            - F178 (1860)  167

Dickinson has employed these paradoxes and contrasts before, most notably in F112: “Success is counted sweetest,” where she says, “To comprehend a nectar / Requires sorest need.” Similarly, in F120, “As Watchers hang upon the East,” she sketches beggars reveling at an imaginary feast and on a tired desert traveler hearing a brook too far away to reach. In that poem she concludes that heaven will be the brook for the thirsty, the feast for the beggar. In the former poem, “Success,” she makes the point that it is agony that most clearly achieves awareness of success and even life.

            In the current poem Dickinson explores the idea further. The “Sovereign Anguish,” the ultimate pain, is to know the full extent of the good by way of full experience of the bad. It is not enough to understand light because of its opposite, dark, when we turn out the light or close our eyes. To truly “learn the sun,” the poet claims, you must be blind. Only the desperately homesick can fully appreciate the homeland.

            Dickinson is saying that there is an equivalence: utter darkness is light. Ecstasy (“Transport”) is pain – and vice versa. In fact, learning Transport through Pain results in a greater understanding of it. Those who master this paradox – that by denial and deprivation comes salvation born of “Sovereign Anguish” (that is why the anguish is “Sovereign”) – are the saints whose prayers are heard in heaven. They are “patient ‘Laureates’” [victors crowned with laurel wreaths] and the rest of us are unable to hear or even understand them. That is why saints can sing at the stake or radiate joy in the most terrible circumstances (or so some of the books on saints and suffering that the Dickinson’s owned would lead a person to believe).

            God is “the Mysterious Bard” – and that is a very interesting way to describe the God of the Old Testament (and New) for a Christian in the mid 1800s in Puritan New England. It implies a musical harmony – the singing of the Bard and the “ceaseless Carol” of the suffering/sublime saints. We dull scholars never even hear the music. It is “Inaudible, indeed” to us.

Hildegard receiving a vision
and transcribing it.

            Most of the poem is written in iambic meter. The exception is the key third stanza where Dickinson uses trochees to make the lines ring out: “This is … / This – … / “These …”.  The stanza runs on into the last one without  a period so that the poem crescendos to the final words: “Mysterious Bard.” It lends a sense of triumph to the poem that otherwise might seem full of pathos. No, the poet means to say that there is a divine song and those who suffer most are singing with God. 

          I can't help but think of Hildegard of Bingen, a 12th-Century nun who became a noted composer, abbess, and Christian visionary. Her visions are often thought to have had their inception from within the deep pain of migraines. Under her direction, these visions were painted by an artistic monk. Her musical compositions are known for their soaring melodies and almost trancelike qualities. 

As if some little Arctic flower

As if some little Arctic flower

Upon the polar hem –

Went wandering down the Latitudes

Until it puzzled came

To continents of summer –

To firmaments of sun –

To strange, bright crowds of flowers –

And birds, of foreign tongue!

I say, As if this little flower

To Eden, wandered in –

What then? Why nothing,

Only, your inference therefrom!

                                                            - F177 (1860)

I sent this poem to my husband who has gone to the Arctic and been involved in the effects of global warming on vegetation. And if the Arctic does (granted global warming) become decked with fields of flowers inching up from more southern latitudes – complete with birds – “What then?” Well, only “your inference therefrom!” Make of it what you will, in other words.

            But I’m pretty sure Dickinson wasn’t referring to climate change but rather to the idea of a modest little  poet, a very reclusive one not known for overt Christian piety (despite the fundamentalist revival occurring in her village during her life). She preferred a more quiet spirituality that took its most inspired shape from nature – much as John Muir did. Chancing upon Eden, which is how Dickinson often refers to Heaven, after the delights of her own private garden, the poet/flower would be "puzzled." Not awed or ecstatic or surprised, just puzzled as if there is a continuum between heaven and earth. Definitely not Christian theology. 

            What would happen? “Why nothing,” the poet says in a little surgical dig at those who would be surprised to see this particular little flower wander in. It would be right as rain, completely unremarkable. Except, she adds, for what some fictive gossipy “you” would make out of it. Perhaps the “you” would infer that the narrator had been a more orthodox believer than previously thought. Perhaps you might infer that some heavenly clerk made an error. But maybe, just maybe "you" would infer that all those sermons and all those strictures so tightly adhered to were, um, unnecessary.
      I like the colorful image of "continents of summer" lit by "firmaments of sun" and crowded with flowers and birds. What makes it particularly nice – much nicer than the heaven of previous poems where Dickinson scavenges the traditional images of  hosts of angels on golden streets – is that a little reclusive rogue like Emily Dickinson might just wander in.

If I could bribe them by a Rose

If I could bribe them by a Rose

I'd bring them every flower that grows

From Amherst to Cashmere!

I would not stop for night, or storm –

Or frost, or death, or anyone –

My business were so dear!

If they would linger for a Bird

My Tambourin were soonest heard

Among the April Woods!

Unwearied, all the summer long,

Only to break in wilder song

When Winter shook the boughs!

What if they hear me!

Who shall say

That such an importunity

May not at last avail?

That, weary of this Beggar's face –

They may not finally say, Yes –

To drive her from the Hall?

                                                - F176 (1860)  179

To paraphrase: the squeaky wheel gets the oil. If you  make a pest of yourself, if you are just persistent enough even if you drive everyone crazy, you may well end up achieving your goal. Here the poet doesn’t ever specify her goal but it is something she wants pretty bad. She’s willing to bribe, and the example she gives is roses that she would single-mindedly hunt until every single flower between here and upper India were in her hot little hand. Nothing would stop her – and no one!

Roman Beggar Woman
Edgar Degas

            The second example she gives is that of bird song. She would play her “Tambourin” like a bird in the woods not only through spring and summer, but winter, too. In fact, winter would only spur her to “wilder song.”  So at least metaphorically, those she opportunes are flower and bird lovers. Lucky for Dickinson who was also a flower and bird lover. No doubt, though, in reaching for a metaphor she reached for the beloved things around her.

            In the last stanza she is saying, so what if they hear me and grow tired of me? The strategy might work if only to get rid of me – “drive her from the Hall.” It is left to the reader to deduce who “They” may be. I’m happy with the ambiguity, though. By not spelling it out she leaves the poem open enough for readers to supply their own heartfelt desires. Surely many of us would be willing to make a pest of ourselves, go all out, give 101 percent, for that goal we dream of.

            But what might the poet be wanting? A few things spring to mind: Inclusion in the lives or in important events by people she loves (perhaps the Bowles or Austin and Sue); or maybe publishers who might publish her poetry (and this is a strategy modern poets adopt as well – wear the poetry editor down until she finally publishes something); or – and this seems too easy, Heaven. She would really really like to get to heaven. I like this interpretation because she refers to herself as a “Beggar” and that is traditionally a metaphor for a supplicant for paradise. Also, the idea of a “Hall” where one petitions is akin to some of her other imagery of heaven where there are hosts of angels, buildings, hierarchies, etc. Dickinson also commonly refers to angels, and they are typically the sort of angel to whom bird song and flowers would appeal. Ultimately, however, who knows?

            Dickinson makes a lot of use of rhyme although there isn’t a rhyme scheme: In stanza 1 it is AABCDB; stanza 2 is AABCCD; and stanza 3 is ABACDDC. Metrically, the poem is straightforward. Each stanza has two iambic tetrameter lines, a trimeter, two more iambic tetrameter lines followed by a final trimeter. The last stanza divides the first tetrameter into two lines in order to better emphasize her need for courage: “They” might hear her!

            Another emphasis comes with the spondee, the two adjacent accented syllables, in the last stanza: “say, Yes.” These two syllables are key to the poem and so deserve the emphasis.

            Whatever it was Dickinson wanted, I for one hope she got it!