If she had been the Mistletoe

If she had been the Mistletoe

And I had been the Rose —

How gay upon your table

My velvet life to close!

Since I am of the Druid —

And she is of the dew —

I'll deck Tradition's buttonhole —

And send the Rose to you.

                                                                - F 60 (1859)

This was sent as a note to Samuel Bowles, a beloved (some say very beloved) friend. It sounds like a Christmas letter with the mistletoe reference and the idea of decking someone’s buttonhole; a rose may well have accompanied the note. She says as much in the last line.

            The poet begins by identifying herself as "Mistletoe" and imagining she might have traded places with the Rose. She clearly takes pride in her druidic mistletoe-ness, however. The mistletoe lives on and feeds off the oak, whereas the lovely cultivated Rose depends on dew and other water that must be supplied. While dew is lovely it is ephemeral; beautiful woodland oaks, on the other hand, are heavy and enduring. They would  be prominent among the sacred groves, or nemetons, of the druids. In his Natural History, which Dickinson would have read, Pliny describes the oak and mistletoe rite:

The druids – that is what they call their magicians – hold nothing more sacred than the mistletoe and a tree on which it is growing.... Mistletoe is rare and when found it is gathered with great ceremony, and particularly on the sixth day of the moon....Hailing the moon in a native word that means 'healing all things,' they prepare a ritual sacrifice and banquet beneath a tree and bring up two white bulls, whose horns are bound for the first time on this occasion. A priest arrayed in white vestments climbs the tree and, with a golden sickle, cuts down the mistletoe, which is caught in a white cloak. Then finally they kill the victims, praying to a god to render his gift propitious to those on whom he has bestowed it. They believe that mistletoe given in drink will impart fertility to any animal that is barren and that it is an antidote to all poisons.

          When the poet says she is a Druid, she isn’t saying that she is a pagan or magician, but rather identifying with their practice of worshipping outdoors, of studying the  mysteries, of being withdrawn from gay society life. She is also saying that had she been a rose and come to Bowles, rather than staying at her sacred groves at Amherst, it would have killed her, or at least the essential part of her. No, better for her to send the rose.
       There may be another message in this poem. Bowles and Dickinson's sister-in-law, the vivacious Sue, had an ongoing flirtation. Sue fits the Rose description pretty well. "I couldn't be like her," Dickinson is implying. "I'm more wild and woodland than velvet and table. But for Christmas, I'll "send the Rose to you." And that would be her nod to the Samuel Bowles-Sue Dickinson flirtation.

Could live—did live—

Could live—did live—

Could die—did die—

Could smile upon the whole

Through faith in one he met not,

To introduce his soul.

Could go from scene familiar

To an untraversed spot—

Could contemplate the journey

With unpuzzled heart—

Such trust had one among us,

Among us not today—

We who saw the launching

Never sailed the Bay!

                                                           - F 59 (1859)

The poem starts with the tolling of bells—two dimeter lines of spondees kick it off. And sure enough, the bells have tolled for a believer. The poem is written as a send-off and tribute to the faith of the departed. It may be that Dickinson’s whole heart wasn’t into the compliment here of someone contemplating the journey into the ‘undiscovered country’ with an ‘unpuzzled heart’—for surely Dickinson spent much of her life as a poet grappling with the mystery of what that journey is and where it might take us. She is probably being quite serious when she says that no one here today (as if this poem was written to be read on a funeral day—perhaps attached to some flowers, or at least as if it were attached to some flowers or even read to the assembled mourners) had his uncomplicated faith in the ‘one he met not’. Her own faith was certainly more complicated.

            The last stanza repeats the common metaphor of the soul being launched into the sea of death to reach, hopefully, the other side where peace and eternal life await at last.

A Day! Help! Help! Another Day!

A Day! Help! Help! Another Day!

Your prayers, oh Passer by!

From such a common ball as this

Might date a Victory!

From marshallings as simple

The flags of nations swang.

Steady—my soul: What issues

Upon thine arrow hang!

                                                       - F 58 (1859)

I’m not overly fond of this poem, but I do like ‘swang’ as past tense of ‘swing’. It’s true I can relate to the first line, especially when working for my last boss, but I didn’t think to marshall the prayers of passers by.

Dickinson uses martial imagery to convey the potential in every day to be a decisive moment. The soul is about to shoot an arrow and so must be steady. The people are to be marshaled in service of their country. The Day is a bullet, a ‘common ball’.

            The poet takes the role of both recruiter and infantry: she calls for reinforcement and she also fights. The question to ask, then, is what battle, what stakes, and what enemy? It’s easiest if starting from the end. The soul’s arrow is a prayer. The supplicant must aim it properly as there is much at stake – heaven vs. hell, perhaps. The prayers of others are bullets and they might help tip the balance of the battle so that the soul is victorious. So what is the cause for the battle? Since the poet is calling for help as another day dawns, we can surmise she battles for the will to continue rather than surrender, or perhaps with the will or ability to believe in Heaven. Each day becomes a battle for her soul. As nations have fallen or been saved by a simple call to arms (perhaps Dickinson is referring to the Revolutionary War where resistance was sometimes organized on the spot), so the poet calls on reinforcements.

            All those spondees in the first line (“Day! Help! Help!) and all those exclamation marks give the impression of shouting. But it is a tongue-in-cheek sort of shouted alarm. After all, who would holler for help because it’s another day? And so although the poem’s idea seems grave and important, the piece on the whole seems almost flippant.

Who robbed the Woods –

Who robbed the Woods –

The trusting Woods?


The unsuspecting Trees


Brought out their Burrs and Mosses –

His fantasy to please –


He scanned their trinkets – curious –


He grasped – he bore away –


What will the solemn Hemlock –

What will the Fir-tree – say?

                                                   - F 56 (1859)

A variant of this poem uses the first person: “I robbed the Woods” and later “I grasped”, etc. It is no secret that Emily Dickinson (often with her younger sister Vinnie) would look for plants in the woods to bring to her own home and garden, and here the poet wonders just what the woods might think about that.

She uses some playful anthropomorphisms: the Woods are ‘trusting’, the Trees ‘unsuspecting’. Just as the homemaker sets out her decorations and art, so the Woods puts its “Burrs and Mosses” on display. They even have trinkets to enjoy. But the trusting homemaker is sometimes robbed, and here the Woods are robbed as well. We see the nature hunter fingering the special moss and such ‘trinkets’ as autumn leaves, birds nests, flowers, and ripe nuts; then taking what best suits him (or her). I like the verb ‘grasped’ here—much more possessive and vivid than ‘takes’ or ‘selects’. For it is grasping, isn’t it, to want the lovelies for ourselves.

Over this scene of petty pilferage the ‘solemn Hemlock’ watches. It does not seem pleased! And while the poet wonders what the Fir tree will say, one doubts if she will lose much sleep over it. I get the feeling Dickinson feels in cahoots with the forest. She’s teasing them here, and teasing herself.

Revising the poem from the first person to the third makes it a bit more universal and a bit more pointed. After all, it’s one thing if one Emily Dickinson takes the occasional bit of moss or plant and another if some general ‘he’ commits the robbery. Who has not been told by some ranger or mother or other authority figure when stopping to pick a flower, “What if everyone took one?”

The poem starts with an accusation underscored by the spondee “Who robbed”. The sting is softened by the two dimeter lines with the repetition of the word ‘Woods’. The last two lines soften any sense of outrage or betrayal on the part of the offended trees by the use of tripping dactyls: ‘What will the … ’.

I've got an arrow here.

I've got an arrow here.

Loving the hand that sent it

I the dart revere.

Fell, they will say, in "skirmish"!

Vanquished, my soul will know

By but a simple arrow

Sped by an archer's bow.

                                             - F 56 (1859)

The pen is mightier than the sword or, as here, arrow. The poet has received a “Dear John” type of letter and although it fells her she still values the missive as it came from a loved one’s hand. Another old saw comes to mind: “Those who live by the sword, die by the sword.” Dickinson wrote hundreds and hundreds of letters, eschewing the banal for the deepest observations and feelings of her heart. And so a letter can either transport or slay her. There is nothing ‘simple’ about a slaying letter. One might read the poem as describing a letter shot from Cupid’s bow, the recipient being vanquished by love. While I’d rather think of the poet receiving a love letter, I’m on the side of the “Dear John.” The poet already loves the recipient, so there wouldn’t be much to vanquish. Also, it is not interesting to ‘revere’ a love letter from one you love. It is (moderately) more interesting to revere the one that brings terrible hurt.

My favorite part of the poem is the offhand opening line: “I’ve got an arrow here.” It’s only later than we realize how deadly it was.

To venerate the simple days

To venerate the simple days

Which lead the seasons by,

Needs but to remember

That from you or I,

They may take the trifle

Termed mortality!

To invest existence with a stately air –

Needs but to remember

That the Acorn there

Is the egg of forests

For the upper Air!

                                      - F 55 (1859)

My favorite part of this poem is the epigram of the Acorn being the egg of forests. It’s a bid odd, isn’t it, that Dickinson capitalizes “Acorn” and “Air” but not “egg” or “forests”? I wonder what her capitalization rubric was. Anyway, one can’t argue with the sentiment: it is easier to honor each passing day if one remembers that it carries away a bit of your life with it.

The second stanza builds upon the first. While the first reminds us of life’s brevity, the second reminds us that like the Acorn we are but lowly forms of the heavenly (“upper Air”) beings we will be in Paradise. Both stanzas are essentially structured with six lines. Although the second has only five, Dickinson has combined two trimeter lines to make the first line—imbuing it with a more ‘stately air’.

One line is repeated: “Needs but to remember.” The repetition helps us remember as well as knits the two stanzas together. The word “air” is repeated in the second stanza. The first time it is the ‘stately air’ we should invest our lives with, our sense of gravity and import. Our daily life matters. The second use is as the very last word of the poem. This time it is to contrast the earthly (Acorn on the forest floor) with the eternal and incorporeal. 

"Lethe" in my flower,

"Lethe" in my flower,

Of which they who drink


In the fadeless orchards


Hear the bobolink!



Merely flake or petal


As the Eye beholds


Jupiter! my father!


I perceive the rose!

                                                   - F 54 (1859)

Divided in two quatrains, the poem contains an epiphany experienced in an almost trance-like state. The first quatrain has the poet contemplating a flower, perhaps inhaling its fragrance. It is as if she sipped from the river of forgetfulness, the Lethe of Greek myth that caused all who drank from it to forget their former lives. The “Lethe” in her flower transports her to that eternal realm where orchards are ‘fadeless’ and the song of the bobolink– Dickinson’s ‘chorister’ in a future poem – can be heard.

The second stanza is full of wonder, the two exclamation points underscoring the excitement of recognition as she is able to perceive on a higher level. What in her everyday life she saw as an assemblage of fragrant petals, to her now awakened or eternal eye becomes the thing entire—the rose. She first cries out to Jupiter in keeping with the earlier classical reference (“Zeus” would have been the appropriate Greek name, but “Jupiter” works better poetically here), then pivots to the more Christian “my father”.

               The poem is a meditation on the art of knowing. It is more Plato than Keats. While Keats contemplated the Grecian Urn and revealed his abstract epiphany about beauty being truth, truth beauty, Plato would have us understand that while we see the shadow or parts of things, the true reality is the ideal form. In this poem Dickinson shows that what is important isn’t the beauty of the flower, although that may be its transporting quality, but the true nature of the flower in its ideal entirety.

If I should cease to bring a Rose

If I should cease to bring a Rose

Upon a festal day,

'Twill be because beyond the Rose

I have been called away—

If I should cease to take the names

My buds commemorate—

'Twill be because Death's finger

Clasps my murmuring lip!

                                                                 - F 53 (1859)

Let’s face it. Dickinson has written better poems. This one was purportedly sent to someone along with a rose, so maybe she just dashed something off. The poet shows that the only thing that could keep her from bringing roses to festive events or funerals would be Death. She returns to the silence of the grave in later poems with greater effect (“my granite lip”). Indeed it is hard to imagine the final image of “Death’s finger” clasping her lip. A finger couldn’t grip lips, neither could a finger clasp lips like clasping a necklace. Other versions have ‘Claps” rather than “Clasps”, but that is even more far fetched.

While in the first stanza has the exact rhyme of “Rose” and “Rose” and the perfect rhyme of “day” and “away”, the second stanza has “commemorate” in rhyming position with “lip” and this doesn’t make much of a rhyme.

Bless God, he went as soldiers,

Bless God, he went as soldiers,

His musket on his breast—

Grant God, he charge the bravest

Of all the martial blest!

Please God, might I behold him

In epauletted white—

I should not fear the foe then—

I should not fear the fight!

                                                                           - F 52 (1859)

Here’s a proper fantasy: the heavenly knight, with musket rather than sword, inspiring the poet to battle, um, Evil, I suppose, or maybe death. And it is a proper maiden in whose voice Dickinson writes: she is thankful that her knight died with his musket in his arms. And now she wants him to be top warrior among God’s army. But it would really help if she could just see him. Yeah, I’d like to see him, too! Unfortunately, when Dickinson wrote this, the Civil War was just around the corner. There would be plenty of young heroes dying a death to Bless God for.

However, it is likely that Dickinson does not mean a literal soldier at all. Perhaps she was writing figuratively about a very dear friend, Benjamin Franklin Newton who died of tuberculosis in 1854. His musket might very well have been his pen. Newton was Dickinson’s first Preceptor. After his death she wrote to his pastor, Rev. Hale:

Mr Newton became to me a gentle, yet grave Preceptor, teaching  me what to read, what authors to admire, what was most grand or beautiful in nature, and that sublimer lesson, a faith in things unseen, and in a life again, nobler, and much more blessed--. … He often talked of God, but I do not know certainly if he was his Father in Heaven-- Please Sir, to tell me if he was willing to die, and if you think him at Home, I should love much to know certainly, that he was today in Heaven.

The poem and the letter are quite similar, as if Dickinson reworked the letter into poetry five years after writing it. In the poem she asks God if the man died willingly ("as soldiers") and if she could have confirmation of his having joined the ‘blest’—the same questions she had asked Rev. Hale. Rev. Hale apparently gave her reassurance because she later responds:

 I thank you when you tell me that he was brave, and patient, and that he dared to die. I thought he would not fear,  because his Soul was valiant, but that they met, and fought, and that my Brother conquered, and passed on Triumphing, blessed it is to know, and a full heart of gratitude seems slight indeed to bring you, remembering your kindness.

When I count the seeds

When I count the seeds
That are sown beneath,

To bloom so, bye and bye—

When I con the people

Lain so low,

To be received as high—

When I believe the garden

Mortal shall not see—

Pick by faith its blossom

And avoid its Bee,

I can spare this summer, unreluctantly.

                                                                            - F 51 (1859)

As the poet contemplates her winter garden, thinking about all the flowers that will eventually bloom, she contemplates the similarities between seeds and souls. Like seeds, the dead are sown beneath the soil; like flowers breaking through the soil to bloom, they will emerge in Paradise, immortal.

The third stanza begins with the interesting qualifier “When.” I parse this stanza as follows: In those times when I can believe in Paradise, can by faith alone enjoy its blessings; and if I can avoid stirring up stinging doubt as I do so, then I can willingly forego this life in favor of the next. The implication is that she is not always able to avoid the Bee.

Dickinson so loved her garden and its denizens that she wasn’t always sure she wanted to trade it even for heaven—the very existence and nature of she does not seem completely sure of. 

It did not surprise me —

It did not surprise me—
So I said—or thought—
She will stir her pinions
And the nest forgot,

Traverse broader forests—
Build in gayer boughs,
Breathe in Ear more modern
God's old fashioned vows—

This was but a Birdling—
What and if it be
One within my bosom
Had departed me?

This was but a story—
What and if indeed
There were just such coffin
In the heart instead?
                                                               - F 50 (1859)
Birdlings stretch their wings and fly to find a new home; comparing this process to young people 'leaving the nest' is a common metaphor. Dickinson begins the poem by applying this philosophic resignation to a friend or perhaps young relative leaving quiet Amherst for a 'gayer' more 'modern' place. Interestingly, she posits exposure to new-fangled ideas versus 'old fashioned' Biblical teachings as breathing in 'Ear'--as if listening were breathing, taking in sound akin to taking in breath.
     Dickinson returns to that idea in her 1862 poem (F 340) "I felt a Funeral, in my Brain." Here, as the poet begins to swoon or otherwise break down, she hears "Boots of Lead" treading through her brain, and "then Space – began to toll, / As all the Heavens were a Bell, / And Being, but an Ear,". In both poems the Ear becomes the primary organ. In F 50, it is the filter through which life is understood. The modern Ear would hear God's vows quite differently than would Puritan-influenced Amherst. In F340, the Ear is the only sensory organ and all it hears are the tolling of the Heavens. The conceit gives new meaning to the religious notion of the Received Word.
     The poem continues to say, 'Well, so Birdlings will go their own ways and forget the nest, but what if this Birdling were among my beloved? What then? The poet doesn't answer directly but in the penultimate line substitutes the word 'coffin' for the earlier 'nest'. Would the poet want to confine a beloved in the 'coffin' of the heart? It is tempting to think that the coffin would hold the heart, which would presumably be broken when the beloved bird had flown away, but Dickinson carefully writes of the coffin "in" the heart rather than "of" the heart. It would be burying the Birdling alive, entombed in confining love. 

When Katie walks, this simple pair accompany her side

When Katie walks, this simple pair accompany her side,
When Katie runs unwearied they follow on the road,
When Katie kneels, their loving hands still clasp her pious knee—
Ah! Katie! Smile at Fortune, with two so knit to thee!
                                                                                          - F 49 (1859)


Dickinson met Kate Scott Anthon in 1859, the year of this poem and wrote several letters to her until Kate married and dropped the correspondence. Although Kate was originally Sue Dickinson's friend, Emily became quite fond of her. This poem accompanied a pair of garters Dickinson knitted for Kate (who transcribed the poem along with a note about the garters).
     The several extant letters Dickinson wrote Kate are effusively affectionate, but then so were many of her letters to friends. In one letter probably a year or so after meeting Kate, Dickinson writes: "Oh! our Condor Kate! Come from your crags again! Oh: Dew upon the bloom fall yet again a summer's night...."
          The poem trips along, keeping up with Katie, in long iambic lines (seven feet, or heptameter) until the last line that slows almost to a halt. It begins with a spondee and a trochee for two accented syllables in a row. The "Ah!" is a sustained sound, and Smile's long vowel also slows it down. I read the "two so knit" as spondees although the 'so' may be read as unaccented. Regardless, the last line is emphasized.
     It seems to me that Dickinson is having a bit of love fun here, with both she and Sue Dickinson playing the role of the loving garters. Katie is lucky to have them, both 'knit' to her--and both wanting to 'clasp her pious knee'! 
     The garters would have been intended to hold up long stockings. Here's a picture of one that might have been like what Dickinson knitted.

Knit garter for stockings
http://handmaidensheart.blogspot.com/

Whose cheek is this?

Whose cheek is this?
What rosy face
Has lost a blush today?
I found her—"pleiad"—in the woods
And bore her safe away.

Robins, in the tradition
Did cover such with leaves,
But which the cheek—
And which the pall
My scrutiny deceives.
                                                     - F 48 (1859)

David Preest has this to say about the poem: 

"Emily sent this poem as a pencilled note to Sue. At the top of it was mounted a tiny

picture of a bird, and the thread which probably attached a flower to the note still

remains. In the traditional story robins covered the dead bodies of the ‘Babes lost in

the Wood.’ A ‘pall’ is the funeral garment for a dead body. The ‘lost Pleiad’ was

explained in the note on poem 23 [F 12]. But that is as far as the facts take us. All else is

guesswork."

     All right -- I like guesswork!

     First, let's admit that the poem frames the discovery of a misplaced or lost flower in the woods as the discovery of a freshly dead or at least swooned girl. The poet comes across her and comments that traditionally robins covered bodies as they rifle through the duff looking for grub. I sort of like that the flower was attached to the note by a thread--as if it had been hanged. Ah, playful Dickinson! 

     So let's just think about what sort of flower it might be. It was once rosy or pinkish but now is newly faded. It was found in the woods but either doesn't really belong there or else it was on a tree but fell prematurely. The 'cheek' or petals are now pale--as is the 'pall' or, perhaps, sepals.

     I have two guesses: First, the flowering dogwood. It begins rosy but will fade, especially if it falls from the tree. It's beautiful and would make a nice enclosure in a note. What seems to be the petals are actually the sepals, so this flower makes sense in two ways: color and cheek/pall confusion.

     My second is the Indian Pipe Plant--mostly because it is also called Corpse Plant and grows in decaying leaves. Robins would certainly be covering this little beauty up as they hunt. And it certainly plays into the poor, dead 'Babes in the Wood' theme.

     But decide for yourself. Dickinson was fond of both plants and would wander in the woods to find them. Here are two pictures:

Flowering Dogwood
www.theflowerexpert.com

Indian Pipe Plant (Corpse Plant)
http://www.squidoo.com

By such and such an offering

By such and such an offering
To Mr. So and so –
The web of life is woven –
So martyrs albums show!
                                                   - F 47 (1858)


This little poem may be read at both the universal and personal level. The key word is 'martyrs'. Foxe's Book of Martyrs, a catalog of Christian martyrs from the first century C.E. through the Protestant Reformation, was a staple in New England Puritan homes and Dickinson without a doubt was familiar with it. The martyrs' lives exemplify the sublime to the cruel, the miraculous to the toil of daily kindness. Do their offerings underpin the web of life (i.e., Western civilization and culture)? Surely their deaths advanced Christianity, and within Christianity the Reformation, and so wove the fabric of life as Amherst and other Protestant towns would have known it.

3 women burned as heretics
Guernsey

     Read this way first two lines may be read as ironically offhand. The martyrs each offer their lives to God, aka Mr. So and so – which is a pretty novel way of referring to the Alpha and Omega, the "I Am Who I Am." If I think about it closely, however, I see "So and so" as another way of saying "Apha and Omega".
     However, the offerings might be the daily work and toil and sacrifices given by a martyr to the people, characterized here as "Mr. So and so" – John Doe, if you will. All this effort is what gets them into trouble! Each bit of work for the Cause weaves the ultimate outcome of their lives a little more tightly, eventually leading to martyrdom.
     Following this line of thought we come to the individual level. Let's skip right to Dickinson herself. She offered many poems to several men, one of whom was Charles Wadsworth whose acquaintance she had made just two or three years before writing this poem. Many scholars believe Wadsworth was the "Master" to whom Dickinson addressed several very passionate letters in 1860.
     On the most personal level, then, this poem can be read as a wry comment to someone like Charles Wadsworth. She has given him poems and letters (and maybe more!), and this weaves him into her life. She then implies that she is a martyr, Wadworth is married after all, but with a playful exclamation point that removes the sting. "Mr. So and so" is a clever way of pointing out the need for his anonymity.

Before the ice is in the pools—

Before the ice is in the pools—
Before the skaters go,
Or any check at nightfall
Is tarnished by the snow—

Before the fields have finished,
Before the Christmas tree,
Wonder upon wonder
Will arrive to me!

What we touch the hems of
On a summer's day—
What is only walking
Just a bridge away—

That which sings so—speaks so—
When there's no one here—
Will the frock I wept in
Answer me to wear? 
                                                              - F 46 (1858)


The poet foretells something that will happen before winter: sometime before the last harvest and Christmas. She expects 'Wonder upon wonder' to come to her. Dickinson never spells out what this wonder might be, but she hints in the third stanza that it is 'what we touch the hems of' in summer. The hint is Biblical as one of the most familiar New Testament stories has a woman pleading to be let touch even the hem of Jesus' garment so that she might be healed. Extrapolating from that, the poet seems to be suggesting a brush with the divine. Further, the 'wonder' is just walking on the other side of the bridge. Crossing a bridge over the water is a familiar way of talking about 'crossing over' or 'passing on' as euphemisms for dying and going on to an afterlife. Surely that qualifies as a brush with the divine.

     This wonder sings to the poet, talks to her, but only when no one else is there. A seducer, then, a very private one. The poet, ready for the seduction wonders about her frock--should it be the same one she wept in before? The implication is that she has wept for the coming wonder before but now wants to ready herself for it. So might a maiden have wept for a lover but then want to make ready for his return. 
     Dickinson write of death as seductive in other poems, notably "Because I could not stop for death" where death comes as a gentleman caller. I suggested in F44, "The Guest is gold and crimson" that the Guest is also death. At 28, the poet is young to feel the call of death, but one cannot read much Dickinson without feeling its call. Romantic poets, whom she followed by some thirty or forty years but was familiar with, often expressed what poet Allen Tate called the "subtly interfused erotic motive" that equates death to love.
     The first stanza is vaguely disquieting with its image of a cold pond before it ices over and is ready for skating parties. The "check" is sometimes written as "cheek", the difference being between a ticket (presumably for a skating party) and a face. The interesting part, however, is how the snow tarnishes it--generally snow is considered a symbol of purity, or as a lovely winter blanket. Perhaps Dickinson wants to be taken at harvest time, before the snow arrives that leaves behind dead, frozen, stubble and blooms. She waits as a jilted bride would wait in her special dress for the return of her groom--the 'wonder opon wonder' to arrive.
     I wonder if this isn't going a step too far, however, The poet might simply be writing about that magical pause between late harvest and winter when the world is gold and orange, when berries and pumpkins weigh down their canes and vines. In F32 she describes the berry's plump cheek, the browning nuts, and the gay scarf and scarlet gown of the field. In that poem the poet wants to put on a trinket, whereas in this one she wants to put on a gown she wept in--perhaps weeping for the tarnishing of glorious fall with winter's deadly snow.
     She may simply be writing about Sue's return to town, but somehow I find this idea lacking.


The strongest sounds in the poem occur in "That which sings so--speaks so--" and the line conjures up the siren's song calling sailors to their doom. 
     
     

Reveries: Emily Dickinson, Nature Poet

Here's an essay I wrote after enjoying some of Dickinson's poems about nature.
Enjoy!

Snowflakes: I counted till they danced so

Snow flakes.

I counted till they danced so
Their slippers leaped the town,
And then I took a pencil
To note the rebels down.
And then they grew so jolly
I did resign the prig,
And ten of my once stately toes
Are marshalled for a jig! 
                                                              - F 45 (1858)


This cute poem sketches the poet enjoying the swirling snow, its white 'slippers' dancing over the New England town. She runs to dash off a poem to say something about the little party animals, but can't resist the fun for long. Her poet self is portrayed as a prig, even her toes 'stately'. It's a winter caper, headlined by the Jolly Snowflakes. It's all ironic, of course: She has clearly taken her pencil and noted 'the rebels down.' Still, I like the image of Miss Emily doing a jig.
     This is only one out three of Dickinson's 1780+ poems that she titled. Enjoy!

The Guest is gold and crimson—

The Guest is gold and crimson—
An Opal guest and gray—
Of Ermine is his doublet—
His Capuchin gay—

He reaches town at nightfall—
He stops at every door—
Who looks for him at morning
I pray him too—explore
The Lark's pure territory—
Or the Lapwing's shore!
                                                                                        J15,  Fr44 (1858)

Sunset is personified as a Guest who comes to town at the end of day, stopping at every door. In earlier poems we've seen Dickinson describe sunset as a pirate crouching over the golden hills (F38) and as the end of life (F18). Here he sweeps into town dressed in colorful Renaissance clothes. The sun is masculine in the tradition of Shakespeare, Plato, and the whole Western tradition that views the moon as mysterious and changeable whereas the sun is light and heat and constant. 
        The poet describes Sunset's raiment by beginning with the sun himself: "The Guest is gold..." and then moving outwards to the crimson that radiates out from the sun. The surrounding sky is gray and opalescent--just beginning to be touched by color. Clouds of ermine white form a doublet (a close-fitting men's jacket that I wish were still in style) enclose this and beyond them, the distant clouds pick up all the sunset colors to make a gay Capuchin (hooded cloak). 
        If you want to know where this guest has gotten off to in the morning, look to the eastern sky. Dickinson uses the Lark as a metonymy for morning and morning always dawns in the east. The Lapwing's shore would be, from Amherst, on the eastern coast. But why would you look for sunset in sunrise territory? Is she saying they are the same thing?
        Thinking about the metaphor further, remembering her earlier use of Sunset as the end of life (not an unusual metaphor and one she would certainly have been aware of from Shakespeare), the poem opens up as a description of death and rebirth. The Guest is the divine escort: he stops at every house at the end of day--no one who is on death's door is missed. He emerges on the other side of night--death--in the morning, the time of re-birth. 
        In a later poem, "Because I Could Not Stop for Death," Dickinson re-visits the idea of Death as a gentleman caller. That he is a bit of a dandy just makes the trip a bit easier to take.

Through lane it lay—through bramble—

Through lane it lay—thro'  bramble—
Through clearing and thro' wood—
Banditti often passed us
Upon the lonely road.

The wolf came peering curious—
The owl looked puzzled down—
The serpent's satin figure
Glid stealthily along—

The tempests touched our garments—
The lightning's poinards gleamed—
Fierce from the Crag above us
The hungry Vulture screamed—

The satyrs fingers beckoned—
The valley murmured "Come"—
These were the mates—
This was the road
Those children fluttered home.
                                                                                                 J9,  Fr43 (1858)

When we think of life as a journey on a lonely road we often insert the figures Dickinson uses here: brambles, wolves, tempests, lightning and so forth. One could go through the poem looking at each little setting--clearing, wood, valley, etc.--and make a little story. We could even be unkind enough to think that surely Dickinson's own life was not so beset, indulged as she was within her small family, circle of friends, and quiet New England Village to live life as she chose to live it. We wonder if she ever sensed the wolf peering at her or the gleaming poinards of lightning threatening her safety.
     Yet Dickinson did, even at this date--she was 28, have experiences that were difficult, even traumatic, and trying. She lost a close friend and cousin earlier and suffered intensely. Her first mentor, a young principal at the Amherst Academy, died suddenly, leaving her again bereft. Her mother had subsided into chronic pain and needed someone with her at all times--a role Emily accepted for as long as her mother lived. 
     What I find notable about this poem is the absence of either any real earthly delights: no vale of pleasure, no berry-picking time, no song of the lark; and likewise, the absence of any actual struggle: the wolf is simply curious, the wise owl puzzled, the lightning just flashes and the tempests only touch the clothes.  It is almost like a story book where the dangers are experienced vicariously. Christian teaching at the time emphasized that the path to Heaven is a safe one but danger and evil lurk all along its length.
     The poem ends on a chilling note, however. It is children, not battle scarred oldsters, who are on this road. And they flutter home. It's a poignant image: small children fluttering past wolf and satyr and 'hungry Vulture' to get home, called by the murmuring valley.


I personally don't sense the poet's heart in this poem, but perhaps there is more to it than I see, and perhaps it is because It seems much less fresh than most of her other work.