A Burdock twitched my gown

 A Burdock twitched my gown

Not Burdock's – blame – but mine

Who went too near the Burdock's Den –

A Bog affronts my shoe.

What else have Bogs to do –

The only Trade they know

The splashing men?

'Tis Minnows – should despise –

An Elephant's calm eyes

Look further on!

                                                            F289 (1862)  229

David Preest writes that “Emily sent this poem to her brother, prefaced by the words, ‘Austin – Father said Frank Conkey – Touched you.’

            Thomas Johnson in his Variorum edition explains that Edward Dickinson and Frank Conkey were political opponents: Emily’s father was a traditional Whig and Frank Conkey a new, up-to-date Whig. Her father had presumably told Emily that Austin was becoming affected (i.e., “touched”) by Conkey’s new style political views.” Austin was clearly letting the new guy rattle him.

Stickery burdock seed heads

With the above in mind, we see that that pesky Conkey fellow is the sticky burdock. But one can’t blame the burdock for latching on and ruining your gown. That’s its nature! Same with the bog. One can’t blame a bog for wrecking one’s shoe if one is foolish enough to wander into it. The connotations here are quite negative. Conkey is obviously the bog here, his only “Trade” is splashing his benighted political view on those who come too close.

            It’s only the little fish, Dickinson needles, who get angry at bog and burdock. If one takes the larger view, looks with “An Elephant’s calm eyes” (and perhaps this is a witty reference to their taciturn father), then everything can  be taken in stride. 

My first well Day – since many ill –

My first well Day – since many ill – 

I asked to go abroad,

And take the Sunshine in my hands,

And see the things in Pod – 

A'blossom just – when I went in

To take my Chance with pain – 

Uncertain if myself, or He,

Should prove the strongest One.

The Summer deepened, while we strove – 

She put some flowers away – 

And Redder cheeked Ones – in their stead – 

A fond – illusive way – 

To Cheat Herself, it seemed she tried – 

As if before a child

To Fade – Tomorrow – Rainbows held

The Sepulchre, could hide.

She dealt a fashion to the Nut – 

She tied the Hoods to Seeds – 

She dropped bright scraps of Tint, about – 

And left Brazilian Threads

On every shoulder that she met – 

Then both her Hands of Haze

Put up – to hide her parting Grace

From our unfitted eyes.

My loss, by sickness – Was it Loss?

Or that Ethereal Gain

One earns by measuring the Grave – 

Then – measuring the Sun –

                                                            F288 (1862)  574

Dickinson contemplates here the passage of time, seasons, and the perspective a serious illness can bring. It’s written in traditional hymn or ballad form; if so minded, one could sing it to the tune of “Amazing Grace.”  She makes abundant use of slant rhyme a practice frowned upon at the time.

The wings, or "hoods," that Summer ties to
maple seeds 

            It is spring when the  narrator takes to bed; the world is “A’blossom.” Her condition is fairly serious for she is not sure if she can overcome the pain or if pain “Should prove the strongest One.”  While she and pain “strove” indoors, Summer “put some flowers away” but substituted the deeper, redder autumnal colors that presage winter.  This, Dickinson says, is a bit of an illusion to take away the sting. It is similar to reassuring a child who is about to die, or “Fade,” that although all he can see is the grave, tomorrow actually holds a beautiful rainbow.

            Summer, that lovely and stylish mother, plumps out the nuts to a fashionable roundness and gleam, ties the little  wings and other devices on seeds so the wind may blow them to new ground, and then goes about adding fall color. She drapes the fields and hills with oranges, reds, and browns – the “Brazilian Threads.” And then as she leaves, Summer puts up “her Hands of Haze” that mist the countryside during autumn.

            Dickinson uses a similar image some years later in “As imperceptibly as Grief.” In that poem summer takes on a “courteous, yet harrowing Grace, /  As Guest, that would be gone.” She finally makes “her light escape / Into the Beautiful.”

Before she leaves, Summer stylishly
plumps the nuts

            It’s a lovely depiction of early autumn. The poet is finally able to get outside and admire it for herself, see the beans and mustards and other “things in Pod.” But as she thinks about the summer that she missed she wonders if she really suffered a loss. There is an “Ethereal Gain,” she concludes, in a brush with death. After measuring the grave, how very vast and wonderful seems the sun! The appreciation of a thing by awareness of its opposite is a theme in several Dickinson poems reviewed here so far, most recently in “The Zeroes taught us – Phosphorus – .” There, “We learned to like the Fire / By handling Glaciers.”

While it is alive

While it is alive

Until Death touches it

While it and I lap one Air

Dwell in one Blood

Under one Sacrament

Show me Division can split or pare –

Love is like Life – merely longer

Love is like Death, during the Grave

Love is the Fellow of the Resurrection

Scooping up the Dust and chanting "Live"!

                                                                        F287 (1862)  491

We know the “it” of the first stanza is a great love, for the poet makes that clear in the second stanza. As long as this love is “alive,” there is nothing that can come between the narrator and her beloved. Love laps the same air, shares the same sacrament and even the same blood – it is the warp and woof of the narrator’s existence.

            It is “like Life,” Dickinson writes – except not so subject to death. It will endure (and her poetry ensures that). It is, however, also “like Death” – a line that is not entirely clear to me. Not clear at all, really. I suspect, though, that Dickinson is getting at the notion that Love isn’t just life but also the vast stillness and eternality outside of life. The dead await resurrection within the grave. That timeless disembodied wait must be part of the still heart of Love.

William Blake's Creation of Adam.

            Best in the poem are the last two lines. Dickinson sketches a seeker of higher knowledge, a “Fellow of the Resurrection” – akin to a Fellow of the Royal Acadamy – who with great confidence chants over handfuls of dust as if that might bring them back to life. Love is that Fellow, too, always always “chanting ‘Live’!” As crazy as the Fellow sounds, however, the passage echoes the creation of Adam: God “formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature” (Genesis 2:7). What has happened once, the poet implies, could happen again through Love. It is the ultimate Life Force.

Dropped into the Ether Acre –

Dropped into the Ether Acre –

Wearing the Sod Gown –

Bonnet of Everlasting Laces –

Brooch – frozen on –

Horses of Blonde – and Coach of Silver –

Baggage a strapped Pearl –

Journey of Down – and Whip of Diamond –

Riding to meet the Earl –

                                                            F286 (1862)  665

When embarking on that final journey to meet one’s maker, what better conveyance than a silver hearse drawn by white horses? Even better if the coachman’s whip is made of diamond and the coffin lined with a cosy and soft feather bed!

            The two stanzas of this clever poem seem reversed. In the first stanza the narrator has been buried. She has been “Dropped” into an “Ether” grave – which is to say that she has joined the eternal ethereal substance that floods the universe. The burial must have taken place years prior for she wears a “Sod Gown” as if the coffin had decomposed leaving her corpse exposed to the earth. The “Everlasting Laces” would be the roots of grasses growing over the years. The brooch, once on her burial dress, would not decompose because it would have been made of metal or porcelain. It takes the chill of the underworld and is frozen on to what must by now be bones.

            But in the second stanza the body is being transported in a hearse. How can that be? A moment ago the corpse was "Wearing the Sod Gown." I suspect the poet is thinking in eternal terms. The body may be buried, the coffin decomposed, but the eternal coachman comes in his own time to take the liberated soul to meet the heavenly earl. Perhaps this gives the soul time to truly shed its earthly being – to pare itself down to the inner  “Pearl” that is strapped like a coffin to the coach.  (One can’t help but wonder if Dickinson didn’t select both “pearl” and “earl” more because they rhymed than that either were the best word for the scene.)

            The meter is trochaic. It makes a particularly strong beginning with the word “Dropped.” We can practically see the body falling into the grave. That first line quickly dwindles into the feminine unaccented endings of “Ether Acre.” The second line provides a vivid contrast to the ether with its ending spondee of “Sod Gown.” The “strapped Pearl” of the second stanza is a matching spondee and an opposite image. A pearl is the most perfect of gemstones, needing no faceting or polishing. It certainly needs no gown or bonnet. Coming from the ocean and representing purity and (according to a parable Jesus told) the kingdom of heaven, it is a far cry from the poor corpse covered with sod.

            This is a short poem but the words and images are so strong that two quite vivid scenes are sketched. We first see the sad end of the body and then we see the fantastic journey of the soul.

The Love a Life can show Below

The Love a Life can show Below

Is but a filament, I know,

Of that diviner thing

That faints upon the face of Noon –

And smites the Tinder in the Sun –

And hinders Gabriel's Wing –

'Tis this – in Music – hints and sways –

And far abroad on Summer days –

Distils uncertain pain –

'Tis this enamors in the East –

And tints the Transit in the West

With harrowing Iodine –

'Tis this – invites – appalls – endows –

Flits – glimmers – proves – dissolves –

Returns – suggests – convicts – enchants –

Then – flings in Paradise –

                                                            F285 (1862)  673

In F229, “Musicians wrestle everywhere,” Dickinson evokes a “silver strife” that recalls the music of the spheres or perhaps the sound of “new life.” In this poem she goes further, taking an almost mystical approach to life. When we love, when we make music we are invoking some “diviner thing”  in comparison to which our most noble efforts are but shadows and echoes.

            “Filament” is the word Dickinson chooses and it is lovely here. The divinity in this poem beckons to us with these filaments; it longs for a connection as do we. At the same time it hides itself: we must seek it without being able to find it. It “glimmers” and “dissolves” at the same time that it “invites” and “enchants.” But then Dickinson shows this diviner thing to be generous and joyful: it “flings in Paradise” as if it were tossing a bouquet of roses at the feet of an enraptured child.

            The last three lines of the first stanza present a paradoxical portrayal of the diviner thing. First, it “faints upon the face of Noon.” The image is that of a wisp of cloud or mist evaporating. It evades intense scrutiny, i.e., the light of day. In our Enlightenment proclivity for taxonomy we trust the microscope and not the trance. Perhaps we should be receptive to both.

Multiple flares igniting in the sun

            The second quality Dickinson reveals to us is that it “smites the Tinder in the Sun” – it lights the fire of the sun. That is a very interesting quality in an thing that faints in “the face of Noon.” The thing is not the fire but the force that sparks the flame. Examine it under the sun and it effervesces; approach it with awe, however, for it lights the heavens.

            Hindering “Gabriel’s Wing,” is the third aspect of the diviner thing. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Dickinson can be maddeningly secretive at times! Gabriel is a Biblical archangel. His primary role is said to be that of God’s messenger. Why would a diviner thing want to impede him? If we are uncertain of God’s will, perhaps we feel our way with greater humility and care. Perhaps we come closer to the divine when we aren’t overanalyzing it.

An iodine-purple sunset can be 
magnificent -and harrowing.

            The second stanza expands on the idea of mystical truth. It resides in Music and, much as the diviner thing is responsible for the shine of the sun, it provides music’s “hints and sways” that enchant us as we listen. It is also that essence of “Summer days” that seems to distill our vague despairs into something purer and meaningful as if we suddenly saw them clearly for the first time. Finally, the diviner thing is the glory of the sun’s rising and setting, the quality that “enamors” in the morning and harrows us with the beauty of sunset in the evening.

The first two sestets rhyme AABCCB. Two lines of iambic tetrameter are followed by one of iambic trimeter. The effect is stately, supportive of the quiet philosophy of the poem.

            But the last stanza shucks off the conventions. A list of words dances through three of the four lines without benefit of rhyme but without needing or wanting it. One of those words is “proves.” The spirit of scientific investigation is just as much a part of the diviner thing a the spirit of aesthetics. It is the spirit of the quest and self discovery. The musician’s humanity animates music; the human tendency for self examination is focused by the bright light of a summer day; our love of beauty gives us an emotional response to sunrise and sunset. Perhaps the poet is telling us that at least a spark of the “diviner thing” resides within us. Poets and visionaries can reach inside and touch it, but perhaps the rest of us can, too.    

The Zeroes taught us – Phosphorous –

The Zeroes taught us – Phosphorous –

We learned to like the Fire

By handling Glaciers – when a Boy –

And Tinder – guessed – by power

Of Opposite – to balance Ought –

Eclipses – Suns – imply –

Paralysis – our Primer dumb

Unto Vitality –

                                                            284 (1862)  689

In several earlier poems Dickinson has examined the paradoxical way we learn the lessons of the world. To learn the Transport by the Pain / As Blind Men learn the sun! is one. “Success is counted sweetest” is another, where she claims that To comprehend a nectar / Requires sorest need. I’m reminded of a Buddhist teaching: our well of happiness was excavated by despair.  

            Dickinson continues her examinations here. The first stanza uses the metaphor of fire and how we come to understand its dynamics. Phosphorous, she points out, ignites at very low temperature. Dickinson would have been quite familiar with phosphorous matches as they were first introduced in the late 1820s (safety matches, using red rather than the poisonous white phophorus, were first marketed in 1855). And so the first paradox in the poem refers to the drama of fire arising from seemingly zero heat. Likewise, people can sometimes catch fire, their passions inflamed, from seemingly insignificant incitement.

White-phosphorus matches
would ignite very easily.

            She then alludes to fire’s beneficial warming property: we truly appreciate the fire in the hearth after being around glacial cold. We learn to love warm personalities after having been around their opposites. “Cold fish,” we sometimes say, or “Ice princess.” Dickinson adopts the “Boy” persona here as if only boys go out climbing snowy or glacial mountains.

            The third quality, the power of fire, suggests something more interesting. Some fires are small and well controlled while others become conflagrations. We can guess at the “Tinder” that started and initially fueled the fire by how it subsequently burns. (I doubt that this is true, but let’s allow poetic license… .) In a human sense we might see the fire expressed in fury, in righteous anger, in a burning love, or simply in a warm smile and embrace. We can get a sense of what fuels each of these fires by that power.

The second stanza transforms the idea of fire into “Vitality” – the spark that distinguishes the living from the nonliving, the vigorous from the weak. Things or qualities (“Ought”) are balanced and known, the poet writes, by their opposites. An eclipse, for example, implies the existence of a sun. Then Dickinson gets to her real point: Paralysis teaches us what vitality must be.  How real it must seem to someone in the midst of depression or otherwise unable to function properly. The inability to get going, all the parts that are not functioning, all the reasons that discourage action become a textbook for understanding robust life. “Our primer dumb,” she calls it, for paralysis is not only unable to act but to speak.

It’s hard to know what to make of this poem in terms of Dickinson’s life. Some of her poems talk about numbness and a certain horrible inability to move. Yet others are overbrimming with intense life. In her habits she was withdrawn and increasingly reclusive. At the time this poem was written she no  longer was going even into town. Yet her family and close associates describe her as full of life. As always, Dickinson herself is the deepest paradox.

I should have been too glad, I see –

I should have been too glad, I see –

Too lifted – for the scant degree

Of Life's penurious Round –

My little Circuit would have shamed

This new Circumference – have blamed –

The homelier time behind –

I should have been too saved – I see –

Too rescued – Fear too dim to me

That I could spell the Prayer

I knew so perfect – yesterday –

That Scalding One – Sabachthani –

Recited fluent – here –

Earth would have been too much – I see –

And Heaven – not enough for me –

I should have had the Joy

Without the Fear – to justify –

The Palm – without the Calvary –

So Savior – Crucify –

Defeat whets Victory – they say –

The Reefs in old Gethsemane

Endear the Coast beyond –

'Tis Beggars – Banquets best define –

'Tis Parching – vitalizes Wine –

Faith bleats to understand!

                                                                                    F283 (1862)  313

In a tone of heavy sarcasm the poet pretends she is glad she didn’t get something she desperately wanted. It’s just as well, she sneers, that the wonderful thing never happened. Otherwise, 1) she would have been “too glad” and “Too lifted” above the “little Circuit” of her normal life; 2) she would have been “too saved … / “Too rescued” to pray with suitable humble agony; 3) Earth would have become more wonderful than Heaven; and 4) she would have “had the Joy” without the fear or pain or failure that characterize the normal human condition. Does this sound a bit bitter?

            We saw something similar in an earlier poem, “Victory comes late,” where the poet rails against a God who provides too little too late. Victory was awarded someone just moments after he died. “How sweet it would have tasted” earlier, she writes. “Just a Drop – / Was God so economical?” His “Table's spread too high for Us,” she complains.

             In this current poem she scornfully notes “the scant degree / Of Life’s penurious Round.” God is stingy, she’s saying. We’re supposed to keep within our little circle and not rise beyond our station, avoid being “too lifted.”

            The second stanza is particularly harsh. Can one be “too saved”? “Too rescued”? Yes, Dickinson says, for if we aren’t worried about salvation, if the fear is “too dim,” we wouldn’t call out as Jesus did as he was dying on a cross, “Eloi Eloi lama sabachthani?"  –  "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" [Mark 15:34]. If this sense of anguished betrayal is good enough for Jesus, well it’s good enough for her. The sense of betrayal in this prayer is so intense it is “Scalding.” Please God, the poet is saying,  “keep me in fear of my soul so I can still recite it fluently.”

            The third stanza continues in this vein. The great happiness the narrator had hoped for would have made Earth too wonderful. That’s wrong! Heaven should be more wonderful and Earth a place of sorrow and patient misery. What if she had “had the Joy / Without the Fear”? That would have been bad, too. It’s the fear that justifies the triumphal palm fronds. The narrator is (sarcastically) concerned that she would have had the Joy and triumph without the messy death on the cross.  

            She sums it all up in the last stanza. Those shipwrecked on the bloody crosses of Gethsemane will certainly have a greater appreciation of Heaven, “The Coast beyond,” than those who had an easier life. “Beggars” know how to take advantage of a banquet, and if one is dying of thirst, wine tastes really really good.

            The final line employs the metaphor of Christians as dumb sheep by the use of the verb “bleat.” Reason and logic might suggest a loving God would not ensure that happiness is thwarted or that beggars go hungry. But it is and they do. Faith stands in the pasture bleating. Not a pretty picture, but a fitting and remarkable end to this very bitter poem.


**NOTE** A commenter has a different interpretation of this poem -- and I think he is right. The tone is not bitter but rather contemplative and thoughtful as Dickinson considers the smaller life she would have had without the pain, hungers, and defeats.

We play at Paste –

We play at Paste –

Till qualified, for Pearl –

Then, drop the Paste –

And deem Ourself a fool –

The Shapes, tho’, were similar,

And our new Hands

Learned Gem Tactics

Practicing Sands –

                                                            F282 (1862)  320

“Paste” is a heavy and transparent flint glass used in jewelry as imitation gemstones. Faux pearls can also be made out of this material. The central image of this poem is of a jeweler who makes costume jewelry out of such imitations until she is able to work with precious stones and gems. Once “qualified” to use real pearls, Dickinson writes, we “drop the Paste” and think how foolish we ever were to use imitation.

            That’s what the first stanza of this poem tells us. But then the second stanza assures us that we haven’t been so very foolish after all.  Because the “Shapes … were similar”  we learned something about the look and feel of gems and how to handle them. We learned “Gem Tactics” even though we were just "Practicing" with "Sands."  Sands, here, stands in for "glass" as glass was made from high-silica sand.

The stones are glass, or paste, but unless we had real diamonds,
rubies, and emeralds, we might think this a great ring!

           The poem can be read, I think, as a metaphor for mature love. Our first love will probably not be our last.  We may even feel a little red-faced about the whole episode when we look back. Yet without that experience we may not have been able to recognize our true love – or to know how to love.

            Dickinson may also be talking about her development as a poet. Some of her early poetry is derivative and sounds a bit like other women’s Victorian poetry of her time. But it becomes apparent – at least it has to me as I  make my way through the poems chronologically – that she learns to recognize and use her Muse. The art and craft of poetry doesn’t just miraculously appear but are the result of “Gem Tactics” learned only after much practice. The metaphor of gems for poems is particularly apt for Dickinson’s verse: hard, clear, and polished to a burn.

Me, change! Me, alter!

Me, change! Me, alter!

Then I will, when on the Everlasting Hill

A Smaller Purple grows –

At sunset, or a lesser glow

Flickers upon Cordillera –

At Day's superior close!

                                                            281 (1862)  268

This short poem expresses a sort of shocked outrage at the notion that the narrator could change. Perhaps a lover has suggested that her feelings may not last; that what she feels today she may not feel next year.

Cotopaxi, Frederick Church, 1862

            Not so, she protests. As long as the sunset fills the evening sky with purple or “Flickers upon Cordillera,” I will remain constant. “Cordillera” is Spanish for mountain range. Dickinson would probably be referring to the Andes here. Her Yankee compatriot, Frederick Church was painting wildly popular scenes from South America and no doubt Dickinson was familiar with them. Dickinson scholar Judith Farr notes that Church’s “The Heart of the Andes,” an epic picture based on Ecuadoran scenery, “was not a mere painting but a national event in 1859." Cotopaxi, another famous Church painting, shows a sunset made vivid by smoke and ash from the volcano.

Dickson emphasizes her indignation by using a spondee to begin the poem: “Me, Change.” The next line begins with an anapast (“Then I will”) that delivers an internal rhyme with “Everlasting Hill.” The contrast between the first and second lines sets up the contrast between change and the flowing continuity of nights and sunsets.

The World – stands – solemner – to me –

The World – stands – solemner – to me –

Since I was wed – to Him –

A modesty – befits the soul

That bears another's – name –

A doubt – if it be fair – indeed –

To wear that perfect – pearl –

The Man – upon the Woman – binds –

To clasp her soul – for all –

A prayer, that it more angel – prove –

A whiter Gift – within –

To that munificence, that chose –

So unadorned – a Queen –

A Gratitude – that such be true –

It had esteemed the Dream –

Too beautiful – for Shape to prove –

Or posture – to redeem!

                                                            F280 (1862)  493

Dickinson wrote several poems imagining marriage or using marriage metaphorically. In F185, “A Wife – at daybreak – I shall be – ” she presents Death as the occasion for becoming a bride. In F194, “Title divine, is mine,” she has become a wife but without the ring or the “swoon,” as if she has made a heavenly or spiritual marriage. F225, “I’m ‘wife’ – I’ve finished that,” she contrasts the “Czar” status of a married woman versus the “pain” of “That other state” – being a spinster. Another poem, F267, “Rearrange a ‘Wife’s’ Affection!”, once more is based on a secret and probably unconsummated love. The “Secret” is “bandaged” until the lovers are united in death. In all of these poems, marriage is a perfected state.

The pearl that binds--popular in Victorian
wedding rings

            Dickinson never married although she had several loves. A couple of the poems mentioned above were sent to Samuel Bowles, a married man. Another love was Judge Lord. After he became a widower in 1877 he proposed to her. She turned him down.

            In this poem, written at least 15 years before that, she explores what it might mean to be a wife. She has somewhat mixed feelings. Because she employs poetic contraction to intensify the feeling, the poem benefits from a bit of unpacking.

            The first two lines summarize the poem: the new wife regards the world as “solemner” now that she is married. That sounds odd – why more solemn rather than more rich or happy or content? The rest of the poem illustrates what the first two lines mean.

            First, the young bride has given up her own name to take that of her husband and this should create a sense of modesty in her soul. She is no longer entire of herself. Second, she entertains a bit of doubt: was it “fair” – that is, wise and good – to take the wedding ring? What should be the “perfect – pearl” (a very popular gemstone for wedding rings in Dickinson’s day) is binding: it “clasps” her soul for always. A pearl was and is thought to represent purity and innocence. Does the poet really want to wear such a gem?

            She then gives a little prayer that the pearl inspire her soul to be more angel-like, that she may offer it as “A whiter Gift” in response to her husband’s generous “munificence.” His choosing to marry her is generous because she is “So unadorned.”

            The poem ends with the new wife expressing her “Gratitude” that he has indeed chosen her for she had thought it impossible – just a “Dream / Too beautiful” to be true.  

            So overall, what is she saying about marriage? If a beloved man clasps a woman’s soul, it behooves her to be grateful and modest. I see Dickinson’s point, and it is a wonderful love poem, but it sounds a bit quaint in these post-Feminist times.

Of all the Souls that stand create –

Of all the Souls that stand create –

I have elected – One –

When Sense from Spirit – files away –

And Subterfuge – is done –

When that which is – and that which was –

Apart – intrinsic – stand –

And this brief Drama in the flesh –

Is shifted – like a Sand –

When Figures show their royal Front –

And Mists – are carved away,

Behold the Atom – I preferred –

To all the lists of Clay!

                                                            F279 (1862)  664

The poet here declares that out of all the souls ever created she has chosen only one. In a show of love and loyalty she goes on to say that when earthly life has been stripped away and the souls are stripped to their essence, her chosen one will be a pure and elemental atom while all the rest will be common, erodable clay.

            Dickinson chooses the common hymn structure – alternating iambic tetrameter and trimeter and rhymes in every other line beginning with line 2 – as befits this hymn-like testament to a dear friend or lover. She also makes much use of alliterative “S”: Souls, Sense, Spirit, Subterfuge, intrinsic, stand, Sand, Mists, lists. These “S”s gives a fluid sound, like the Sand of life shifting to a different form or the filaments of our physical senses as times files them away from our inner spirit. That latter image suggests the elderly who although no longer able to see or hear or walk as well as they did in earlier years seem pared down to the essence of what makes them who they are. Some seem spiritual, others noble, while others harsh and proud. And that is what the next line suggests: when “Subterfuge – is done,” for when we are beyond the last breath, stripped of flesh and dress and the expressions we have learned to adopt for society, we will not be able to mask ourselves by means of such small deceits.

Water and wind carve the cliffs – here hidden by mist

            In one interesting line, the fifth, she uses the “wh” alliterative: When, which, which was. This nicely underscores the parallel construction of “that which is”  and “that which was.” The present (“is”) and the past (“was”) are, after the Spirit is liberated from the Sense (flesh), standing “Apart.” They are now of different realms, their true natures revealed. The revelation is like the clarity with which we see a landscape when the morning mists are burned off by the sun. Dickinson uses the wonderful expression “carved away,” which brings in the suggestion of erosion and time. Rocky pinnacles are often all that’s left of a hillside after eons of wind and rain have carved the soil and softer rock away.

            The last two lines are triumphant. “Behold,” the poet instructs us. Look at the beautiful essense of my loved one. Compare her (or him) to all those other folk – the “lists of Clay!” Like a diamond, she endures.