To die—takes just a little while—

To die—takes just a little while—

They say it doesn't hurt—

It's only fainter—by degrees—

And then—it's out of sight—

A darker Ribbon—for a Day—

A Crape upon the Hat—

And then the pretty sunshine comes—

And helps us to forget—

The absent—mystic—creature—

That but for love of us—

Had gone to sleep—that soundest time—

Without the weariness –

                                                            F315 (1862)  255

Dickinson wields two strikes against the dying process here: 1) the dying person is quickly forgotten; and 2) dying might be less exhausting if the person weren’t surrounded by loved ones and visitors.

Crape mourning cap and ribbons

            In the first stanza she dismisses the gravity of death: it takes “just a little while” and “it doesn’t hurt.” The life of the dying becomes gradually “fainter” until it fades completely from sight. And then, the poet continues, we put on a black ribbon and a bit of crape “for a Day” to show our sorrow and respect. (Crape is a crisp, wrinkled fabric used either to accent a mourning dress or as the primary material. What made it attractive for mourning is that the material reflects no light at all, making it extremely drab—unlike the silks that ladies of the day favored. Black, drab, and stiff. What could be a better fabric for saying good-by?)

            The mourning is soon put by, however, when “the pretty sunshine comes.” This sentiment seems to contradict the very raw grief she expresses in earlier poems for those loved ones of her own who died. As an example, in “I got so I could take his name,” she writes:

I got so I could take his name—

Without—Tremendous gain—

That Stop-sensation—on my Soul—

And Thunder—in the Room—

as if she had been suffering intensely over a man’s death for quite a long time.

           To be fair, she also wrote poetry about how life does indeed just keep on in its petty pace from day to day despite death. In “If I should die,” she claims that knowing this “keeps the soul serene.”

'Tis sweet to know that stocks will stand

When we with Daisies lie—

That Commerce will continue—

And Trades as briskly fly—

It makes the parting tranquil

And keeps the soul serene—

The last stanza bears a bit more of the Dickinsonian touch that I always look for. The dead person has been transformed into a “mystic—creature.” That mystery is at the heart of many of Dickinson’s poems. She was transfixed by what happened at the moment of death, what came immediately after, and what would be happening eons later. In this poem she simply looks at the dying process from the vantage of the one dying: If it weren’t for our “love”—and by this I think she means all the tearful farewells and cheery chitchats that demand the sufferer’s attention—death would go a lot more peacefully.

            It’s sad to think of someone dying after being wearied by visitors. Dickinson is suggesting that we try to let that loved one die, the “soundest” sleep of all, without all the disruption and fuss.

            For all that it makes a rather cutting criticism of Victorian death practices, the poem is quite gentle. It starts by soothing us about death: it doesn’t take that long, it doesn’t hurt. Then the poet moves to the mourners: they may feel very sad for a short while but then life moves on, the sun comes out, and we go back to the business of being alive. Even the last stanza is gentle: the dying person puts up all the visitors no matter how taxing because he or she loves them. And then, weary at last, slips off into profound rest.

"Hope" is the thing with feathers—

"Hope" is the thing with feathers—

That perches in the soul—

And sings the tune without the words—

And never stops—at all—

And sweetest—in the Gale—is heard—

And sore must be the storm—

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm—

I've heard it in the chillest land—

And on the strangest Sea—

Yet—never—in Extremity,

It asked a crumb—of Me.

                                                            F314 (1862)  254

Common Yellow Throat
William Wander

This is one of the most well-known poems of Emily Dickinson. The first line, with its substitution of “thing with feathers” for “bird” gives the reader an immediate discovery moment. And it seems right, too. Hope is rather like a bird “perch[ing] in the soul” and, at least for some people, who never stops. Dickinson was apparently one of those lucky souls whose hope never died—or at least it hadn’t died by 1862.  The essence of hope, as Dickinson portrays it, is that it “never stops” singing its tune, no matter how difficult the circumstances—and yet it never asks for even “a crumb” to keep going.

            This is, as are many of Dickinson’s poems, written in standard hymn form: four-line stanzas with iambic tetrameter alternating with iambic trimeter. The rhyme scheme is loosely ABAB, but Dickinson plays with it a little. The “er” sound in “feathers” does go well with the same sound in “words,” although it isn’t such a close slant rhyme as “soul” with “all” or “storm” with “warm.” The “er” sound is carried through the poem, however, adding aural unity: perches, feathers, words, never, heard, Bird, heard, never—and, related, storm and warm.

You see I cannot see—your lifetime—

You see I cannot see—your lifetime—

I must guess—

How many times it ache for me—today—Confess—

How many times for my far sake

The brave eyes film—

But I guess guessing hurts—

Mine—got so dim!

Too vague—the face—

My own—so patient—covets—

Too far—the strength—

My timidness enfolds—

Haunting the Heart—

Like her translated faces—

Teasing the want—

It—only—can suffice!

                                                            F313 (1862)  253

Christina Rossetti (1866)
another famous woman in love

In this simple love poem, the poet wonders if her lover misses her the way she misses him (or her). Although she imagines that he “aches” for missing her, she can only guess at how often that happens. She imagines his eyes filming with tears and confesses that her own “got so dim” with her own tears.

            When someone is gone for a long time we lose a clear mental picture of them. And so Dickinson writes that the face she “covets” has become “vague” in her imagination. Although she misses his strength, she believes her own timidness can increase it.

            Like so many lovers, she wants to haunt his heart, tease out the love he has for her alone, for it would surely would not do to have him forget her or find someone else.   

I can wade Grief—

I can wade Grief—

Whole Pools of it—

I'm used to that—

But the least push of Joy

Breaks up my feet—

And I tip—drunken—

Let no Pebble—smile—

'Twas the New Liquor—

That was all!

Power is only Pain—

Stranded, thro' Discipline,

Till Weights—will hang—

Give Balm—to Giants—

And they'll wilt, like Men—

Give Himmaleh—

They'll Carry—Him!

                                                           F 312 (1862)  252

            Dickinson gets at a truth here that many of us have experienced. We can hold up in difficult circumstances, but let anyone come with a bit of sympathy and we crumble. It might be therapeutic, but it sure breaks the stoic stance.

            She begins with the image of herself pushing through grief as if wading through a deep pool. That’s what she’s used to. But let a little happiness come her way and it trips her up as if she’s drunk. She finds this a bit funny, though, and warns the rocks not to laugh at her. “”Twas the New Liquor” that caused it. That’s the problem.

            She changes mood in the second stanza which is a contemplation of power and strength. The stanza contains two epigraph: Power is only Pain— / Stranded, thro’ Discipline, / Till Weights—will hang; and “Give Balm—to Giants— / And they’ll wilt, like Men— / Give Himmaleh— / They’ll Carry—Him!

These epigrams frame two reverse views of power. In the first we learn that power isn’t some gift but rather is the result of pain that, through discipline, can bear weight on its own. “That which does not kill  me makes me stronger,” as Nietzsche put it. “No pain, no gain,” as the 90s slogan went. Pain stiffens the spine and strengthens the sinews. It forges the soul. It becomes able to bear a heavy burden.

            The second epigram says that what wilts power is balm for the pain. The strongest person—a Giant!— can carry a burden heavy as the Himalayas. But as soon as you try to assuage and soothe him, he becomes as weak as an ordinary mortal.

I know some lonely Houses off the Road

I know some lonely Houses off the Road

A Robber'd like the look of—

Wooden barred,

And Windows hanging low,

Inviting to—

A Portico,

Where two could creep—

One—hand the Tools—

The other peep—

To make sure all's asleep—

Old fashioned eyes—

Not easy to surprise!

How orderly the Kitchen'd look, by night,

With just a Clock—

But they could gag the Tick—

And Mice won't bark—

And so the Walls—don't tell—

None—will—

A pair of Spectacles ajar just stir—

An Almanac's aware—

Was it the Mat—winked,

Or a Nervous Star?

The Moon—slides down the stair—

To see who's there!

There's plunder—where—

Tankard, or Spoon—

Earring—or Stone—

A Watch—Some Ancient Brooch

To match the Grandmama—

Staid sleeping—there—

Day—rattles—too

Stealth's—slow—

The Sun has got as far

As the third Sycamore—

Screams Chanticleer

"Who's there"?

And Echoes—Trains away,

Sneer—"Where"!

While the old Couple, just astir,

Fancy the Sunrise—left the door ajar!

                                                                                 F 311 (1862)  289

Oh, this one is just fun. Here’s Miss Dickinson planning to burgle a nice “old Couple” while they sleep. I see her acting the poem out, declaiming it as an actress would and using plenty of gestures. She creeps and peeps and snatches plunder and then stealthily steals away.

            The first line sets the scene and readers know they’re in for a story. We Dickinson fans are waiting for the twist that surprises us into some higher consciousness, but for once we are treated to a simple story. It would go well at night, sitting with an audience of children, perhaps, out on the front steps.

            We first see the house from the eyes of the robbers. It’s a tempting target with its “Windows hanging low and a portico or porch that helps shield them from view. Then the vantage shifts and we see it rather objectively although from the point of view of a woman. Instead of looking at locks and doors we instead see how the kitchen looks “orderly,” and how the spectacles are lying open on some shelf. An almanac is open. It’s also “aware”—must be all the intelligence it holds that gives it this faculty. Even the door mat gets a mention.

            The “plunder” doesn’t sound particularly rich: a tankard, silver spoon, earrings, old jewelry. The “Ancient Brooch” matches the sleeping “Grandmama.” She is “staid” as well as “old fashioned.” She and Grandpapa are simple, trusting sould. Even their rooster is slow off the mark. He doesn’t get alarmed until the sun hits “the third Sycamore.” And by that time the robbers have made their getaway. They are as distant as the receding trains whose whistles can be heard far off in the distance.

The Dickinson house looks pretty tempting. Maybe
she was trying to encourage them to be more watchful...

            The last stanza has the old couple wondering why their door is open. “The sunrise did it,” is their best guess. They may never miss the stolen objects or figure out how the robbers gagged the ticking clock. The mice aren’t talking and the walls are as uncommunicative as always.

            I wonder if Dickinson isn’t making a fond joke about the forgetful elderly. They hobble off to bed forgetting to shut the door. They have misplaced some things. It’s as if burglers paid a visit in the night. Heck, I’ve had days like that. The old jewelry is eventually found behind some book, the spoon is down the garbage disposal, and the earrings … well, I never have figured out where they go!

            To help the oral delivery (whether aloud or just to the internal ear), Dickinson weaves in slant and recurring rhymes. The second half of the first stanza, for example, has (and I’m adjusting spelling and punctuation for modern tastes): “Inviting, too; / A portico, / Where two could creep — / One—hand the Tools— / The other [robber] peep[s]– / To make sure all’s asleep— / Old fashioned eyes— / [Are] not easy to surprise!”

            That gives us “too / Portico / two; creep / peep / asleep; and eyes / surprise. These are quiet sounds and the stanza should be read in a suspenseful whisper. The second stanza has ‘noisier’ rhymes, and words with hard consonants: Kitchen / Clock / Tick / bark. My favorite line is the one where “The Moon—slides down the stair— / To see whose there!”

A shady friend – for Torrid days –

A shady friend—for Torrid days—

Is easier to find—

Than one of higher temperature

For Frigid—hour of Mind—

The Vane a little to the East—

Scares Muslin souls—away—

If Broadcloth Hearts are firmer—

Than those of Organdy—

Who is to blame?  The Weaver?

Ah, the bewildering thread!

The Tapestries of Paradise

So notelessly—are made!

                                                           F 306 (1862)  278

Part of Dickinson’s art is how she can use some of the most common objects to  make an abstract or philosophical point. In this poem she points to temperament differences among people and intrinsic gender differences between men and women, suggesting that “The Weaver” is “to blame.” That puts Dickinson squarely on the side of Nature rather than Nurture. We are how our creator made us.

            In each of the first two stanzas the poet compares two types of people, one type superior in some way to the other. “Shady” friends are compared to those of “higher temperature.” The shady (in the ‘giving shade’ sense rather than the ‘disreputable’ sense) friends are more plentiful. You’d want one of them to provide relief from days of emotional distress or when feelings run high. Going out with a good-time Sally or Tom can help take your mind off your problems. Their good spirits help cool the “Torrid” emotions. The metaphor is of taking shelter from the hot sun beneath a shade tree or umbrella.

            Friends with “higher temperature” have a more difficult task. The “Frigid—hour of Mind” is one of emotional paralysis or depression. The sufferer is cold and numb. That Dickinson struggled with this herself might be inferred from “Speech is a Prank of Parliament,” where “the Heart with the heaviest freight on – / Doesn't – always – move – (F193); or in F308, “I breathed enough to take the Trick,” where she writes as someone going through the motions of life, while inside the “Lungs are stirless”: the “Bellows” feel “numb.”  

            The sort of friend needed here vibrant and warm; a bit of their life can spill over into the “Frigid” friend. I suspect that for many people the “good-time Sally” is vibrant and warm and lively enough, but Dickinson’s unsparing intelligence and intensity would require someone with a fine mind, strong spirit, and plenty of heart.

Individual threads have no way of knowing how
 they fit in the overall tapestry

            In the next stanza the poet uses fabric to contrast the courage of men and women. When the nor’easters blow, women in their delicate muslins and organdy dresses run for shelter. Men, in their sturdier broadcloth suits are “firmer.” The last two lines of this stanza go with the first of the next. If men are braver, who is “to blame”? Did “The Weaver” make them this way, as he made the Leopard (276)? We’ll never know why one thread was used versus another, or why the tapestry pattern is as it is. Heaven lacks transparency, to use a modern term. The notes aren’t available to us here.

            Perhaps C.S. Lewis had been reading Dickinson when he wrote his space trilogy (Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, That Hideous Strength), for he ends with the image of human lives unknowingly weaving a divine tapestry, each thread unaware of its roll in the pattern. It is a view of life that offers a great deal of rational satisfaction. 

"Heaven"—is what I cannot reach!

"Heaven"—is what I cannot reach!

The Apple on the Tree—

Provided it do hopeless—hang—

That—"Heaven" is—to Me!

The Color, on the Cruising Cloud—

The interdicted Land—

Behind the Hill—the House behind—

There—Paradise—is found!

Her teasing Purples—Afternoons—

The credulous—decoy—

Enamored—of the Conjuror—

That spurned us—Yesterday!

                                                                            F310 (1862)  239

Heaven is that apple hanging hopelessly out of reach, the color of a distant cloud, the taboo land where a house is hidden behind a hill. It teases us, like the June bee of an earlier poem, with its beautiful purple afternoons until we forget that just yesterday it “spurned” us. That’s again like the mocking sky of the June bee poem (The nearest Dream recedes—unrealized—).

            It is possible, however, that Dickinson is doing something quite different here. Perhaps she is talking about her old passion for her friend and sister-in-law Sue (or some other woman). Via David Preest (p. 75):

“Paula Bennett convincingly suggests that the heaven out of reach is the unobtainable Sue. ‘Purple’ is a suitable colour for Sue, who has such a rich personality that, even when she ‘spurned [Emily] yesterday,’ she easily by her magic decoys Emily into remaining enamoured of her. Bennett is prepared to believe that the hill which guards the house of Paradise is Sue’s mons Veneris.

            “If we could know that Emily had read translations of Sappho’s poems, some support for Bennett’s theory would be given by the fact that ‘the unreachable apple’

was a metaphor first used by the lesbian poet Sappho for the untouched maiden who

hung like an apple on the topmost branch of the tree ‘by harvester….not reached.’”

Kill your Balm—and its Odors bless you—

Kill your Balm—and its Odors bless you—

Bare your Jessamine—to the storm—

And she will fling her maddest perfume—

Haply—your Summer night to Charm—

Stab the Bird—that built in your bosom—

Oh, could you catch her last Refrain—

Bubble! "forgive"—"Some better"—Bubble!

"Carol for Him—when I am gone"!

                                                                        F 309 (1862)  238

The poem begins in a solemn paradox: The beautiful fragrance of soothing balms comes from plants killed for that purpose. Jasmine, whose flowers are among the most fragrant, will “fling her  maddest perfume” after being stripped and pressed.

Dickinson continues with this idea in the very powerful “Essential Oils—are wrung” poem she wrote in 1863:

Essential Oils—are wrung—

The Attar from the Rose

Be not expressed by Suns—alone—

It is the gift of Screws— 

                                               F 772 (1863)  675

In one of the most dramatic contrasts in any of her poems so far, Dickinson follows the rather quaint line “Haply—your Summer night to Charm—” with Stab the Bird…” The “Charm” followed by “Stab” is brutal. The brutality is subtly reinforced by the alliterative “b” sounds: stab, Bird, built, bosom; and then later in that stanza the repeated “Bubble!”

            It’s a bitter poem, overflowing with pathos. The poet is the Balm, the Jessamine, and the stabbed Bird nesting in her lover's heart. She is telling her lover that even though he has or is killing her she will still fling her love at him hoping that it will “Charm” him on summer nights. She claims that her “last Refrain” as a dying bird will be to bubble “forgive,” that he will find someone better who may sing for him after she is gone. I wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of this poem—talk about guilt trips!

            The poem recalls Alexander Pope’s line (if memory serves as Google has not) about “the bird that presses its breast against a thorn to sing.” Love, balm, and song may find their most lyrical and passionate expression under intense pain.

I breathed enough to take the Trick—

I breathed enough to take the Trick—

And now, removed from Air—

I simulate the Breath, so well—

That One, to be quite sure—

The Lungs are stirless—must descend

Among the Cunning Cells—

And touch the Pantomime—Himself,

How numb, the Bellows feels!

                                                           F 308 (1862)  272

Dickinson is writing here as one who is only going through the motions of living. Having taken breath all her life, she learned the “Trick” of looking like she’s breathing even if she’s “removed from Air.” Her lungs are “stirless,” not moving at all. “One” would have to get down at her cellular level to discover this “Pantomime” and find out how “numb” the bellows of her lungs really are.  

To Dickinson, the soul is forged within the body.

            It is interesting to me, 308 poems into Dickinson’s opus, how often she has referred to her or another’s body as a smithy or forge, or even a volcano—a place built around containing fire. In this poem her lungs are “the Bellows.”  In “By a flower – By a letter,” her desire for love is manically welding rivets and working at an anvil with “sooty faces tugging at the Forge.” In “How many times these low feet staggered,” a dead housewife’s mouth is soldered, her heart is a rivet, and her ribcage “hasps of steel.” The blacksmith’s forge of this woman’s life is no longer working.

            Later in 1862, Dickinson will write “Dare you see a Soul at the White Heat?” In this amazing and widely anthologized poem Dickinson presents the blacksmith’s shop as a metaphor for processes within the soul. Its

                               …     Anvil's even ring

Stands symbol for the finer Forge

That soundless tugs -- within --

Refining these impatient Ores

With Hammer, and with Blaze

The current poem is rather frightening poem in that its language is like that of someone in deep depression: she is numb, just going through the motions, and no one understands. Yet it is this repressed life symbolized by the blacksmith’s forge that from time to time erupts in the heat that makes so many of Dickinson’s poems so very memorable.  

A solemn thing—it was—I said—

A solemn thing—it was—I said—

A woman—white—to be—

And wear—if God should count me fit—

Her blameless mystery—

A hallowed thing—to drop a life

Into the purple well—

Too plummetless—that it return—

Eternity—until—

I pondered how the bliss would look—

And would it feel as big—

When I could take it in my hand—

As hovering—seen—through fog—

And then—the size of this "small" life—

The Sages—call it small—

Swelled—like Horizons—in my vest—

And I sneered—softly—"small"!

                                                           F 307 (1862)  271

At about the time of this poem, Emily Dickinson was beginning to withdraw from the society she once enjoyed, wear a simple white dress, and concentrate on her poetry.  In an earlier poem, “For this—accepted Breath,” she declared her calling and passion to be a poet. In this current poem she frames the calling in religious terms.

            Nuns, prior to the end of the 1800s, wore white, the color of purity. Dickinson here says she, too, will wear the consecrated white—“if God should count me fit” to enter into a nun’s “blameless mystery.” Nuns, as brides of Christ, found their special marital bliss is without carnal relations. That’s where the “blameless mystery” comes in. Dickinson is taking on the nun’s white as a metaphor for her consecration to a poet's introspective life. She, too, will be married to that which she serves.

            The second stanza continues the religious analogy. The poet stands at the edge of the “purple well” of inspiration and considers submerging herself in it. That would be “A hallowed thing,” she muses, to drop her life into that well. So deep is it (“plummetless,” or beyond all means of calculation),  that she would never emerge until coming out the other side into “Eternity.”  Dropping her life into this deep well would be to truly consecrate herself.

            As she waits, contemplating the well, the poet wonders about the “bliss” she senses at the other side.  She had been writing about the numinous and the liminal in such recent poems as “It’s like the Light” and “The Love a Life can show Below.” In those poems Dickinson describes a “fashionless Delight” and a “diviner thing” that “enchants” us. Now that she is about to drop her life into the well where this “bliss” might be encountered, she wonders if it will seem as “big” there as when she can only see it “hovering—seen—through fog.” She imagines being able to take this elusive quality in her hand as if it might be tangible from inside the well. Making the abstract tangible is part of what makes Dickinson such a startling poet, so I think she succeeded.

Whistler painted "The White Girl"
a year before Dickinson wrote this poem

This book was serialized in 1859. Women in white 
were on people's minds…

            The poem ends in a sardonic, almost sarcastic, note. Some big shot, a “sage,” must have said something about her life, or perhaps women’s lives in general, being “small.” Perhaps it was a comment made to contrast a woman’s home-centered life with that of a man’s: baking, gardening, and nurturing might seem small to some compared to soldiering, earning a wage, and voting (which women were prohibited from doing). But Dickinson reports that she “sneered” at that idea. Far from her life being small, she felt it expanding like the world itself, stretching from one side of the sky to the other.

            Dickinson develops that idea further in “The Brain is wider than the Sky,” a poem she wrote the following year:

The Brain—is wider than the Sky—


For—put them side by side—


The one the other will contain


With ease—and You—beside—