I could bring You Jewels—had I a mind to—

I could bring You Jewels—had I a mind to—
But You have enough—of those—
I could bring You Odors from St. Domingo—
Colors—from Vera Cruz—

Berries of the Bahamas—have I—
But this little Blaze
Flickering to itself—in the Meadow—
Suits Me—more than those—

Never a Fellow matched this Topaz—
And his Emerald Swing—
Dower itself—for Bobadilo—
Better—Could I bring?


   -F726, J696, Fascicle 35, 1863


The riddle of this poem goes, “What is a blaze flickering to itself in a meadow, or a topaz on an emerald swing?” David Preest helpfully provides us with the answer: “This poem was probably sent to Emily's sister-in-law Sue and was accompanied by a meadow flower known as a ‘jewelweed.”

compare this jewelweed with a topaz

I’d love to see a book published with all of the poems that Emily Dickinson sent to her friends that were accompanied by flowers. There are many of them. This one, like the flower it describes, is a gem.

The poem’s diction is flowery and full of exotic words; Domingo, Vera Cruz, Bahamas, Topaz and Bobadilo. 

The Dickinson Lexicon tells me Bobadilo is “Francisco de Bobadilla (d. 1502); Spanish governor of Santo Domingo who ordered the arrest of Christopher Columbus and sent him back to Spain in chains; [fig.] autocrat; wealthy man; powerful leader.” 

The phrase that stands out to me in this poem is "this little Blaze/ Flickering to itself." This could be a description of Sue, by all accounts a strong-minded woman, who drew Emily to her like a moth to a flame. 

    Susan Huntington Gilbert Dickinson

The poet tells the recipient she could give her expensive exotic gifts, if she had a “mind” to. (How? Well, Dickinson has a great mind, she’d figure it out!) But none of these rare things would match what she has in her own back yard of Amherst. Here I think of one of my favorite Dickinson poems, F597, which begins "'Tis little I — could care for Pearls —/ Who own the Ample sea —" Dickinson found her wealth in the natural world, and moreover, she loved to share the wealth with friends and loved ones, of which we can now include ourselves. 

   -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Their Height in Heaven comforts not—

Their Height in Heaven comforts not—
Their Glory—nought to me—
’Twas best imperfect—as it was—
I’m finite—I can’t see—

The House of Supposition—
The Glimmering Frontier that skirts the Acres of Perhaps—
To Me—shows insecure—

The Wealth I had—contented me—
If ’twas a meaner size—
Then I had counted it until
It pleased my narrow Eyes—

Better than larger values—
That show however true—
This timid life of Evidence
Keeps pleading—”I don’t know.”


     -F725, J696, Fascicle 35, 1863


When trying to make sense of Dickinson’s poems it is helpful to read them in order as she preserved them. This poem is handwritten in the fascicle directly after one in which these lines appear, “How high — Unto the Saints' slow diligence  — The Sky —”

This poem seems to be continuing this thought. The “Their” and “They” in the first stanza appear to be referring to these saints. In the previous poem it appears, at first, that Dickinson is encouraging perseverance toward "The Sky,” toward the "Goal." But in this one she makes it clear that she was happier with her “meaner” lot on earth. In other words the previous poem is informed and changed by reading this one, and vice versa.

Dickinson is not comforted by the saints on high. Their glory is nothing to her. Why? Because she’s finite. She can’t see the infinite “Eternity.”

Often when reading Dickinson’s poems I am reminded of William Blake. When I read “I’m finite,” I think of Blake’s lines, “If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern.” But whereas Blake is pointing toward the necessity of cleansing the doors of perception, Dickinson, the realist, is admitting she is finite. (For a terrific comparison of Dickinson and Blake’s work see Alan Blackstock’s article, “Dickinson, Blake and the Hymnbooks of Hell.”)

The “House of Supposition” in the second stanza also strikes me as Blakean. (I think of Blake’s “The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.”) This stanza is a gem:

The House of Supposition—
The Glimmering Frontier that skirts the Acres of Perhaps—
To Me—shows insecure—

(You expect a line break after "Frontier," but there isn't one in the original MS.) Here you have the house made up of suppositions. Around this house you have acres of perhaps. And beyond all this guessing you have the "glimmering frontier" of Heaven. All of the talk of the Glory of Heaven is just supposition. We can’t say for sure with our finite eyes what lies beyond.

The word “frontier” is interesting here. It has a distinctly American flavor, and conflates the Western frontier  with the idea of heaven, putting one in mind of the problematic "manifest destiny."

Also interesting is the word “insecure.” Though it is the house of supposition that is insecure, I think the way Dickinson words this implies that the supposed glory of heaven is a product of insecurity. It "shows insecure." If you are insecure about what you have here and now, you may delude yourself with thoughts of the hereafter. This sets up the next stanza:

The Wealth I had—contented me—
If ’twas a meaner size—
Then I had counted it until
It pleased my narrow Eyes—

The speaker is contended by the meaner wealth she "had." The past tense of the verb "have" is worth noting here. The speaker no longer has the thing that contented her. This may be a clue that Dickinson is speaking of lost love. This poem fits in with the many previous poems pointing to the loss of a lover to the lover's faith, which some suspect to be the Reverend Charles Wadsworth. (See for example F706 where this is made explicit, “For You – served Heaven – You know, Or sought to –/ I could not –/ Because You saturated Sight –/And I had no more Eyes/ For sordid excellence/ As Paradise”) So Wadsworth may well be the “They” referred to in the beginning of this poem. (Sue Dickinson is another possibility.) One way to read this poem is: "I lost you to heaven, but I have no comfort of ever seeing you there, since I don't know if it exists. Meanwhile I have lost you, the smaller wealth that pleased my “narrow eyes."

Better than larger values—
That show however true—
This timid life of Evidence
Keeps pleading—”I don’t know.”

In the final stanza of the poem we are told that the larger values (heaven, Eternity, etc) may be true, but we can’t know for sure. The timid evidence we have pleads “I don’t know.” This implies that, conversely, the smaller, meaner value is something that, though it may now be gone, at least there was evidence for. It was, at least, known.

Which all goes to say, "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may."

   -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

While looking for images for "glimmering frontier" I found this one, 

from a video game called Shimmering Frontier.

Look at those lovely Acres of Perhaps! 

Each Life converges to some Centre—

Each Life converges to some Centre—
Expressed — or still —
Exists in every Human Nature
A Goal —

Embodied (Admitted) scarcely to itself — it may be —
Too fair
For Credibility's presumption (temerity)
To mar (dare)—

Adored (Beheld) with caution — as a Brittle Heaven —
To reach
Were hopeless, as the Rainbow's Raiment
To touch —

Yet persevered toward — surer (stricter) — for the Distance —
How high —
Unto the Saints' slow diligence (industry) — The Sky —

Ungained — it may be — in a Life's low Venture —
But then —
Eternity enable the endeavoring
Again.

- F724, J680, Fascicle 35, 1863

*Alternate words for this poem I have added in parentheses.

When your goal is to get through 1800 Emily Dickinson poems, you don't want to spend too much time on just one. And yet almost all of Dickinson’s poems deserve lingering over. Poems such as this one need time to germinate and take root.

It’s a similar problem I had when I was reading Proust. There are a few thousand very dense pages of Proust's masterpiece "Remembrance of Things Past," and because of its length, we have tendency to want to push forward to try to get to the end. But this approach is antithetical to Proust. His sentences force you to slow down if you want to really understand them. Sometimes I read a Proustian sentence 5 or 6 times and I still haven’t come close to reaching the bottom of it. But each time I re-read it I go leagues deeper than the last time. In fact that’s WHY I read Proust, and it's part of the reason why I read Dickinson too. (Clarice Lispector comes to mind as well.) They demand slow reading. They are, in this sense, the best teachers for how to live life, which, when done well, demands slowing down considerably. It seems to me that most people are speed reading through life and yet the slower you go, the more the world comes to fruition, and the more "still" it is.

The task of getting a cogent reading of this poem across does seem as impossible as touching the raiment of a rainbow. This poem does, in that sense, mirror its own message. The rainbow of this poem glimmers, but when you try to touch it, the brittle heaven within breaks into a thousand pieces.

First of all, I'm not even sure whether this is meant to be a poem encouraging patience and diligence to reach the sky, or one exposing the futility of such a thing. If you read the 723 poems preceding this one you might come down on team Futility. Dickinson often seems to be pointing toward the idea of some future heaven as sham. Is the “sky” in this poem, and the Eternity we are given to reach it, real or illusion?

Regardless of which team you side with, I find this poem inspiring in the same way that I find Don Quixote inspiring. Quixote’s quest is, perhaps, idiotic. Why would you fight with windmills? But the romance, the hope, the chivalry, the imagination, and all that accompanies Quixote’s quest is the stuff that makes life so beautiful. So who's the idiot, the mocker or the mocked?

Each life converges to one center. Dickinson is tricky. Off the bat we have a statement that subverts itself. First of all, where is this center? Is it inside of us? Is it in front of us? If the center is the goal of life, as the 4th line of the first stanza leads us to believe, then is it a target we are aiming for? You might say this first line, itself, has more than one center.

The center already exists, inside of us, a kind of a primal core, but it is also something toward which we are converging. We are converging toward the center of ourselves, toward the center of life, is one way you might read this. This can either be Expressed (as it is in this poem) or Still. We can will the expression of this center, via some action, or we can just be "still," and be. The center is both there in stillness, and it is there as the end result of action. It's a rich paradox.

I once had a dream when I was a boy in which I saw a headless statue. At the base of the statue were the words “Thou wilt be what thou wilt be.” In the dream I knew these words were meant to be words to live by, but upon waking I wondered: do these words mean that I will be what I will myself to be? Or do they mean that I will be what I will be, no matter what? The words seemed to be saying the same paradoxical thing as the first line of this poem. They are both speaking of where we've come from and where we're going as the same place, one which may be either expressed or still.

I don’t want to miss any of the irony in Dickinson's poem about the impossibility of touching the rainbow’s raiment, but her poem is ultimately inspiring to me. It speaks of a great difficulty, an impossible goal, but it inspires me to persevere, like the saints, with a strict and slow industry and diligence. Dickinson may have been highly suspicious of Heaven, but she did seem to admire and emulate the saints. (See F665)

On the other side of the coin, there is that powerful word “still” (which Dickinson has used previously and to great effect in Fascicle 35). "Still" is a contranym which can mean, simultaneously, both stopping and continuing. If you couple this with the idea of the Eternity we find at the end of the poem, then we are given respite from that strict imperative in eternal stillness.

The poem encourages you to be strict and sure in your pursuit of your goal, to give it all you’ve got, but it also tells you not to worry. The goal may be impossible, but the last stanza of the poem seems to say, don’t stress about it too much. If you don’t achieve it in this life time, you still have all of eternity.

This poem encourages you to try as hard as possible to reach the center, and, conversely, it tells you to relax. The combination of these two opposites is what I think of as poise. It's what all athletes are trying to achieve. It is mastery. 

This poem makes me want to step up my efforts, but also takes away my anxiety about it at the same time. 

Okay, let's go through the poem and try to parse the wily syntax.

Dickinson's poems, and most especially her philosophical ones, can be quite difficult to understand on a purely logical level. They are easier to read if you sort of cross your eyes. It's like looking at one of those stereogram images. If you look at it just right, a 3D image starts to pop out from the two dimensional page. 

Each Life converges to some Centre—
Expressed — or still —
Exists in every Human Nature
A Goal —

The first line could stand alone: "Each Life converges to some Centre—"  This center isn’t just the innermost place, but is also “expressed” as a goal. It might be expressed, or it might be still, but regardless, “every Human Nature” has one. This is worth remarking on, because after the last few fascicles, which seemed hyper-focused on a loss of an epic love unique to Dickinson's life, this fascicle is much more geared toward the reader, toward us. Our lives, all of our lives, converge in some center. Whether or not it has expressed itself in us, there is, naturally, from our very center, a goal. 

Embodied (Admitted) scarcely to itself — it may be —
Too fair
For Credibility's presumption (temerity)
To mar — (dare)

We scarcely admit it, let alone embody it. It may be too beautiful for our belief (or, conversely, our doubt) to mar. Our own belief, in God, or anything really, can only presume. This center, this goal, is too beautiful for any of our presumptions to actually mar, or hurt, it. What a thought that is. This Center goes deeper and is more beautiful than our mental conception, than our belief about it.

Here Dickinson seems to be both discrediting credibility, and transcending it at the same time.

This Centre is too fair (beautiful) for credibility (belief).

The alternative words here, “temerity to dare,” are also worth some contemplation. This center goal is also beyond the boldness of our presumed beliefs to dare. 

Adored (Beheld) with caution — as a Brittle Heaven —
To reach
Were hopeless, as the Rainbow's Raiment
To touch —

This center/goal/heaven we adore and behold cautiously because it is brittle. It breaks easily. But, alas, we can no more reach it than we could touch a rainbow.

Yet persevered toward — surer (stricter) — for the Distance —
How high —
Unto the Saints' slow diligence (industry) — The Sky —

That “Yet” is heavy here. The rainbow’s raiment is impossible to touch, but when we persevere, how high the sky! The sky is actually higher because of our perseverance. Because the sky is higher, the rainbow is even harder to touch. But hey, the sky is still higher. (Emily's rhetoric makes my head spin.) That “Yet” says we must persevere and keep going, even more strictly, and with even more assurance, because of how great the distance is. (Here’s where I start finding myself feeling inspired to attempt the impossible.)

Ungained — it may be — in a Life's low Venture —
But then —
Eternity enable the endeavoring
Again.

Life’s low Venture (risks) may not lead to any gain. Note that “may” there. Dickinson has told us this Centre is impossible to touch, but the jury is out whether or not it is impossible to gain. No problem says the final lines, there will be infinite chances to try again. That's reassuring.

    -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Have any like Myself

Have any like Myself
Investigating March,
New Houses on the Hill descried—
And possibly a Church—

That were not, We are sure—
As lately as the Snow—
And are Today—if We exist—
Though how may this be so?

Have any like Myself
Conjectured Who may be
The Occupants of the Adobes—
So easy to the Sky—

'Twould seem that God should be
The nearest Neighbor to—
And Heaven—a convenient Grace
For Show, or Company—

Have any like Myself
Preserved the Charm secure
By shunning carefully the Place
All Seasons of the Year,

Excepting March—'Tis then
My Villages be seen—
And possibly a Steeple—
Not afterward—by Men—

   -F723, J736, Fascicle 35, 1863



This poem is a riddle. 

This poem seems to be, on the surface, about the month of March. David Preest gives us some helpful information in his analysis of the poem: “This is the first of five poems about Emily’s favorite month of March. The others are J1213, 1320, 1404 and 1669. March was important to Emily as it was the month of rebirth and new beginnings in nature, symbolising our rebirth into eternal life. Poem J1404 begins, ‘March is the Month of Expectation,’ and in a letter (L976) of March d1885 to her friend, Helen Hunt Jackson, she asks, ‘Who could be ill in March, that Month of proclamation?’”

The first thing I noticed about the poem is that it repeats the line "Have any like myself" three times. The triple repetition of this line points strongly toward the relationship between the poet and the reader. Is Dickinson just talking to herself here? "Have any like myself..." No, I don’t think so. A poem reaches out toward the reader. “Have any like Myself” functions as a kind of invitation to the reader.

    Have any like Myself
    Investigating March,
    New Houses on the Hill descried—
    And possibly a Church—

The first invitation to the reader asks, “Have you investigated March?” It’s odd, but very Dickinsonian, to investigate a month. What happens in March is well worth investigating. It’s a kind of magic trick. It’s that time of year when winter finally lets up and spring starts to peek its head out. That’s what’s being investigated, new growth, and by extension, birth itself. 

And what does Dickinson discover as she investigates the month when this new birth of the natural world takes place? She discovers "New Houses and possibly a Church." Houses are lived in and connote life. And she also finds, “possibly,” a church. I love that “possibly” there. There’s so much to it. Dickinson, who famously stayed out of churches most of her life, seems to allow for the possibility of God, but just during this one month of the year. It’s like she is 1/12th of a believer, and even then, just “possibly.”

    That were not, We are sure—
    As lately as the Snow—
    And are Today—if We exist—
    Though how may this be so?

In Winter, the winter of the heart we might say, there is only despair. Dickinson faces the chill of the void bravely in poem after poem. See the poem just before this one for a good example of this. But “Today,” in March, the beginning of the beginning of spring, we see new life, and we ARE that life, that existence. I love that qualifier, “if We exist.” If we exist, then the houses and church, born seemingly from nothing, exist too. And how is it we exist? How can this be so? How is there life from nothing? This question also may be asked on an emotional level. How can you go from feeling despair, or worse, being frozen numb, to feeling joyful like spring?

    Have any like Myself
    Conjectured Who may be
    The Occupants of the Adobes—
    So easy to the Sky—

Have you conjectured who the occupants are in these new houses? A conjecture is a guess. The poem is asking, has anyone guessed the riddle? In this stanza we get some clues. New houses in spring, especially ones with entrances “easy to the sky” made me think of nests. The word “adobe” had me looking up what kinds of birds build their nests in mud in march. It turns out that ovenbirds, which are native to the region where Dickinson lived, build dome-shaped nests that look like mud ovens. They construct their nests in two stages, first building an oversized adobe cup and then adding mud pellets in a pattern to create a sphere with a circular opening.

It also turns out that ovenbirds do indeed begin to build their nests as early as March. 

a village of ovenbirds

If the houses in this poem that weren’t there “as lately as the snow” are meant to be ovenbird nests, then I wonder what Dickinson might have meant by a possible church and steeple? Is it purely metaphoric, or is there something in nature analogous to steeples? Perhaps to the poet the occasional stick sticking out of the mud nest of an ovenbird looks like a steeple?

    Twould seem that God should be
    The nearest Neighbor to—
    And Heaven—a convenient Grace
    For Show, or Company—

In March the ovenbirds (and, by extension, we) have easier access to the skies, to our nearest neighbor, God. That’s the spring feeling. Grace becomes convenient in March. If you are an ovenbird, you can watch the show of the sky right from the front door of your mud nest. Heaven is right there, keeping you company. Charming!

And speaking of charming...

    Have any like Myself
    Preserved the Charm secure
    By shunning carefully the Place
    All Seasons of the Year,

    Excepting March…

Dickinson “shuns” the area in the forest where she normally finds ovenbirds and by so doing she gets to rediscover the charm every year. (Alternate words Dickinson provides for “Charm secure” are “vision sure”). In a metaphorical sense I think this is the most profound part of the poem. During the rest of the year Dickinson shuns this “Place,”  shuns the grace of heaven, and thus preserves its charm. It is only in spring, at the time of greatest transformation, that she allows it. There is deep wisdom in this. Dickinson creates a ritual of going to see the ovenbirds. In this way you might say that she is practicing moderation in order to enhance appreciation. “Have any like Myself” done likewise?

    Excepting March—'Tis then
    My Villages be seen—
    And possibly a Steeple—
    Not afterward—by Men—

I love that Dickinson claims these Villages of ovenbirds (and the awakening nature of spring in general) as her own. “My Villages,” she writes. And then we get that terrific qualifier, “possibly,” again. "possibly a Steeple." Maybe God is here, she admits, maybe. Spring makes her, for a moment, a believer. Possibly.

There is something so wonderfully exclusive about those final lines. My villages, and possibly a steeple, may be seen only March. Certainly “not afterward—by Men—” 


  -/)dam Wade l)eGraff


P.S. I looked at the original MS for this poem and it looks to me like it says “Abodes" not "Adobes." I want the word to be “Adobes” here, because the ovenbird idea makes so much sense in this poem. But I'm not so sure. Decide for yourself. 

P.P.S. In the comments Larry B points out that in the newest edition of the poems (Christanne Miller's) the word "Adobe" has been changed to "Abode." This puts to the rest the ovenbird theory. Larry also points out in the comments that American ovenbirds don't make their nests out of mud which, in my opinion, closes the case. Thanks for the legwork, Larry. 

Upon Concluded Lives

Upon Concluded Lives
There's nothing cooler falls—
Than Life's sweet Calculations—
The mixing Bells and Palls—

Make Lacerating Tune—
To Ears the Dying Side—
'Tis Coronal—and Funeral—
Saluting—in the Road—


    -F722, J735, Fascicle 35, 1863

This is a poem with intense feelings about life and death inextricably mixed together. Let's start with the first three lines:

    Upon Concluded Lives/ There's nothing cooler falls—/Than Life's sweet Calculations—”

You can read these first three lines a few different ways. At first I thought these lines might mean that the sweet calculations you’ve taken in your life, the risks you've taken, the path you've chosen and all the love on that path, are refreshing you and keeping you cool in the heated struggle of dying. But then I looked at the alternative word Dickinson supplied for "sweet," which is "new." The calculations aren't ones you've taken in the past. They are the ones you are adding up now that you are dying. 

    The mixing Bells and Palls—

The sweet calculations are the addition of bells and palls. Why would this be sweet? Maybe because the contrast is so achingly beautiful. This duality between life and death runs through the rest of the poem. Bells here are surely funeral bells, but I think they are also meant to invoke wedding bells and music in general. “The mixing Bells and Palls” expands on the idea of "sweet calculations" falling cool on concluding lives. Sweet calculations might well be symbolized by bells, which is “mixing” with "palls" or funeral shrouds. 

From the Dickinson Lexicon:

pall

A. Burial cloth; covering placed over the body of the deceased at a funeral; [word play] pale color of a corpse; bloodless appearance of the body after death.

B. Royal robe; coronation vestment; ceremonial cloak of rich purple cloth; majestic mantle signifying high honor or status.

A pall can mean both the pale color of death and coronation robe. Nice one, Emily. They both fit beautifully here, as does the ringing rhyme of “palls” with “bells” and “falls”

Love gained at the cusp of Love lost, that is the crossroads upon which this poem is situated.

    Make Lacerating Tune—

The sense of impending loss may be "sweet", but it is also violent in its intensity. It is a “lacerating tune.” Lacerating is a sharp word. It sounds like a snapping whip. Those sweet sounding bells paradoxically make a song that wounds deep.

    To Ears the Dying Side—

If the mix of bells and palls makes a lacerating tune to ears on the dying side, this beg a question. What lies on the OTHER side of dying?  No music at all? Which begs another question. Which is worse, heartbreaking music, or none at all?

    Tis Coronal—and Funeral—

The sense of pleasure mixing with pain continues. Now we are mixing "coronal," connoting a royally lived life, with "funeral," connoting death. "Coronal" and "funeral" rhyme, suggesting that the more royal the life, the greater the loss at death. Conversely, the greater the loss at death, the more royal the life.

    Saluting—in the Road—

The two, royal life and death, salute each other on the road of life, one coming as the other is going. Brrr.

      -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

P.S. Poems like this one that clearly function as a song prefer to be sung. Try singing this one out loud. Each poem suggests its own melody. This one for instance works best melodically as two tercets followed by a couplet. 

“Nature” is what We see—

“Nature” is what We see—
The Hill—the Afternoon—
Squirrel—Eclipse—the Bumble bee—
Nay—Nature is Heaven—

“Nature” is what We hear—
The Bobolink—the Sea—
Thunder—the Cricket—
Nay—Nature is Harmony—

“Nature” is what We know—
But have no art to say—
So impotent Our Wisdom is
To Her Sincerity—


    -F721, J668, Fascicle 35, 1863


Here is a poem that contends with what we think “nature” is. It begins with “Nature” in quotes and lists some examples of things we “see.” But then the last line of the stanza negates this idea, “Nay,” and tells us it is something else altogether. We may think nature is what we see, but the reality of it is beyond what we see. It’s actually Heaven.

A list of what it is we "see" in this poem is given: Hill, Afternoon, Squirrel, Eclipse, Bumble Bee. “Eclipse” inserted among this list makes us question everything else on it. During an eclipse we think we are seeing the sun disappear, but it is only a trick on the eyes. The poem suggests that if the sun is actually there beyond our seeing, then what else is it that we are we missing when we look?

If the eclipse is hiding the sun, then what is the hill, afternoon, squirrel and Bumblebee hiding? The final line, where Nature comes out from behind its quotation marks, tells us what we are missing with our eyes: Heaven.

It’s probably worth getting into the symbolism of the other things listed here. Dickinson’s oeuvre is deep enough that one could make a whole study of any of these symbols. She used the word Eclipse in nine poems for instance. Each usage furthers our understanding of what Dickinson meant by this word. Or take the bumble bee for another example. The bumble bee, in one of Dickinson’s earliest extant poems, F21, is a substitute for God the Father. In other poems, it appears to be a lover. The Bee was very important to Dickinson. The same could be said for the rest of the nouns in this poem. They all mean more than what we at first take them for, and not just symbolically. They, which is to say We, have divinity within, just as the Eclipse has the Sun behind it.

The second stanza carries a similar idea, but this time we focus on the sense of hearing. Another poem in this same fascicle, F718, explored the sense of hearing, and here we take the ideas therein even further. This list of things we hear is interesting because we get sounds large and loud like the sea and thunder, juxtaposed with small and quieter sounds like the bobolink and the cricket. That’s what we hear in “nature,” in quotation marks. But Nature, beyond quotation marks, is beyond the singular sound; it is the way everything blends together, from small and soft to loud and grand. This harmony can only be experienced in the moment, and it goes deeper than mere hearing.

This sets us up for the third stanza. “Nature” is what we know. But again, that nature is in quotes. So what do we know? It is beyond even the great poet’s art to say. She may come closer than most at holding a mirror up to nature, but in the end she admits that she can’t match the “sincerity” of nature.

It’s worth taking a look at the term Sincere in the Dickinson Lexicon.

sincere (-er), adj. [Latin 'clean, pure, sound'.]

A. Honest; straightforward; undeceiving; serious; in earnest; speaking plainly; telling the truth.

B. Clear; pure; true; real; genuine.

There is another version of this poem which is nearly identical except it ends with the word “Simplicity” instead of “Sincerity.” Both words work well. Simplicity points toward the unified quality of nature. Any “art” merely complicates it. But I like "Sincere" best. I’ve never thought of nature as sincere before. By the way, this second version of the poem, the one with "Simplicity," was given to Sue Dickinson, and it is signed “Emily” in such a way that it appears as if the name echoes the last word in the poem, rhyming with Simplicity.

A note about the phrase “Nay, Nature.” We first see this formulation in F703, the negative “Nay” pausing and then elongating into ineffable “Nature.” In this slightly later poem we see it used twice. The sound play of it must have stuck with the poet. Here she uses it beautifully, and perhaps even crafts the poem around it. 

Nature is far more than what we think it is. 

   -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

As if the Sea should part

As if the Sea should part
And show a further Sea —
And that — a further — and the Three
But a presumption be —

Of Periods of Seas —
Unvisited of Shores —
Themselves the Verge of Seas to be —
Eternity — is Those —

      -F720, J695, Fascicle 35, 1863


This poem is trippy, with its image of seas parting to reveal more seas parting to reveal more seas, on and on. It's an exhaustion of revelations, each showing the same thing as the last. The idea in the first line is already funny. The poem begins with the conjunction "as if," but the analogy presented is suspect, isn't it? Seas don’t part. Not unless you are an old testament God. We are already in the area of the impossible. So when we get to the sea being revealed beneath the parted sea, it is like the surreal nonsense of Lewis Carroll. Below everything is more of everything. To me this is like the child contemplating eternity, realizing there can never not be a beginning before the beginning, nor an end to the end, getting a headache from thinking about it and then it abandoning it altogether for some milk and cookies.

In the first stanza you get one Sea leading to two and then three (each increasingly ludicrous, an expansion of expansiveness) until you arrive at what you presume to be a whole period of Seas. "But a presumption be —/ Of Periods of Seas —" A "presumption” is not the same as knowledge, since you can never really know how far those Periods of seas go. 

Period has a nice doubleness here. It’s a contranym, a word that means two opposite things. It means “stop,” as in a sentence ending, or it can also be an ongoing period of time, one that will end, perhaps, but is indefinite and ongoing for the foreseeable future. (Dickinson was fond of contranyms. See a further discussion of Dickinson’s use of contranyms here). 

We can’t ever see the seas beneath the seas beneath the seas though, because we are here on shore. Eternity is likened here to the verge of the seas we will never see. "Period" in this poem is a key word. It signals stop, it intimates staying on shore. The Eternal may be seductive, but why would we move off of the shore and into empty endlessness? But to what end? Sometimes Eternity is a positive word in Dickinson, but sometimes it is not. Sometimes it is as far removed from the present as can be. 

It is quite possible that I am adding a negative dimension to this vision of Eternity that the poem doesn't support. But I can't see anything on the other side of those parting seas luring me in, just more parting. 

  -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

P.S.

The Sonnets To Orpheus: Book 2: Xiii

Be ahead of all parting, as though it already were 

behind you, like the winter that has just gone by. 

For among these winters there is one so endlessly winter 

that only by wintering through it all will your heart survive. 

Be forever dead in Eurydice-more gladly arise 

into the seamless life proclaimed in your song. 

Here, in the realm of decline, among momentary days, 

be the crystal cup that shattered even as it rang. 

 Be-and yet know the great void where all things begin, 

the infinite source of your own most intense vibration, 

so that, this once, you may give it your perfect assent. 

To all that is used-up, and to all the muffled and dumb 

creatures in the world's full reserve, the unsayable sums,

 joyfully add yourself, and cancel the count. 

    -Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Stephen Mitchell

Eternity

In the commentary for F713, I took a close look at the handwritten word "Eternity" from the original MS.

In the commentary I noted the majesty of that E, the way the top of the t flows down the ages of the word to cross that second smaller t; the y at the end of the word bolstering it from behind and giving it that subtle underline and that strange break in the middle of the word between the r and the n where Dickinson seems to have picked up her pen there for a moment, as if to break eternity in two. I also pointed out how if you looked really close it looked like she dotted the i thrice, each dot making a visceral point.

This was a flight of fancy on my part. One couldn't know how purposeful any of these elements were in the original penning of the word by Dickinson. Imagine my surprise when I came to poem F719, where the word "Eternity" was written by Dickinson in a nearly identical way:

There it is, that same majestic E, that same downward slope of the top of the t to cross that second t, the same emphatic triple dotted i, the same underlining y, and most curiously, that same break in the word between the "r" and the "n". There really does appear to be a conscious design element to it. These are not just haphazard elements. It is a word which was clearly important to her and many of her poems center around the idea of it.

Seeing Dickinson's rendition of the word repeated again reminds me of the early graffiti artist, Arthur Stace. Stace was an illiterate criminal who converted to Catholicism. He was "called by God" to write "Eternity" in chalk on the streets of Sydney Australia, which he did every day, over a half million times, between the 1930s and 1960s.

The first stanza of the poem “Arthur Stace,” by Douglas Stewart, first published in 1969, runs thus:

    That shy mysterious poet Arthur Stace
    Whose work was just one single mighty word
    Walked in the utmost depths of time and space
    And there his word was spoken and he heard
    Eternity, Eternity, it banged him like a bell
    Dulcet from heaven sounding, sombre from hell.

Years later the graffiti artist Banksy would pay homage to this OG graffiti artist with a piece he put up in Queens NY in 2014:

"What we do in life echoes in Eternity" is a quote from the movie Gladiator, but it originates with Marcus Aurelius. Both Stace and Dickinson had their own singularly graceful renditions of the word. Both of them are still echoing.

On a personal note, the morning this Banksy piece went up in Queens I pushed my daughters in their stroller to see it. I was able to take a shot of the mural with them just minutes before the it was tagged and defaced by local graffiti artists. I've always loved this picture as a reminder of the echo of eternity.

This is all to say that when I saw Dickinson's artistic rendition of the word there was an aura to it that seemed to jump off the page. When I saw it again a few poems later written so beautifully, and remembered the like versions from Stace and Banksy, I heard the ringing reverberations deep in my conscious ear.

If He were living—dare I ask—

If He were living—dare I ask—
And how if He be dead—
And so around the Words I went—
Of meeting them—afraid—

I hinted Changes—Lapse of Time—
The Surfaces of Years—
I touched with Caution—lest they crack—
And show me to my fears—

Reverted to adjoining Lives—
Adroitly turning out
Wherever I suspected Graves—
'Twas prudenter—I thought—

And He—I pushed—with sudden force—
In face of the Suspense—
"Was buried"—"Buried"! "He!"
My Life just holds the Trench—

   -F719, J734, Fascicle 35, 1863


This poem uses suspense to get across a depth of feeling and grief. We are suspended, with the speaker, for three stanzas, dancing around the fact of the matter, and then, with sudden force, we push and fall into the chasm, or, in this case, the trench. 

The poem presupposes a social situation. The speaker is visiting with friends she has not seen for awhile and inquiring about a mutual friend, to find out if he is still living. Though we have very condensed poetic language here, the poem still reads prosaically. It’s a short scene, a very brief one act play. Let’s play it out in prose:

    If He were living—dare I ask— 

    And how if He be dead— 

    And so around the Words I went— 

    Of meeting them—afraid—

"I dared to ask if he was still living. But how could I possibly ask whether or not he was dead? I was afraid to find out, so I danced around the words. I couldn't just directly ask."

    I hinted Changes—Lapse of Time—

    The Surfaces of Years—

    I touched with Caution—lest they crack—

    And show me to my fears—

"Instead I just hinted, asking my guests about what was new in their lives (hinted changes), and about how long its been since we last met (lapse of time). The actual events of the years (Surfaces), I didn’t bring up, just in case it revealed to me my fears." (The surface of the years would then crack and reveal a timeless abyss).

    Reverted to adjoining Lives—

    Adroitly turning out

    Wherever I suspected Graves—

    'Twas prudenter—I thought—

"Instead I reverted to talking about other friends we knew, and adroitly changed the direction of the conversation whenever I suspected the conversations might lead to talk of death." 

    And He—I pushed—with sudden force—

    In face of the Suspense—

    "Was buried"—"Buried"! "He!"

    My Life just holds the Trench—

"Finally I couldn’t stand it anymore, I had to know, so I just pushed ahead with sudden force and asked, “And he…?” And my host finished the sentence with, “was buried.” What? Buried! Him! Now there is a hole in me, a trench. My life carries the place where He was buried. The hole in my heart is the hole he was buried in."

That’s it, a unique poem that is imagining, or recalling, the terrible moment of learning about the death of someone not seen for a long time. It is a poem that builds suspense, echoing the suspense that the speaker is feeling, and then lowers the boom. He’s dead. The very thing the speaker was frightened to find out has been revealed as true. This opens a hole of grief in the heart, a trench, which is a metaphor for the actual hole in the ground in which “He” is buried. 

 "My Life just holds the Trench—"  Because of the built up suspense we feel the crushing weight of this final line of the poem even more. It reminds me of Frank O’hara’s line from his great poem A Step Away from Them, “But is the/ earth as full as life was full, of them?" 

As per usual with Dickinson there is an interesting philosophical twist to this poem. It mirrors Dickinson's indirect approach in her own poetry; telling the truth, but "telling it slant." The speaker avoids direct confrontation with the truth, instead "hinting Changes" and "touching with Caution." This indirectness is a hallmark of Dickinson. Seen this way, this poem may be more about the imagined reader than the poet. In an earlier poem from this same fascicle, F715, just two poems prior to this one, we see a much braver and less reticent speaker facing death. There, the speaker says, "'Tis Dying—I am doing—but I'm not afraid to know—" Of course it is different to face your own death than that of a loved one, but going "around the Words," and "hinting Changes," can be seen as part of Dickinson's M.O.. Read this way, Dickinson is urging the readers, we who are "prudenter" when "suspecting graves," to lose our prudence and just face the music.

The wonder of Dickinson is that you can read a poem such as this one as both fully inhabiting the pain of its revelation, from the first person perspective, and, if you but change the perspective, becoming detached enough in the third person to accept the news with equanimity.

   -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Mark Rothko, Orange, Navy Blue, No. 14

The Spirit is the Conscious Ear—

The Spirit is the Conscious Ear—

We actually Hear
When We inspect—that's audible—
That is admitted—Here—

For other Services—as Sound—
There hangs a smaller Ear
Outside the Castle—that Contain—
The other—only—Hear—

     -F718, J733, Fascicle 35, 1863


Let us inspect this poem.

In the first line Dickinson gives us a definition of the word “Spirit.” What is Spirit? “The Spirit is the Conscious ear.” Spirit, then, is conscious listening, listening with awareness. You might say it is awareness itself.

I suspect Dickinson chose the Ear over the Eye as the sense analogous to awareness in this poem because hearing is, essentially, about communication. The eyes are easily deceived, but the ears, when they “actually hear” can pick up all kinds of clues the eyes might miss. Think of “tone” in a conversation. What’s “actually” said is often quite different from the words being said. The ear is the best sense organ to stand in as a metaphor for “understanding.”

In the next line we get a further delineation of Spirit: “We actually Hear/ When We inspect.” Awareness hinges on that word “inspect.” From the Dickinson Lexicon we find this helpful set of definitions:

inspect (-ed), v. [Fr. < L. inspicere, look into] Study; read; scrutinize; consider; examine; go over; scan carefully.

So then, the way our consciousness listens is through studying, reading, scrutinizing, considering, examining and scanning carefully. The more we do these things, the more in tune our Spirit becomes. When we read Dickinson we are studying the poems of a woman who was, in turn, studying the world. Since the stakes are high, every nuance counts.

In the definitions of “Inspect” given to us by the Lexicon I’m not seeing words that connote “judgment." Today we are more apt to hear a connotation of judgment in inspection. Compare it to the modern dictionary definition, which does imply judgment, “To look at (someone or something) closely, typically to assess their condition or to discover any shortcomings.” This is a nuance worthy of consideration. We are inspecting even the word inspection here. The difference is “audible.”

The 4th line of the first stanza is nuanced too. “That is admitted—Here— “ The word “admit” has a couple of possible meanings. A contemporary ear hears “confess” in the word "admit." But I think a more fitting meaning for this poem might be “allowed;” what has been carefully inspected is allowed in, is admitted in. I’m reminded of poem F409, “The Soul selects her own society.” The Soul selects... the Spirit admits.

The second stanza of this poem compares this larger kind of hearing to the smaller one that merely takes in sound. The word that this stanza seems to hinge on is “Contain.” Unlike the smaller ear, the Castle (the seat of the Conscious ear) Contains. From the Dickinson Lexicon we get:

contain (-ed, -s), v. [ME < L. continēre, hold together, keep together, comprehend.]

A. Confine; limit; circumscribe; restrain; hold back; restrict to boundaries.
B. Hold; encompass; surround; enclose; have capacity for.

In our modern sense of the word "contain" we think of the second definition here, but the first definition also makes sense in this poem. A castle is something that PROTECTS the monarch. It “holds back” invaders. Once again I am reminded of F409, "The Soul selects her own Society —/ Then — shuts the Door —" 

Dickinson provides an alternative line in the original MS to “Outside the Castle—that Contain”, which is “Outside the City—that Present.”

Using "City" instead of "Castle" is interesting. City suggests a more complex realm of consciousness than a castle. A city is larger and more inclusive than a castle, which would imply that the inner understanding is part of a more intricate and expansive inner world. The phrase "that Present" shifts the focus to the act of manifesting understanding. It's more generous than containment. Within this "City" (consciousness), there is a presentation of insights, i.e. this poem.

  -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Girl Listening at Door by Meyer Von Bremen

P.S. For fun, I asked Chat GPT to give me a practical application for this poem. Here is what it said:

"Mindful Listening: Practice active and mindful listening in conversations. Instead of merely hearing words, engage with the speaker on a deeper level, trying to understand their emotions, intentions, and underlying messages. This approach fosters better communication and stronger relationships.

Self-Reflection: Incorporate regular periods of introspection into your routine. Set aside time to reflect on your thoughts, feelings, and experiences, listening to your inner self. This can enhance self-awareness, personal growth, and emotional intelligence.

Critical Thinking: In learning and problem-solving, move beyond accepting information at face value. Inspect and analyze information critically, seeking a deeper understanding of the concepts and their implications. This method leads to more profound knowledge and better decision-making.

By applying these principles, one can cultivate a deeper, more meaningful engagement with the world, moving beyond mere sensory experiences to true understanding and awareness."

Well said, Chat GPT. 

The Heaven vests for Each

The Heaven vests for Each
In that small Deity
It craved the grace to worship
Some bashful Summer’s Day –

Half shrinking from the Glory
It importuned to see
Till these faint Tabernacles drop
In full Eternity –

How imminent the Venture –
As One should sue a Star –
For His mean sake to leave the Row
And entertain Despair –

A Clemency so common –
We almost cease to fear –
Enabling the minutest –
And furthest – to adore –

    -F717, J694, fascicle 35, 1863


This is a poem about the sun. The word sun does not appear in this poem, so you can classify it among Dickinson's riddle poems. (Though nearly all of Dickinson’s poems function like riddles. That’s one of the reasons they are so addictive. Trying to figure them out is a bit like doing a crossword puzzle, if the answers pointed toward your own soul.) 

Let's start with a literal take on this poem. 

Heaven gives (vests) us each the thing we desire. It's a small Deity. Its brightness makes us bashful on a summer day. We shrink from its intensity, during the day, even though we asked for (importuned) it, on a winter night. And meanwhile, as we are shrinking back, the very thing we craved begins to drop away as the sun begins to set. And yet, though it goes away and we are left in darkness, the next sunrise is imminent. During the darkness of the night we are in despair, and from that place of desperation we have the temerity to ask the sun to leave its place among the stars in the sky and come down to relieve little (mean) us. And of course, it does, every day. The sun rises again in the morning. This mercy ("Clemency," which also means good weather) is actually so common, coming as it does every day, that we almost stop fearing it will go away for good. This good fortune allows us to see even the smallest things far away and to adore them.

Let's look at the symbolic possibilities of this poem. The Sun functions as a kind of double metaphor here. First it is a metaphor for the Deity, but note that this is a "smaller Deity," so the second level metaphor is that of the Beloved (though there might be other possibilities here too). This conflation of religious and romantic love adds a couple layers of complexity. It's very common in Dickinson’s poems, but if you aren't familiar with it, it can be difficult to follow. This idea of a smaller deity, a heaven of a smaller size, fit just for one, is prevalent in the fascicles that precede this one. The idea in this poem is that the sun is a small star, one fashioned for each of us, a glimpse of Heaven. But the second idea here is that the small deity is the beloved, whomever that may be. It helps to keep all three readings in mind as we read this poem; literal, figurative and transfigurative.

I think a good candidate for the beloved in this poem is Sue Dickinson, Emily's sister-in-law. I’m basing this off of two clues. The first is that the poem employs the word “sue,” which, owing to the fact that Dickinson deeply loved Sue (and was probably in love with her too) is probably more than just a coincidence. Secondly, Sue lived with Emily’s brother in the next house door. Emily would’ve likely seen her nearly every day. At night it might have felt like Despair to be without her. But in the daytime there she would be again, just like the sun. This is all conjecture, and it's fun to speculate, but I think it is worth pointing out the word “Each” in this poem. “The Heaven vests for Each/ in that small Deity.” Dickinson could easily have written, “The Heaven vests for ME,” instead of "Each." Furthermore “Each” is capitalized. These poems, though they may not have had many, or even any, readers besides Dickinson in her own lifetime, were still written, somehow, for the benefit of “Each” of us, like road maps, or like “the Light House Spark” for “Some Sailor rowing in the Dark” (F322). The miracle is that they survived at all to reach us Each.

You might surmise that Dickinson turned her lovers into suns and moons and bees and flowers in her poems in order to disguise their identity, and there is probably some truth in that, as there were some good reasons to keep her affairs secret, but I think the more paramount reason is so that anybody might be able to make them their own. The Sun, or small Deity, or Beloved, in this poem, has its shining significance in our own lives, even if it just refers to the literal sun itself.


-/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Sunset by Albert Bierstadt

Notes


* That “it” in the third line gives us a little inkling of the trouble of parsing Dickinson. Does that “it” refer back to “each” or to “The Heaven”? It would make the most sense grammatically to connect it to The Heaven, since that is the subject of the sentence. But it would be strange for Heaven to crave the grace to worship, so it makes the most logical sense to connect “It” back to “Each.” This becomes more apparent in the second stanza as “it” (each) is shrinking from the Sun. There are many such decisions as this to be made in trying to come to terms with a Dickinson poem. It's exciting. When you are limning a poem, you are climbing a decision tree which consists of hundreds of interpretive decisions based on logic and intuition. In Dickinson, they are all important, down to the tiniest detail. It’s part of what makes her so uncannily good. One miscalculation can throw the poem’s intent far off course. The trick is to stay open minded, as there is always a detail that can derail your entire premise. 

* To crave the grace to worship is an ironic phrase. Grace is meant to be something freely given, something we don’t deserve. In the poem preceding this one in fascicle 35 we find out that the pearl only comes when we have stopped craving the pearl. Grace would seem to be something like this. However, in this poem, the thing we so brazenly asks for comes every day, if only we had the patience to wait through the night.

*I think the tabernacles dropping away in full eternity means that the place where the deity (sun) resides (the tabernacle) is dropping away in “full eternity.” The Sun is setting. (Or metaphorically the beloved is dying, or going away). I love the idea that the sun is dropping in “full eternity.” Just using the adjective "full" to qualify eternity gives one pause. If we look at this poem as a description of a literal Summer’s Day, I’m imagining that those tabernacles that are dropping to be large tabernacle-shaped clouds lit up by the sunset. This is the second "sunset" poem we have seen so far in this fascicle. 

Shells from the Coast mistaking—

Shells from the Coast mistaking—
I cherished them for All—
Happening in After Ages
To entertain a Pearl—

Wherefore so late—I murmured—
My need of Thee—be done—
Therefore—the Pearl responded—
My Period begin


    -F716, J693, fascicle 35, 1863


The syntax of this poem is a bit tricky, but perhaps if it were easier to follow, we’d miss the pearl. There's something about the process of working to understand a poem that makes it more clear.

The sense of the poem, as I read it, goes like this:

I mistook the shells from the coast.
I cherished them as if they were everything.

It so happened that ages later
I was entertaining a pearl.

Why are you so late, I murmured,
My need for thee is over.

Since your need for me is over, the Pearl responded,
My time can begin.

The shells on the coast are not the same as the pearl. They are just the shells that once protected the pearl. The pearl would not be found on the coast, anyway, but in the ocean. They are hidden at certain depths. You must dive for them. 

The shells on the shore might symbolically represent any means of protection that is no longer needed. At first you might mistake the means of protection as the thing itself. Aren’t we all a little like walking shells sometimes? All we can see, it seems, are each other’s defense mechanisms. We so rarely dive deep for the pearl. 

In the second stanza we find out that it’s not until we no longer need the pearl that it begins to form, or already has. Where is it found then? Deep within. 

The pearl might represent many things. Perhaps to Dickinson it referred to Sue Dickinson, the pearl of F451. Or perhaps the pearl is a reference to poetry, as it is in F282. (That might help account for that word "period," which is a word tied to art, as in her "late period.") Or maybe it is a spiritual reference, like the “pearl of a great price” in Matthew 13:46. It could have any number of referents. But suffice to say that whatever the thing of “great price” is for you, it cannot be found in the shells littering the shore, and, furthermore, Dickinson intimates, it is only when we have no more desire for the pearl that it truly becomes apparent to us. 


    -/)dam Wade I)eGraff

The Sun kept setting—setting—still

The Sun kept setting—setting—still
No Hue of Afternoon—
Upon the Village I perceived
From House to House 'twas Noon—

The Dusk kept dropping—dropping—still
No Dew upon the Grass—
But only on my Forehead stopped—
And wandered in my Face—

My Feet kept drowsing—drowsing—still
My fingers were awake—
Yet why so little sound—Myself
Unto my Seeming—make?

How well I knew the Light before—
I could see it now—
'Tis Dying—I am doing—but
I'm not afraid to know—


     -F715, J692, fascicle 35, 1863


I find this poem both brave and uplifting. It’s transcendental in the truest sense of the word.

The poem is encapsulated in the first line, “The Sun kept setting—setting—still”. This is a poem about dying, and the setting of the sun foreshadows the dying of the self. The poem announces that the sun kept setting (past tense) but also that it is still setting (present tense). We might deduce from this that it always will set, that it will “still” continue after we die. But that “still” is doing double duty here. The sun sets until it stops, until it becomes still. The word “still” here is a contranym. It carries the quality of both continuance AND its opposite, ending.

You could say “still” carries another sense too, which is that of “calm.” When marked off by a dash, it seems to say to us, “Be still.” All three meanings that are instilled in the word “still” here will play out in this poem.

    The Sun kept setting—setting—still
    No Hue of Afternoon—
    Upon the Village I perceived
    From House to House 'twas Noon—

The first line enjambs into the second, “still/ No Hue of Afternoon.” You might say the sun, in its eternal recurrence, is always pitched at noon, even as the speaker is dying. If it stays noon, then there will be no “hue of afternoon,“ a phrase which brings the idea of the sunset into the poem. This metaphor, in a poem about dying, evokes old age. The latter part of our lives takes on a “hue,” and may eventually become as colorful as a sunset.

Dickinson’s sunsets are famous. Someone should really publish a book of all of her sunset poems next to famous paintings of sunsets. It would be instructive to read them all. One of the great things about studying Dickinson is that her metaphors take on enormous meaning over the course of her oeuvre, and sunsets are no exception.

The word “hue” also evokes its near homophone, “You,” especially when the poem is spoken or sung out loud as it is meant to be. In a continual noon there is no afternoon hue, but also, perhaps, no “You”, no Beloved. This idea is of a noon without “hue” or “You” is continued in the last line: “From house to house it is noon.” We note that it is still a house at noon. It is not yet a home.

Second stanza:

    The Dusk kept dropping—dropping—still
    No Dew upon the Grass—
    But only on my Forehead stopped—
    And wandered in my Face—

The first line of the second stanza echoes the first line of the first stanza in its rhythm and meaning, with a slight twist. The sun sets, but the dusk drops. The weight gets a little heavier here. The first line of the first stanza is a susurration of ess sounds. The first line of the second stanza alliterates too, but this time the D drops in. The dusk becomes percussive, as if there were drums in the distance.

Dew upon the grass, like the hue of the sunset, is something to be hoped for. This dew “stops” on the dying speaker, a sweat on the forehead born of the struggle of dying, and then finally the dew becomes tears. It wasn’t until I sang this poem that I got that the dew “wandering in my face” was meant to evoke tears wandering over the singular beauty of the dying speaker’s face. “And wandered in my face” is a strange phrase and I wonder if Dickinson isn’t playing off the idea of wandering the face of the earth. The poet’s face becomes the earth’s, and the tears are all those who are restlessly wandering.

The speaker is crying. Why? Physical pain? Emotional pain? Release? Joy? All of that seems to be happening at once here.

Third stanza:

    My Feet kept drowsing—drowsing still
    My fingers were awake—
    Yet why so little sound—Myself
    Unto my Seeming—make?

The Feet drowsing drowsing echoes the sun setting setting and the dusk dropping dropping. Feet is another powerful symbol that paces through the course of Dickinson’s poems. A foot is both literal feet in Dickinson AND a symbol for poetic meter. (A poetic foot is a unit of meter composed of two or more accented or unaccented syllables.) Anytime you see the word foot or feet in Dickinson, look out for a metaphor about poetic verse. (F372 is a great example of this.) Dickinson, in saying her feet kept drowsing, is talking about literal feet, but she also is speaking of her poetry becoming more and more difficult to write. If you concede that her feet are also her poetry, then the following lines make more sense; “Yet why so little sound—Myself/ Unto my Seeming—make?”

“Sound” here, if we are speaking of poetry, may refer to music, but also depth. This is what the poet is doing with her hands and her “feet”, writing poetry, and the sounding of the poetry is winding down. For Dickinson writing is the way the self is expressed.

If you think about these lines in a literal way though, it’s a little creepy that the fingers are still writing even as the feet are dying, but it’s vintage Dickinson to envision herself, and us, in such an immediate situation.

I think there must be a dozen ways to take the last line of this stanza. For every reader it will sound unto their seeming a bit differently. But the general gist is that the “seeming” of self is becoming less and less as we die.

This philosophical thinking of Dickinson is often difficult to fathom. Take that word “seeming” for instance. It strikes me as Shakespearean here, “...Myself/ Unto my Seeming—make.” Self is made of seeming. I’m reminded here of the Wallace Stevens’ line about death, “Let finale be the finale of seem.”

Stanza 4

This poem could end after stanza one and it would be great. Stanza two adds an emotional starkness and makes it even better. Stanza three brings philosophic introspection to the table. But it's the fourth stanza that really brings the poem home.

    How well I knew the Light before—
    I could see it now—
    'Tis Dying—I am doing—but
    I'm not afraid to know—

The repetitions in this poem make it uncommonly musical. It almost asks to be sung. So when you get to the first line of the 4th stanza, you expect the same repetition of words that is in the first line of the first three stanzas. But you don’t get it. Instead you get the echo delayed until the third line, and even then, it’s a half rhyme. 'Tis dying I am doing.” Setting setting > dropping dropping > drowsing drowsing >> dying doing.

Note that dying is not passive here. Dying is doing. You do death. And, if you are doing it well, you do it without fear, because you have transcended the personal. You KNEW the light. And you knew it WELL. But look at what Dickinson does in that second line. She combines the past tense and the present. What a move. It seems to make perfect sense as we read it, but it’s actually odd. She’s imagining herself from beyond death, but she’s imagining this while she’s still ALIVE. She can still see the light. The sun is still setting.

That last line, “I’m not afraid to know,” is loaded. She’s not afraid to know she is dying, but also, she’s not afraid to know the light. The “know” in the last line is following on the heels of the “knew” in “the light I knew before” in the first line of the stanza. She’s not afraid to know death is coming is the initial reading of the last line, but the deeper second insight here is in knowing the continual light of the present moment. To know the light is more than merely “seeing” it.

The last line is courageous and assertive. It’s one thing to be able to calmly say you aren’t afraid to know you are dying, but the power in this poem is that the true object of that knowing is in not being afraid to know the light.

That’s a lot of analysis. But I think this poem works on a subconscious level that precedes analysis. You read it with the innate knowing of a deeper Self that lies beyond analysis. It’s a poem I hope to have on my bedside to read, or have read to me, before I close my eyes for the last time.


  -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

sunset by Monet

"Dickinson had a habit of standing in rapt attention as if she were listening to something very faint and far off. We children often saw her at sunset, standing at the kitchen window, peering through a vista in the trees to the western sky, – her proud little head thrown back, but her eyes raised and one hand held characteristically before her.” -Barton Levi St. Armand

No Man can compass a Despair—

No Man can compass a Despair—
As round a Goalless Road
No faster than a Mile at once
The Traveller proceed—

Unconscious of the Width—
Unconscious that the Sun
Be setting on His progress—
So accurate the One

At estimating Pain—
Whose own—has just begun—
His ignorance—the Angel
That pilot Him along—


     -F714, J477, Fascicle 33, 1863



This poem, which ends Fascicle 33, starts with an aphorism, “No man can compass a Despair.” This line seems to derive from the poem that proceeds it in the fascicle, with its line about the “Boundaries of pain.” As Dickinson is wont to do, she takes this aphorism and extends it in increasingly complex ways. It's a common move for her. See F686 for another good example. 

The “compass” in the first line sets us up for the “round” in that second line. Now we find ourselves in strange geometric territory. A road is normally long and narrow, but here the poet has it as “round.” The round road of Despair you are travelling on goes outward from the center-point cause of the pain in all directions, circumferentially. ("My business is Circumference," Dickinson wrote in a letter to Thomas Higginson.) Though you are attempting to travel away from the pain, you can only see a little ways ahead, maybe a mile at most. A mile is about as far as the eye can see in daylight. 

It’s fortunate that we aren’t conscious of the Despair we still have ahead of us. It's also lucky that we aren’t aware that we are running out of time. “Unconscious that the sun/ be setting on his progress.” These are rather terrifying lines. Also we note the word goalless. There is no goal because the self wants to go backward, but is forced to go forward. The self doesn't even want to lose the pain as it is what connects it back to the beloved. 

The entire poem, I think, could be considered one sentence that would go without line breaks like this, “No man can compass a despair, as round a goalless road, no faster than a mile at once, the traveler proceed, unconscious of the width, unconscious that the sun be setting on his progress (and) so (in)accurate (is such) a one at estimating pain, whose own has just begun, (that) his ignorance (is) the angel (that) pilot(s) him along.” If one could shoe horn that sentence into prose, it might sound something  like: No man can take the measure of the circumference of his despair, which he travels along without any goal, since his goal is behind him. He can see at most a mile ahead of him at a time, having no idea of the width of this circle, not even realizing that the sun is setting on his progress. He who is only at the beginning of his pain can’t be accurate at estimating its circumference, but at least he has the angel of his own ignorance to keep him in the dark. 

It’s a bleak poem.

These aphoristic poems beg a question. They seem to presume an audience, but who? The poet herself? It would be odd to write yourself a poem that begins, “No man can compass a Despair." Is it just a cold, hard look at her own fate, as if spoken by the muse? It is akin to Dante’s “Abandon all hope ye who enter here.” Is she just reminding herself that life is going to be miserable and then end? The angel here is not a promising one either. It's just our own ignorance of the depth of pain we will go through. Yeesh. But if Dickinson was writing these poems for an audience (us), then it is we who are being reminded of our dismal fate. We are like Saul in the book Samuel, and Dickinson is the witch of Endor telling us that we will die in battle. (Dickinson even calls herself the witch of Endor in a letter to her nieces. See the letter here.)

Is Dickinson telling us we should be grateful for our own ignorance? I don’t think so. If this poem exists, it’s because it is meant to prepare us, to gird us up, for the inevitable. Is this poem meant to inform us and thereby kill the angel of ignorance? I think so.

 

 -/)dam Wade l)eGraff


P.S.

Putting these poems over chords structures and letting the rhyme scheme and word play dictate the melody is a terrific way to hear what’s happening in the poem. When you sing this one, for instance, you hear all of those ending “ess” sounds; compass, goalless, unconscious, and progress. You tend to emphasize them more. Also the rhyming run of once, sun, one, pain, begun and along rolls beautifully. I highly recommend this practice. I did this one starting in G>D>/D>G, alternating throughout the song.  It’s also a great way to memorize the poem. 

You left me – Sire – two Legacies –

You left me – Sire – two Legacies –
A Legacy of Love
A Heavenly Father would suffice
Had He the offer of –

You left me Boundaries of Pain –
Capacious as the Sea –
Between Eternity and Time –
Your Consciousness – and me –


   -F713, J644, Fascicle 33, 1863



                               


The "Eternity" from Dickinson's original MS of this poem is a work of art all its own. It is well worth reading Dickinson's poems in the original, as it can add so much to the experience. Look at the majesty of that E;  the curve of that t, the top of which flows down the ages of the word to cross that second smaller t; the y at the end of the word bolstering it from behind and giving it that subtle underline. There is also that strange break in the middle of the word between the r and the n. She seems to have picked up her pen there for a moment, as if to break eternity in two. And how about that blot of a dot for the i? It really marks the spot. If you look close it looks like she dotted it thrice, each dot making a visceral point. Dot dot dot.

Alright, onto the poem. I was dismissive with this one at first. More of the same I thought. You think I would've learned by now to never second guess Dickinson though. The more I dove into this poem, the more inspired I found it to be. 

These emotionally intense love poems are a lot, especially when you read one after another after another. How does Emily keep it up? I admire her stamina, but stamina to what end? How many weeks, months, years has Emily been feeling this level of intensity? 

But this poem seems too perfect to signal unbearable pain. I think this is why I was originally put off. There are two nearly perfectly symmetrical iambic pentameter quatrains with uncharacteristically perfect end rhyme. Each stanza begins neatly with “You left me.”

If you turned this poem on its side it would resemble a double flame, flame to flame, or better yet, a double crown, Sire to Sire. (Hmm. Dickinson talks about double-sided Monarchs elsewhere in this fascicle. See F709 for example.)

Though the feeling of "You left me" may be brutal in real life, in a highly formalized poem like this it can seem maudlin. “You left me. You left me. Woe is me.” This poem plays itself out in that space between the real and the idealized.

This poem is very pretty, to the ear and to the eye. A little too pretty. On purpose? 

Shakespeare’s sonnets were also ornately over the top. But as with Shakespeare, we begin to see the nuances flower from within the confines of the structure. Let's dive into the subtleties.

    A Legacy of Love
    A Heavenly Father would suffice
    Had He the offer of –

The first meaning I get from these lines is, “The love you left behind as a legacy for me would be enough for God, if that’s who was entertaining the offer. But He's not, I am!” This reads to me like a barb directed at the reverend Charles Wadsworth. 

But if you squint and look again you can see the a double meaning. The lines may also mean something like this, “You left me a legacy of love, Sire. A heavenly father would suffice (for me) if only He could offer me the same thing that you do.”

She’s lost her man to his faith, and it's not a faith she shares. The Heaven he’s aiming toward doesn't work for her. This is ironic because Heaven, in her opinion, isn't as good as the man. You can see other examples of these sentiments in F706:

They’d judge Us – How –
For You – served Heaven – You know,
Or sought to –
I could not –

Because You saturated Sight –
And I had no more Eyes
For sordid excellence
As Paradise

And were You lost, I would be –
Though My Name
Rang loudest
On the Heavenly fame –

And were You – saved –
And I – condemned to be
Where You were not –
That self – were Hell to Me –

The wonder is that here, just a few poems later, Dickinson has, through an act of extreme poetic compression, put these ideas into just a few lines.

The subtleties pick up in the second stanza. How about the plural in "Boundaries of pain"? If someone left you a boundary of pain, that would be okay. At least it's not without boundaries. It’s not boundless pain. But what if someone leaves you boundaries of pain? That plural leaves the idea of openness... open. You could have two boundaries or you could have a million. You don’t know where that boundary ends, what the boundary of the boundary is. It’s painfully open. Perhaps you are feeling a different boundary to that pain every day. But that is also promising. That means some days it is less. Is the pain lessening a bit overall? It seems to be.

Perhaps that’s why she is beginning to prettify the poems up? Poetry is winning. Form is overtaking the content. (Emily is a master of this. See F372, the famous poem beginning "After great pain a formal feeling comes,” a poem which is ABOUT form and the way form heals. That poem begins in perfect meter, then stumbles and breaks into chaotic meter and then reforms again in perfect lockstep.) The form is firmly in control in this poem. No slant rhymes indicating something is "off."

Those boundaries are still sea-sized though. Her pain is oscillating between Eternity (aching for it) and (Time) mortality. The stakes are high. And how does the poem end? The boundary, it turns out, is also between consciousness and me. To help us understand what Emily means by consciousness we turn to earlier poems. Especially helpful here is this stanza from F709.

“But since Myself — assault Me —
How have I peace
Except by subjugating
Consciousness?”

These lines, from just a few poems back chronologically, suggest that if you subjugate consciousness, you are also stopping the assault from Me. "Me" is complicated because it signifies "Us," as in I am you, and you are me. So I think Emily is saying something like - there is a boundary between Me and Consciousness because I am only myself when I am with you. Otherwise I am a separate being, a fraction, a lone consciousness.

So although Dickinson wraps this poem up in an awfully pretty bow, when you unwrap it you get an endless proliferation of meaning. Because of the bottomless nature of eternity and Me-ness, we can endlessly contend with this poem, and with its intimations of the beloved, from the sharply separate point view of a consciousness stuck in time.


/)dam Wade l)eGraff