My period had come for Prayer —

My period had come for Prayer —
No other Art — would do —
My Tactics missed a rudiment —
Creator — Was it you?

God grows above — so those who pray
Horizons — must ascend —
And so I stepped upon the North
To see this Curious Friend —

His House was not — no sign had He —
By Chimney — nor by Door
Could I infer his Residence —
Vast Prairies of Air

Unbroken by a Settler —
Were all that I could see —
Infinitude — Had'st Thou no Face
That I might look on Thee?

The Silence condescended —
Creation stopped — for Me —
But awed beyond my errand —
I worshipped — did not "pray" —
                               F525 (1863)  J564


In astronomy, a subject Dickinson studied and enjoyed throughout her life, the term "period" refers to the length of time it takes an object to complete one revolution of its orbit or one complete rotation on its axis. In this poem, Dickinson has reached a point in her life's orbit where she felt the need to pray – nothing else "would do". And so she ventures out in astronomical space, for "those who pray / … – must ascend" to the realms above where "God grows". By "north" Dickinson is probably hearkening back to the Bible.  In the book of Job (37:22), she would have read "Out of the north he comes in golden splendor; God comes in awesome majesty." 
The poem begins with a lighthearted tone despite the speaker's urgent need to pray. Clearly frustrated in her attempt, she blames her "Tactics" for missing a "rudiment" of prayer. She then drolly asks God, her "Curious Friend", if this "rudiment" might be him. That's a bit cheeky!   

The speaker consequently embarks on her search for God, and the next three stanzas offer some details of her journey – still in the bantering tone. "His House was not – no sign had He" is a sing-songy bit of chiasmus, and the sketch of the poet going about the heavens looking for a door or chimney is humorous. 
Throughout her search, all the poet sees are "Vast Prairies of Air". She finally addresses God as "Infinitude" – a deepening of respect and awe. While looking for a friendly face, perhaps the grandfatherly god of much Christian art, she finds infinity instead.
The last stanza pivots to epiphany. The silence of unbroken infinity is suddenly open to her; "Creation" stops "– for Me–" she adds in amazement. The realization that she herself is axis, is at the heart of Creation, fills her with such awe that prayer and petition were forgotten in the exaltation of worship.
It is a larger sense of the divine, I think, than to reverence a Deity who listens to prayers as if a parent.

The poem is written in common ballad form except the last stanza which is all in iambic trimeter. That stanza is given additional emphasis by the alliteration of "condescended" and "Creation". The "stopped" followed by a dash really does stop the poem. It's the key moment as the poet finally gives up tactics for Silence and Infinitude.

It feels a shame to be Alive —

It feels a shame to be Alive —
When Men so brave — are dead —
One envies the Distinguished Dust —
Permitted — such a Head —

The Stone — that tells defending Whom
This Spartan put away
What little of Him we — possessed
In Pawn for Liberty —

The price is great — Sublimely paid —
Do we deserve — a Thing —
That lives — like Dollars — must be piled
Before we may obtain?

Are we that wait — sufficient worth —
That such Enormous Pearl
As life — dissolved be — for Us —
In Battle's — horrid Bowl?

It may be — a Renown to live —
I think the Men who die —
Those unsustained — Saviors —
Present Divinity —
                                  F524 (1863)  J444


Early in 1863, the year this poem was written, Dickinson wrote to her "Preceptor" Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson, then serving as commander of the first regiment of freed slaves. "War feels to me an oblique Place" (L280), she said. It follows then that few of her nearly 1800 poems can be considered true war poems. This is one of them. 
1863 was also the year Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation to free the slaves. The battle of Gettysburg, bloodiest battle of the war with nearly 100,000 casualties, was fought a few months later.  With these momentous events and her concern over Colonel Higginson, it is no wonder that the price of freedom would have been on the poet's mind. 

 "Hancock at Gettysbug" by Thure de Thulstrup,
showing Pickett's Charge

In this poem Dickinson ponders over the bloodshed and lives lost in the cause of "Liberty". Do we deserve it, she asks? 

What a question! The Civil War was fought over slavery: the right to own slaves and reap the economic benefit vs. the corrosive effects of slavery on the republic – to say nothing of the yearning and rights of the slaves themselves. (Yes, there were other factors, but I'm convinced by Doris Kearns Goodwin's conclusion in her highly regarded biography of Abraham Lincoln that ultimately the war was waged over slavery). Who would question such a battle, particularly after all the arts of statecraft and compromise had been exhausted in preceding years?

Dickinson, however, places herself where she can ask that question – as one for whom the battle is fought. 

On a cursory read the poem seems to be about honoring soldiers who die for the good of their country. They are "Pawn for Liberty", their lives forfeit. But for whose liberty are they dying? 
When Dickinson asks if "we that wait" are worth the enormous price paid in blood, how can she be referring to anyone other than the slaves waiting for emancipation? She asks if "we deserve" the bodies piled "like Dollars" – and this, too, must be from the slaves' point of view.
Dickinson also makes reference to the Spartans who died heroically in their doomed stand against a huge invading Persian army in 480 BCE. Did the civilian Greeks for whom they fought wonder at the price paid? Did the farmers and herders and townspeople reckon themselves of "sufficient worth"? (For the sake of the poem we should overlook the fact that Thermopylae was essentially a defeat for Greece.)
I find her question deeply humanistic. What is the proper balance between freedom and life, especially when it is your freedom and someone else's life? Dickinson here puts herself in the place of those Americans whose emancipation is at stake and still finds herself asking if Liberty is worth the "horrid" bloody bowl of war. We don't know what Colonel Higginson wrote to Dickinson about his battles and his troops, but his letters may have planted this thought.

Alternatively, while the poem may have been more urgently written because of the war being waged, Dickinson may have been meditating war in general. It is perhaps never truly worth the horrors and carnage, yet it births heroes, "Saviors," who pay the price "Sublimely". 

There is no denying the soldier deification in the poem. The dead soldiers are "so brave" their bodies ennoble the dirt in which they are buried. Dickinson compares the value of their lives to an "Enormous Pearl". Helen Vendler claims this is a reference to Cleopatra who, legend has it, dissolved a pearl in a cup of wine "to show the extent to which she disdained wealth." Were these dead soldiers' lives equally wasted in "Battles' – horrid Bowl"? 
In the final stanza Dickinson compares the soldiers to Jesus: they are "unsustained – Saviors" who exemplify "Divinity". Christianity worships Jesus as one who died so that humanity might be saved from the doom of sin. The Union dead died in service, ultimately, of Emancipation.

The Trees like Tassels — hit — and swung —

The Trees like Tassels — hit — and swung —
There seemed to rise a Tune
From Miniature Creatures
Accompanying the Sun —

Far Psalteries of Summer —
Enamoring the Ear
They never yet did satisfy —
Remotest — when most fair

The Sun shone whole at intervals —
Then Half — then utter hid —
As if Himself were optional
And had Estates of Cloud

Sufficient to enfold Him
Eternally from view —
Except it were a whim of His
To let the Orchards grow —

A Bird sat careless on the fence —
One gossipped in the Lane
On silver matters charmed a Snake
Just winding round a Stone —

Bright Flowers slit a Calyx
And soared upon a Stem
Like Hindered Flags — Sweet hoisted —
With Spices — in the Hem —

'Twas more — I cannot mention —
How mean — to those that see —
Vandyke's Delineation
Of Nature's — Summer Day!
                                                                                 F523 (1863)  J606


Ah, the music of the summer psaltery: Wind playing through leaves and branches, insects humming in the air, and birds gossiping. Add to that the panoply of clouds and flowers – plus the scent of flowers – and the carrying-ons of the little creatures on the ground, and you have a pretty perfect summer day. In this completely charming poem Dickinson makes her preference pretty clear for the glories of such a day over even the finest art.

Woman playing a psalterion

She begins in the trees. The morning winds have come up, buffeting the branches until the trees bend and swing like the tassels one pulls to open a curtain or call the servants. As the sun rises the air quiets and "Miniature Creatures" such as bees and swarms of gnats come out, filling the air with the rapid beating of their tiny wings. The poet is enamored by this music, but notes that it can never "satisfy". It is a tease, most beautiful when out of reach, always leaving one wanting more.   

Portrait by van Dyk. 

Clouds sometimes cover the sun. Dickinson treats the sun if it were a monarch. He shines "whole" at times, while sometimes he is "Half" or "utter hid" as if he need not show himself at all. He has "Estates of Cloud" to shield him from the gaze of mere mortals. But just as the most reclusive king will venture out for some pet fancy or other, so the sun has a "whim" to "let the Orchards grow". Oh generous sun!
Dickinson then turns her attention to earth. A couple of birds are lazing about, and a snake whispers his "silver" conversation as it slithers around a stone to find a spot of warmth. The flowers also respond to the sun. Dickinson has them slitting open their calyxes – a wonderful image – as if so full of energy that they must burst out by force. Like flags eagerly raised by embattled troops, the flowers are "hoisted" up to soar on their stems, their petal hems full of spicy fragrance. 
A glorious summer day has even more riches, but the poet admits she "cannot mention" everything. She concludes the poem by saying that even a masterpiece by Sir Anthony van Dyk (1599-1641) would seem "mean" or shabby by comparison. Dickinson isn't quite playing fair here. Van Dyk was a portrait painter, so unless you really like baroque portraits of nobility, you would have to agree with her. 

Another lovely summer poem is Dickinson's "A something in a summer's Day" (F104).

I tie my Hat — I crease my Shawl —

I tie my Hat — I crease my Shawl —
Life's little duties do — precisely —
As the very least
Were infinite — to me —

I put new Blossoms in the Glass —
And throw the old — away —
I push a petal from my Gown
That anchored there — I weigh
The time 'twill be till six o'clock
So much I have to do —
And yet — existence — some way back —
Stopped — struck — my ticking — through —

We cannot put Ourself away
As a completed Man
Or Woman — When the errand's done
We came to Flesh — upon —
There may be — Miles on Miles of Nought —
Of Action — sicker far —
To simulate — is stinging work —
To cover what we are
From Science — and from Surgery —
Too Telescopic eyes
To bear on us unshaded —
For their — sake — Not for Ours —

Therefore — we do life's labor —
Though life's Reward — be done —
With scrupulous exactness —
To hold our Senses — on —
                           F522 (1863)  J443


Many of Dickinson's poems describe a circumscribed life (Most recently, "A still Volcano – Life –" and "A Pit –  but Heaven over it –") even though Dickinson herself famously said her business was circumference. The two ideas are related, of course. The soul beats at its confining flesh, the poet at the limits of knowledge and language, and every person struggles against defeat, disappointment, and the vagaries of chance. We are circumscribed, yes – but of what nature are the bounds, how established, how surmounted or endured, and how does one determine what and where they are? This is the business of circumference, seeing the whole circle and venturing out along its verge. This is where Dickinson sometimes takes her readers.
        In this poem, Dickinson examines how people circumscribe themselves, choosing to perform the minutia of daily life "With scrupulous exactness" long after they have lost a sense of purpose or meaning in life. Doing so protects sanity by holding the "Senses" on. Without tactile and specific tasks – the bonnet ribbons or the silk of the scarf between our fingers – we might come completely unmoored.  

        It also protects others from glimpsing the abyss in the affected ones' souls. Pretending everything is normal is "For their – sake – Not for Ours." What would the sister, the father, the brother, the dear friends say if they saw that the "ticking" of real, vital life had stopped?

        Dickinson begins the poem with a sketch of a woman preparing herself for the long hours between getting dressed and supper. Attention is lavished on the tying of the hat, the creasing of the shawl. Such small tasks are undertaken as if they had "infinite" meaning. When nothing has meaning anymore, even "the very least" can become sacramental. These careful gestures we see later are part of a deliberate strategy. 
        The woman turns her attention to small household tasks. She throws out yesterday's flowers to make room for new ones.  There is no delight in the blossoms that she must have just picked, no lingering regard for the spent ones. Flowers, the symbol of life and love and rebirth, are as lifeless to the depressed speaker as the creases of a shawl. A delicate petal seems heavy to her: it is "anchored" to her dress as if its negligible weight pulls her down. She has to "push" it away. 
        Time itself is heavy. The speaker "weighs" the time until dinner. She has plenty of tasks to fill the time but nothing to look forward to. The clock will be ticking, yet her own existence, her vital forces, have stopped. Dickinson says "Stopped" but then adds "struck" – a word that implies the striking of the hour by a clock, but also that she has suffered a blow. Whatever has stopped her inner clock did so through one event, not ennui.
       The rest of the poem is a reflection on life as the speaker turns from the particulars of her own life to a broader generalization. Going back to the household task analogy, she notes that when our life's "errand" is done, which I take to mean a signal achievement or some transformative experience, we "cannot put Ourself away" as we would the plant who has flowered and gone to seed.  Instead, between the accomplishment of the great errand we were born for ("came to Flesh – upon") and death, we still have "Miles on Miles" of nothing, of meaningless actions ahead. This is the dreariness of one whose life has peaked too soon and who can finds nothing left of interest.
        Simulating being truly alive "is stinging work" but must be done to cover up the hollow reality. The doctors, the scientists, the dear friends and family with their "Telescopic eyes" who look at us deeply, "unshaded", must not be allowed to see the truth. Paradoxically, Dickinson says shielding them is for their sake rather than for our own. Perhaps it would be too distressing to see a loved one or a patient in uncurable depression. 
       The last stanza, however, brings us back to the speaker. She continues with "life's labor" as seemingly nothing more than an alternative to suicide. The only thing holding body and soul together is the strategy of complete mindfulness to each small task. It is a flattened and depressed expression of what Thich Nhat Hanh discusses in The Miracle of Mindfulness: " I clean this teapot with the kind of attention I would have were I giving the baby Buddha or Jesus a bath.” And yet for Hanh this mindfulness leads to joy. To the speaker of this poem it barely ensures survival. 


Fascinating scholarly difference: Remember this provocative stanza from F508, "A Pit – but Heaven over it –"?   

'Twould start them —
 We — could tremble —
 But since we got a Bomb —
 And held it in our Bosom —
 Nay — Hold it — it is calm —

Well, Johnson puts it in THIS poem as the penultimate stanza. I quite like it there, as it ties together the idea of shielding others and holding on to our senses.

It always felt to me — a wrong

It always felt to me — a wrong
To that Old Moses — done —
To let him see — the Canaan —
Without the entering —

And tho' in soberer moments —
No Moses there can be
I'm satisfied — the Romance
In point of injury —

Surpasses sharper stated —
Of Stephen — or of Paul —
For these — were only put to death —
While God's adroiter will

On Moses — seemed to fasten
With tantalizing Play
As Boy — should deal with lesser Boy —
To prove ability.

The fault — was doubtless Israel's —
Myself — had banned the Tribes —
And ushered Grand Old Moses
In Pentateuchal Robes

Upon the Broad Possession
'Twas little — He should see —
Old Man on Nebo! Late as this —
My justice bleeds — for Thee!
                             F521 (1863)  J597


Dickinson was skeptical about Christianity, particularly in its portrayal of God as all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good. Her path to this skepticism, which set her apart from family, friends and townspeople, seems to have come at least in part from reading the family Bible. She says as much in the opening lines of this poem: she always felt God behaved badly towards Moses, showing him the Promised Land but forbidding him to enter it. 
It was Moses, after all, who had led the suffering Israelites out of Egypt forty years before. Most people remember the stories of the plagues, the parting of the Red Sea and the manna from heaven. It was Moses who brought the tablets with the Ten Commandments down from God. He is considered chief among the Patriarchs. Yet God denied him Canaan, the promised destination, because of what seems a forgivable and uncharacteristic failure: when God told him that if he spoke to a rock it would gush forth enough water to save the thirsty Israelites, Moses instead struck the rock with his rod and, probably more to the point, didn't credit God – something he had done throughout his long and heroic leadership.   

Moses looking at the Promised Land he was
forbidden to enter

Dickinson calls God's actions a tease, a "tantalizing Play", something akin to a cruel boy egging on a boy he knows to be his inferior simply to flaunt his own superiority. She makes a similar criticism in  F304  where the "June Bee" invites a schoolboy to a "Race" that he has no chance to win. The bee "evades" and "teases" and then goes back to the "Royal clouds" where the whole sky mocks the boy.

Although she admits that "in soberer moments" she finds the Biblical accounts of Moses to be a fantasy, a "Romance", Dickinson compares Moses's fate to that of Stephen, the first Christian martyr, stoned to death for his faith, and the apostle Paul who was reportedly beheaded at the command of Nero. Stephen and Paul were simply put to death by peers or rulers for their beliefs, while Moses had to gaze upon the land he had led his people towards for forty years, knowing that the god under whom he served was forbidding him to ever set foot in it. A sad, if not bitter, moment indeed, with God rubbing a bit of salt into the wound. It is God's "adroiter will", and Dickinson is here making a word play (per the invaluable Emily Dickinson Lexicon) on the French roots of "adroit": "to right, or "rightly". What she means is "cunning" and "clever" – nothing about this is "right" to her.
Some might say that God was showing Moses some mercy when he allowed Moses to see Canaan, providing some sense of closure. But not Dickinson. First, she blames the Israelites who seem to have provoked Moses into his unscripted whacking of the rock by their quarreling and complaining. She would have banned them from the promised land instead of "Grand Old Moses". 
In the last two lines of the poem, Dickinson addresses Moses directly: Old grandfather, there on Mt. Nebo looking out over what you should have possessed – "My justice bleeds – for Thee!" It is a ringing end to a well-reasoned poem.



Here are some of the pertinent Biblical passages:
The Fault of Moses
Numbers 20:2-12
2 Now there was no water for the community, and the people gathered in opposition to Moses and Aaron. 3 They quarreled with Moses and said, “If only we had died when our brothers fell dead before the LORD! 4 Why did you bring the LORD’s community into this wilderness, that we and our livestock should die here? 5 Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to this terrible place? It has no grain or figs, grapevines or pomegranates. And there is no water to drink!”
6 Moses and Aaron went from the assembly to the entrance to the tent of meeting and fell facedown, and the glory of the LORD appeared to them. 7 The LORD said to Moses, 8 “Take the staff, and you and your brother Aaron gather the assembly together. Speak to that rock before their eyes and it will pour out its water. You will bring water out of the rock for the community so they and their livestock can drink.”
9 So Moses took the staff from the LORD’s presence, just as he commanded him. 10 He and Aaron gathered the assembly together in front of the rock and Moses said to them, “Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?” 11 Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff. Water gushed out, and the community and their livestock drank.
12 But the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them.”


The Death of Moses
Deuteronomy 34:1-6
Then Moses climbed Mount Nebo from the plains of Moab to the top of Pisgah, across from Jericho. There the Lord showed him the whole land—from Gilead to Dan, 2 all of Naphtali, the territory of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the Mediterranean Sea, 3 the Negev and the whole region from the Valley of Jericho, the City of Palms, as far as Zoar. 4 Then theLord said to him, “This is the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob when I said, ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ I have let you see it with your eyes, but you will not cross over into it.”
5 And Moses the servant of the Lord died there in Moab, as the Lord had said. 6 He buried him[a] in Moab, in the valley opposite Beth Peor, but to this day no one knows where his grave is.

God made a little Gentian —

God made a little Gentian —
It tried — to be a Rose —
And failed — and all the Summer laughed —
But just before the Snows

There rose a Purple Creature —
That ravished all the Hill —
And Summer hid her Forehead —
And Mockery — was still —

The Frosts were her condition —
The Tyrian would not come
Until the North — invoke it —
Creator — Shall I — bloom?
                              F520 (1863) J442

Just as the swan had to suffer taunts and awkwardness in "The Ugly Duckling", Dickinson's "little Gentian" fails miserably in its efforts to be a lovely rose. Poor thing – laughed at by "all the Summer." But you cannot judge a young waterfowl by its feathers nor a wildflower by its petals. The swan grows into its majestic beauty, discovering its true identity, and by the fall frosts, the humble gentian has spread all over the hills in a ravishing purple display. Take that, Summer! Hide your face and stop your mocking.
Dickinson draws the obvious moral here: While roses bloom in spring and summer, some flowers like the gentian bloom late in the year. The beauty of the gentian, its beautiful Tyrian purple blossoms, waits for the cold north wind to "invoke it" – which is an almost sacramental formulation.  After most all the other wildflowers have died, the North summons the gentian to bloom.

The lovely fringed gentian
photo: Tristan Loper

In the poignant last line, Dickinson turns the gentian's story into a metaphor for her own life. She is 33 years old as she writes this poem. She is in the prime of her poetic outpourings and seems in many of her poems to know her own power. She is, however, decidedly not like anyone else around her. She is beginning to gain the reputation as both an iconic and idiosyncratic spinster. Is it any wonder then that the poet calls out to the Creator to ask if it isn't yet her time to bloom? Dickinson, I think, was well aware that her dazzling poetry would also some day "ravish all the countryside".
It is in some ways a pity that her public blooming took place after her death, yet it may well be that the blooming of her reputation was necessarily not coincident with the blooming of her talent. Dickinson bloomed alone in her room with only a small writing table and a window facing sunset. Could she have written as she did in the spotlight of public approbation?

This is my letter to the World

This is my letter to the World
That never wrote to Me —
The simple News that Nature told —
With tender Majesty

Her Message is committed
To Hands I cannot see —
For love of Her — Sweet — countrymen —
Judge tenderly — of Me
                                   F519 (1863)  J441

                                                     
This is among the most quoted poems among Dickinson scholars. I find it lovely and tender – in fact, tenderness is a part of the poem itself. While some scholars milk the first two lines for a bit of bitterness on Dickinson's part, my own reading of the poem is in line with Helen Vendler's. Dickinson is writing to all the peoples whether of her own age or ours or some distant future. The poetry she entrusts to future hands, the ones she "cannot see," is that of nature. As nature's poet, she hopes her "countrymen" will judge her "tenderly."
It's a humble thought. As Vendler puts it, Dickinson is implying that it is her theme and subject that elevate her poetry rather than any particular skill she may have with words. 
Vendler also contrasts the permeating femaleness of Dickinson's portrayal of nature and nature's emissary with the maleness of Jehovah, Jesus, and all the prophets and apostles that people the Christian tradition and its roots. While God's majesty is awesome (think of his thunderous demands for awe from the suffering and humiliated Job), Nature's majesty is "tender". Her emissary is a quiet woman in Amherst who gardens and bakes bread. Dickinson's "letter" can be contrasted with those of the apostle Paul who wrote letter after letter to early Christians exhorting them, chastising them, and employing arguments based on a rabbinical system of logic and deduction.
Dickinson's nature poetry shows death and rebirth with a daisy; it shows faith with a bee, magnificence with a sunset. Her heavenly saints, like the robins in the trees, make delightful music. 

The letter poem in Dickinson's
hand (with parts of the previous)

Dickinson wrote letters every day, many of them containing poems and many of them mined for poems that are not clearly set out by Dickinson as poems. It is fitting, then, that she uses the device of an informal letter to announce her transcendent role. 

Has she succeeded? Has Dickinson's relay of Nature's "simple news" been read by people she never saw? Have they judged tenderly of her? The answer to both questions is so overwhelmingly "Yes!" that Dickinson, not unaware of her poetic power, would probably be flabbergasted.

I find it interesting, now after 519 poems explicated, that although much of Dickinson's nature poetry is full of rebirth and of almost pantheistic connection, that her religion poetry divides between the somewhat saccharine (saints on streets of gold) and the brutal (God hammering at her soul or allowing the soul to be tortured). Yes, there are nuanced exceptions, but an interesting dichotomy remains. Perhaps the Transcendentalism which took root in New England during her youth attracted her without quite severing the Calvinist Christianity in which she was raised.

When I was small, a Woman died —

When I was small, a Woman died —
Today — her Only Boy
Went up from the Potomac —
His face all Victory

To look at her — How slowly
The Seasons must have turned
Till Bullets clipt an Angle
And He passed quickly round —

If pride shall be in Paradise —
Ourself cannot decide —
Of their imperial Conduct —
No person testified —

But, proud in Apparition —
That Woman and her Boy
Pass back and forth, before my Brain
As even in the sky —

I'm confident, that Bravoes —
Perpetual break abroad
For Braveries, remote as this
In yonder Maryland —
                      F518 (1863)  J597

This poem was long thought to be about Francis H. Dickinson, an Amherst man who was killed in a Civil War battle on the Maryland border (Ball's Bluff, Virginia). Some scholars disagree, saying that while Francis died in 1861, the poem was written in 1863, belying the "Today" of the soldier's death. Franklin suggests in his New Variorum that Dickinson may not be writing about any real people at all.

Death of Col. Edward D. Baker at the
Battle of Ball's Bluff, by Currier and Ives

       
It's a poem of comfort, no matter who it is or isn't about. The death of a woman followed by the war death of her beloved son seems like a grim topic for a poem, but Dickinson pulls out all the stops to provide something both sentimental and positive. In marvelous economy, the first stanza tells the story of what happened. The poet knew the woman who died and seemingly knew her son – or at least knew of him. The son died in a battle by the Potomac River, and in death his face was "all Victory".
        Dickinson imagines the reunited mother and son walking back and forth together as she gazes on the evening sky. And although she cannot decide whether or not pride has a place in paradise, Dickinson imagines that the pair is proud, particularly in regards to the son's heroism in battle. She goes so far as to suppose that the heavenly throng cheers for such bravery – even if it took place in "remote" Maryland. 
        In an earlier version of the poem, Dickinson used "scarlet" in place of "yonder" – a substitution that changes the poem quite a bit. "Scarlet" focuses the poem on bloody battles, while "yonder" serves to contrast earthly strife with the eternal and superior heavenly abode.

I'm not particularly keen on this poem, but I do like the bullets that "clipt an Angle" through the revolving seasons of the motherless boy's life. It's like a shortcut card on a board game.
     

A still — Volcano — Life —

A still — Volcano — Life —
That flickered in the night —
When it was dark enough to do
Without erasing sight —

A quiet — Earthquake Style —
Too subtle to suspect
By natures this side Naples —
The North cannot detect

The Solemn — Torrid — Symbol —
The lips that never lie —
Whose hissing Corals part — and shut —
And Cities — ooze away —
                                       F517 (1863)  J601

The volcano symbolizes a certain way of being alive. Could it be a poet's way (whose lips "never lie"), a woman's whose life amid a patriarchal Calvinist family and society meant her strongest passions and questings must either be silent or rupturing? I think so, and this is not the only Dickinson volcano poem that attentive readers and scholars suggest are a self portrait. 
The poem is full of paradoxical phrasings: the Volcano Life is "still"; the Earthquake is "quiet; and the Symbol (the volcano standing for the poet/speaker) is both "Solemn" and "Torrid".  The first two stanzas hint at the volatility and upheaval beneath the poet's surface. The Volcano is only flickering, and this at night. Related earthquake activity is so "subtle" that those north of or on the other side of the ocean from Vesuvius (the famous volcano near Naples, Italy) cannot detect it. These would be the cooler, more restrained types – think New Englanders or northern Europeans – unlike those hot-blooded Mediterraneans.  

Yet the third stanza warns that despite the lulling quiet, the volcano/poet need only part her coral lips, just open and shut them, and the resulting eruption will destroy any cities in its path. Yikes! 

There's a nightmare quality to the poem. We see the poet in her room, her passions roiling beneath the surface. She is writing at night where her poetic sight is clearest and where others won't get a glimpse of the hot light she keeps damped within. We see the tremors of her soul, moved by large questions, powerful emotions, and startling visions. In a bit of a dig, she suggests that while some people would sense her power and heat,  most are unacquainted with volcanoes; their emotional or spiritual climate is too cool. I am reminded of "More Life – went out – when He went" (F415) where she contrasts the "Peat life" to that of the flame-proved anthracite. The peat people ignore the existence of volcanoes.
In the monstrous last stanza Dickinson gives us a glimpse of her power. There is nothing coy, nothing humble, and nothing ladylike about it – although it is completely female. Her façade is "Solemn" for she is fully aware of herself. Her deeper nature is scorching, burning with heat. Her lips never lie, and when they open the erupting magma hisses and flows, whole cities destroyed as they "ooze away" in its flow. Now that's poetry!
That last image gains double power from the doubled image of the poet's lips. They are the guardian gates to the eruptive truths Dickinson hammers in the forge of her soul. "Dare you see a Soul at the 'White Heat'?" she asks in another poem (F401). They are at the same time labial which if opened would release a hot flood of female sexuality. Their flow is like magma, its force lethal for those in its path. The idea of "ooze" is primordial.

As a final note, Dickinson differentiates the North from the South in "Our lives are Swiss" (F129) where the northerners are "still" and "Cool" while on the other side of the Alps, the Italians live in earthy and hot passion. 

                                                     

It troubled me as once I was —

It troubled me as once I was —
For I was once a Child —
Concluding how an atom — fell —
And yet the Heavens — held —

The Heavens weighed the most — by far —
Yet Blue — and solid — stood —
Without a Bolt — that I could prove —
Would Giants — understand?

Life set me larger — problems —
Some I shall keep — to solve
Till Algebra is easier —
Or simpler proved — above —

Then — too — be comprehended —
What sorer — puzzled me —
Why Heaven did not break away —
And tumble — Blue — on me —
                                                                                F516 (1863)  J600


Dickinson is reflecting on a childhood mystery that becomes a deeper question as she ages. As a child she wondered why everything falls earthward except the blue skies of heaven. Overhead the sky seems heavy and "solid" and is not bolted to anything. Why shouldn't it fall? Ah well, she thought; grown-ups – "Giants" – understand this sort of stuff.
       That literal question wouldn't turn out to be too difficult for the poet who, after all, studied some astronomy. Plus she encountered "larger" problems than that of the distant sky. She knows that some of them won't be solved until that greater life beyond earth, where "Algebra is easier" or at least more easily proved. And if that be true, then surely she will learn why Heaven stays in its place and does not "tumble – Blue" on her.
       The difference, I think, between the childish question and the adult question is the difference between "Heavens" as the sky that we see above, a terrain as real and complex as that of the ground below, and "Heaven" as a symbol for the divine. While Dickinson's dearest friends and relations had all made deep and public commitments to Christianity during the religious revival that began to sweep New England in her youth, Dickinson herself held out. Although she could express conventional and loving sentiments towards the Christian Trinity and Heaven, she also probed deeply into the difficult questions involving an all-good, all-powerful, all-knowing deity presiding over a world of suffering. Why wouldn't Heaven crash down in its oceanic blueness on the head of one of its deepest questioners?
      

In Dickinson's probing moods, she penned poems such as "The nearest Dream recedes – unrealized –"  (F304) , where heaven invites us to pursue it but then evades us and mocks our efforts. Although we long for "steadfast Honey", the Bee (standing for God as in other poems) does not brew "that rare variety!" In other poems the dead may enter a sort of timelessness or eternity (as in "Because I would not stop for Death" [F479] or "Safe in their Alabaster Chambers"   [F124]) , but they do not experience the Pearly Gates Heaven. "Location's narrow way is for Ourselves" she writes in  F476 , "Unto the Dead / There's no Geography."

Having subverted its pillars, Dickinson is perhaps right to puzzle over why Heaven doesn't "break away" to fall on her.

The poem begins with a charming chiasmus – the reversal of grammatical structure in "as once I was" and "I was once" – that suggests a story or fable. Continuing the fable tone, Dickinson contrasts an atom with the Heavens – a dichotomy of the very smallest against the very largest. Adults are whimsically referred to as "Giants" and in another bit of humor, she suggests that Algebra won't become clear to her until she gets to heaven. (This notion that we will understand suffering and purpose after we die is treated with more bite in "I shall know why – when Time is over –"  [F215] where "Christ will explain each separate anguish / In the fair schoolroom of the sky".)
       The light tone is maintained throughout the poem. Heaven wouldn't conceivably crash, but rather tumble; it would be "Blue" rather than black or stormy; the "Bolt" is a fastener rather than a dangerous shaft of lightning; and she doesn't anguish, but rather puzzles over the existential question. I think the effect of this light tone is to soften the idea of heaven collapsing on her. Perhaps the idea wasn't terrifying so much as wondrous: a tumbling blue mass of heaven.