A Weight with Needles on the pounds --

A Weight with Needles on the pounds—

To push, and pierce, besides—

That if the Flesh resist the Heft—

The puncture—coolly tries —

That not a pore be overlooked

Of all this Compound Frame—

As manifold for Anguish—

As Species—be—for name—

                                                            F294 (1862)  264

Dickinson’s poems often take pain as a subject: the pain of separation, of dying, of failure, and of existential causes (“heavenly hurt,” for example). This one dissects the experience of anguish. This pain is both heavy and sharp: the poet describes it as a “Weight with Needles.” As the weight pushes the needles pierce.

            Worse, if one tries to somehow avoid either the weight (“the Heft) or  the puncturing, the torture device “coolly tries” to make sure that not a single pore of “the Flesh” is missed. This intentionality is chilling; something or some entity wants to cause suffering and goes about it “coolly” as if it were either a sadist or a professional.

            The pain is not only physical but mental or psychical as well, afflicting the “Compound Frame” that is our body and soul. Such torment seems like something out of a fire-and-brimstone sermon.

Anguish can sometimes be too  much to bear--as we see in
Shakespeare's Ophelia (Millais, 1851)

            The last two lines add even more horror: there are as many ways to feel anguish (all the pores, actual and metaphorical) as there are names of species. The naming of animals reminds us of Genesis where Adam was responsible for naming all the different animals that God had made. There are a lot of different kinds of animals as Dickinson surely knew from her natural history studies. The Genesis reference, reminding us of the Garden teeming with new life and joy, is in sharp contrast to the deliberate anguish portrayed here.

            Why was Dickinson writing about such excruciating pain? She wrote this poem in 1862, a year in which she wrote many poems of torment. She also wrote three “Master” letters around this time to a man she passionately loved. One of them, the third, discusses her acute, broken-hearted pain:

   “ I’ve got a cough as big as a thimble—but I don’t care for that—I’ve got a Tomahawk in my side but that dont hurt me much. … Oh how the sailor strains, when his boat is filling—Oh how the dying tug, till the angel comes.”

            Editor and biographer Thomas Johnson thinks Master is Charles Wadsworth, a married minister whom Dickinson seemed to have loved. Other scholars disagree, and the truth may never be known.

            But Dickinson was writing of other pains at this time as well, as made clear by poems written earlier in the year (as well as can be determined). In “I got so I could take his name,” she talks about a departed or dead lover” whose letters caused a pain “As Staples—driven through.” In “I should have been too glad, I see,” she scathingly suggest to “Savior” that she be crucified rather than have joy.

The poem is written in hymn form: quatrains with alternating iambic tetrameter and trimeter and an ABCB rhyme scheme. Dickinson sprinkles “p” sounds throughout: pounds, push, pierce, puncture, poor. The sound is what linguists call “plosive” and does have a pushing and pounding quality.

A single Screw of Flesh

A single Screw of Flesh
Is all that pins the Soul
That stands for Deity, to Mine,
Upon my side the Veil — 

Once witnessed of the Gauze —

Its name is put away

As far from mine, as if no plight

Had printed yesterday, 

In tender – solemn Alphabet, 
My eyes just turned to see, 
When it was smuggled by my sight
Into Eternity —

More Hands — to hold — These are but Two 
One more new-mailed Nerve 
Just granted, for the Peril's sake —
Some striding — Giant — Love — 

So greater than the Gods can show, 
They slink before the Clay, 
That not for all their Heaven can boast 
Will let its Keepsake — go

                                                                                          F293 (1862)  263 

I’ve read this poem numerous times and still find it elusive. There is an interesting transcendental aspect to the two aspects of the soul: the first, the part that “stands for Deity,” or what Emerson might call the Oversoul, would be the eternal and divine soul; the other is the rational and spiritual essence of each individual soul. A “veil” separates the two. Death rends the veil.

Veil Nebula: part of the Cygnus constellation, originating
from a supernova some 1470 light years away

         Dickinson writes that she once caught a glimpse of this “Gauze,” implying a near death experience or perhaps an intense transcendental moment. Rather than becoming more drawn to the eternal side, however, she distanced herself from it, not at all ready for the divine side.  

        We see that “yesterday”—perhaps a literal yesterday or perhaps a longer time ago than that—she made (plighted) some sort of vow. It was “printed… / “In tender—solemn Alphabet; spelled out, that is, from A to Z. She saw it “smuggled” into Eternity as if some heavenly scribe was hastening to show her plight to the Deity. The vow seems to have been in response to the crisis she calls “the Peril” in the fourth stanza. The strength of her experience and her language suggests this may have been a crisis where she felt death was near or perhaps desirable. 

        In response to her plight, as I read it, the Deity granted her three gifts: “More Hands” to support her; emotional strength shown metaphorically as steel armor for her nerves, needed because of the Peril; and a great big “striding” “Love.” Give  me some of that! I imagine the poet flooded with transcendent love, but it may also be love from  a beloved person (living or even recently departed). 
        This must have been a flood of love of life. It doesn’t come from any god essence for it is “greater than the Gods” efforts. In fact, the gods “slink” before our human “Clay” flesh: we are so attached to ourselves, to being alive here and now on earth, that nothing in “all their Heaven” could lure us to the other side of that veil. This idea of gods slinking is remarkable and it forces me to realize that I don’t know what Dickinson was getting at when she talked about the “striding—Giant—Love.” What kind of love, and from whom? And is it really God or the gods or some more distant “Deity” who grants the “new-mailed Nerve?

   

I got so I could take his name –

I got so I could take his name –

Without – Tremendous gain –

That Stop-sensation – on my Soul –

And Thunder – in the Room –

I got so I could walk across

That Angle in the floor,

Where he turned so, and I turned – how –

And all our Sinew tore –

I got so I could stir the Box –

In which his letters grew

Without that forcing, in my breath –

As Staples – driven through –

Could dimly recollect a Grace –

I think, they call it "God" –

Renowned to ease Extremity –

When Formula, had failed –

And shape my Hands –

Petition's way,

Tho' ignorant of a word

That Ordination – utters –

My Business – with the Cloud,

If any Power behind it, be,

Not subject to Despair –

It care, in some remoter way,

For so minute affair

As Misery –

Itself, too vast, for interrupting – more –

                                                            F292 (1862)  293

Dickinson mourns the loss of a loved one; whether the loss is from death or desertion she does not say. The poem is situated in that stage of grief where profound pain is numbed and where faith is challenged—at least faith in a caring deity who listens to prayers.

antique forged staple and latch

            She begins in a conversational tone as if she were confiding in her best friend. At last she was able to say the departed one’s name without – and then come two powerful images—“That Stop-sensation” on her soul or “Thunder—in the Room. The “stop-sensation” is particularly fresh. A more clichéd phrase would say something about heart-stopping or breath catching. But Dickinson goes for the soul, a deeper part of our fabric and more eternal. That she could “take his name” without this incredible pain is “Tremendous gain.”  

            She is finally able to walk where they once walked together, and here we see the couple pacing a room together, arm in arm, turning at the corner. Previously when she walked in this same room and turned at that same corner without him her “Sinew tore”: the heartache made itself felt in her very legs.

            Her letter box has been another source of grief, but she finally got beyond that. She could “stir” the letters that accumulated, or “grew,” there without a gasp of pain. We must imagine the “Staples” of her day—large blacksmith-forged metal fasteners that would serve to hold carriage parts or large door latches together. It would be like a stake driven through the chest.

            The poet then describes the failure of her faith to comfort her. She “dimly” remembers there may be a deity that some call “God” who is supposed to ease us through extreme trials when “Formula” or normal remedies fail. She remembers how to shape her hands into a prayerful gesture. She took her “Business” to this deity. Her doubt is manifest in her description of it as a “Power” that may be in heaven—behind the clouds. It isn’t “subject to Despair.” It may care in some remote way for what she caustically says is “so minute affair / As Misery.” Yet she is not really hopeful. It is “too vast” to be interrupted any more.

This is another poem in the hymn form that Dickinson used so well. It is a hymn of sorts, but not one celebrating the goodness of God. Instead it is a chronicle of how we must slowly, incrementally, move through the pain of great loss all by ourselves. 

It sifts from Leaden Sieves –

It sifts from Leaden Sieves –

It powders all the Wood –

It fills with Alabaster Wool

The Wrinkles of the Road –

It scatters like the Birds –

Condenses like a Flock –

Like Juggler’s Figures situates

Upon a baseless Arc –

It traverses yet halts –

Disperses as it stays –

Then curls itself in Capricorn –

Denying that it was –

                                                            F291 (1862)  311

I have been reading lately that figurative language such as similes is old fashioned. Today we go for the straightforward, the direct. Metaphors have also been maligned as overly colorful. Bah. Eliminate figurative language and toss out Shakespeare, the King James, all the famous orators, Greek poets and playwrights, any poets actually, and any scientist or mathematician worth her salt. How else do we understand gravity, for example, without a physicist patiently explaining how it is like a rubber sheet that a bowling ball can distort, dragging other smaller balls towards its warp.

            And so I like the idea of snow as flour sifting from the “Leaden Sieves” that are a wintry sky. I like it as talcum powder touching up the chilly woods, or as white wool smoothed into the rough patches of the road.

Peace after the storm

                        The second stanza compares snow to active figures: imagine a flock of birds in a tree. When startled they scatter in all directions yet then gather again in the air to fly as a flock. The snow will scatter in a breeze but then fall, condensed, in drifts and mounds. But then the poem takes an ominous turn with the image of the “Juggler’s Figures.” We imagine a Juggler blowing and storming snow over the earth just as we are blown and scattered by unknown forces. There is no known “Arc” to this juggling. It is random, unpredictable.

            The unpredictability is carried into the final stanza. The snow travels only to stop. Scatters only to remain. At last the storm “curls itself in Capricorn”—and “Capricorn” here refers to the constellation visible in the northern hemisphere during winter, suggesting the storm innocently curling itself up into its own heavenly resting place as if nothing had ever happened. It’s an interesting movement from a lovely landscape of snow to a metaphor for storm-tossed lives.

Dickinson wrote a longer version of this poem a year or two earlier that has more landscape and less angst. The first stanza is the same but then it completely changes. Speaking of an aversion to figurative language and overly colorful metaphors, I have a hard time visualizing snow as both ruffling the “Wrists of Posts” and the “Ankles of a Queen.” Each by itself is lovely and sufficient. Together we have ruffly snow on wooden wrists and aristocratic ankles. I do, however, like the vision that sees a snow-veiled pastoral field as “Summer’s empty Room.”

Former version:

It sifts from Leaden Sieves –

It powders all the Wood.

It fills with Alabaster Wool

The Wrinkles of the Road –

It makes an Even Face

Of Mountain, and of Plain –

Unbroken Forehead from the East

Unto the East again –

It reaches to the Fence –

It wraps it Rail by Rail

Till it is lost in Fleeces –

It deals Celestial Vail

To Stump, and Stack – and Stem –

A Summer's empty Room –

Acres of Joints, where Harvests were,

Recordless, but for them–

It Ruffles Wrists of Posts

As Ankles of a Queen –

Then stills its Artisans – like Ghosts –

Denying they have been –

Let others – show this Surry’s Grace –

Let others – show this Surry’s Grace –

Myself – assist his Cross –

                                                            F290 (1862)

This couplet concluded a letter to Samuel Bowles written in 1862. The paragraph prior reads:

Perhaps you tire – now – A small weight – is obnoxious – upon a weary Rope – but had you Exile – or Eclipse – or so huge a Danger, as would dissolve all other friends – ‘twould please me to remain –

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, Hans Holbein, c.1542

            The letter in general is protesting that although Dickinson did not visit with Bowles when he paid a call it was only that she wanted Vinnie and Austin (her sister and brother) to have more time with him. That may not sound very convincing, but she says, perhaps a bit testily, “Forgive me if I prize the Grace – superior to the Sign.” She prefers, in other words, his favor and goodwill over the “Sign” of pleasantries in the family parlor. She wants a higher order relationship.

            The couplet itself is a bit puzzling. Surrey probably refers to Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517-1547) who was a poet noted for his sonnets and translations. He was also first cousin to Anne Boleyn, one of the unfortunate wives of that changeable monarch Henry VIII. The king became convinced that Surrey was plotting treason and had him beheaded. I think Dickinson is saying that other people might make their claims to Surrey’s favor (and by Surrey Dickinson no doubt means Bowles), but when he  is faced with “so huge a Danger” that former friends distance themselves from him, she will be there even in the last hours to help him carry his cross as Joseph of Arimathea helped Jesus carry his cross.

A Burdock twitched my gown

 A Burdock twitched my gown

Not Burdock's – blame – but mine

Who went too near the Burdock's Den –

A Bog affronts my shoe.

What else have Bogs to do –

The only Trade they know

The splashing men?

'Tis Minnows – should despise –

An Elephant's calm eyes

Look further on!

                                                            F289 (1862)  229

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

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

Stickery burdock seed heads

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

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

My first well Day – since many ill –

My first well Day – since many ill – 

I asked to go abroad,

And take the Sunshine in my hands,

And see the things in Pod – 

A'blossom just – when I went in

To take my Chance with pain – 

Uncertain if myself, or He,

Should prove the strongest One.

The Summer deepened, while we strove – 

She put some flowers away – 

And Redder cheeked Ones – in their stead – 

A fond – illusive way – 

To Cheat Herself, it seemed she tried – 

As if before a child

To Fade – Tomorrow – Rainbows held

The Sepulchre, could hide.

She dealt a fashion to the Nut – 

She tied the Hoods to Seeds – 

She dropped bright scraps of Tint, about – 

And left Brazilian Threads

On every shoulder that she met – 

Then both her Hands of Haze

Put up – to hide her parting Grace

From our unfitted eyes.

My loss, by sickness – Was it Loss?

Or that Ethereal Gain

One earns by measuring the Grave – 

Then – measuring the Sun –

                                                            F288 (1862)  574

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

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

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

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

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

Before she leaves, Summer stylishly
plumps the nuts

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

While it is alive

While it is alive

Until Death touches it

While it and I lap one Air

Dwell in one Blood

Under one Sacrament

Show me Division can split or pare –

Love is like Life – merely longer

Love is like Death, during the Grave

Love is the Fellow of the Resurrection

Scooping up the Dust and chanting "Live"!

                                                                        F287 (1862)  491

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

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

William Blake's Creation of Adam.

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

Dropped into the Ether Acre –

Dropped into the Ether Acre –

Wearing the Sod Gown –

Bonnet of Everlasting Laces –

Brooch – frozen on –

Horses of Blonde – and Coach of Silver –

Baggage a strapped Pearl –

Journey of Down – and Whip of Diamond –

Riding to meet the Earl –

                                                            F286 (1862)  665

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

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

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

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

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

The Love a Life can show Below

The Love a Life can show Below

Is but a filament, I know,

Of that diviner thing

That faints upon the face of Noon –

And smites the Tinder in the Sun –

And hinders Gabriel's Wing –

'Tis this – in Music – hints and sways –

And far abroad on Summer days –

Distils uncertain pain –

'Tis this enamors in the East –

And tints the Transit in the West

With harrowing Iodine –

'Tis this – invites – appalls – endows –

Flits – glimmers – proves – dissolves –

Returns – suggests – convicts – enchants –

Then – flings in Paradise –

                                                            F285 (1862)  673

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

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

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

Multiple flares igniting in the sun

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

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

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

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

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

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