Her sweet Weight on my Heart a Night

Her sweet Weight on my Heart a Night
Had scarcely deigned to lie —
When, stirring, for Belief's delight,
My Bride had slipped away —

If 'twas a Dream — made solid — just
The Heaven to confirm —
Or if Myself were dreamed of Her —
The power to presume —

With Him remain — who unto Me —
Gave — even as to All —
A Fiction superseding Faith —
By so much — as 'twas real —

                                                            F611 (1863)  J518

The narrator suspects the bliss of sleeping with her beloved happened in a dream. She takes the disappearance of her "Bride" philosophically, however, for she has the God-given gift of making dreams seem as real as if they had truly happened. And who needs the complications of reality if dreaming makes it so?

            The nighttime experience raises the usual philosophical questions: how can we tell dream from reality? Could the dream have been enfolded in another's dream – in this case, was the narrator experiencing her beloved's dream?

            Dickinson resorts to God: he is the only one who can "confirm" what really happened. But in addition to being all-knowing, God gives the narrator / Dickinson / all of us the ability to experience "Fiction" so vividly as to seem real. This hyper-real Fiction supersedes Faith.

The Dickinson Lexicon defines "Faith" in this line as "Knowledge; sentiment based on concrete evidence" and this makes a commonsense reading: the imaginative world is potentially more real than the knowledge-based. In this case, the dream creation was more "solid" than the empty bed.

I take that last stanza as Dickinson broadly accounting for her powerful poetic imagination. Whether it is a lover, an Abyss, or death, she experiences it as truly – more truly – than a 'real' experience. Dickinson does concede that God gives this ability "to All", but this strikes me as an afterthought.

I am reminded of of Marianne Moore's famous "Ars Poetica" in which she writes that good poetry should have "imaginary gardens with real toads in them".  That is the landscape Dickinson inhabited, too.

Judith Farr argues convincingly that the poem is written with Sue in mind. In The Passion of Emily Dickinson, she has this to say: ""When Lavinia first gave [Sue] Emily's manuscripts, Sue marked them in pencil according to theme: Love, Nature, Death, and so on. She marked this poem with the initial 'S', appearing to acknowledge its relevancy to herself" (p.160).

            I don't think a biographical interpretation adds much to the poem, however. Certainly Dickinson spent no effort on fleshing out the beloved. She is just an exemplar of the poem's greater point about Fiction vs. Faith.

  

From Cocoon forth a Butterfly

From Cocoon forth a Butterfly
As Lady from her Door
Emerged — a Summer Afternoon —
Repairing Everywhere —

Without Design — that I could trace
Except to stray abroad
On miscellaneous Enterprise
The Clovers — understood —

Her pretty Parasol be seen
Contracting in a Field
Where Men made Hay —
Then struggling hard
With an opposing Cloud —

Where Parties — Phantom as Herself —
To Nowhere — seemed to go
In purposeless Circumference —
As 'twere a Tropic Show —

And notwithstanding Bee — that worked —
And Flower — that zealous blew —
This Audience of Idleness
Disdained them, from the Sky —

Till Sundown crept — a steady Tide —
And Men that made the Hay —
And Afternoon — and Butterfly —
Extinguished — in the Sea —

                                                                         F610 (F610)  J354

This lovely poem recalls Solomon's wisdom in the Biblical book Ecclesiastes: both the verse about eating, drinking, and being merry; as well as that about dust to dust. There is also a hint of Aesop's fable praising the hard-working ant in contrast to the pleasure-loving musical cricket.

            The poem begins as the butterfly, metaphorically compared to a Lady, emerges on a summer afternoon and begins flitting about without discernable purpose or pattern. While the narrator dismisses this activity as some "miscellaneous Enterprise", the wiser "Clovers – understood". It is pollinators such as butterflies, after all, that ensure clovers' continued presence in the meadow.

As the butterfly feeds and suns, wings upright, Dickinson zooms out so that we see laborers mowing the meadow. It's hard work, and Dickinson immediately and comically contrasts it with the butterfly "struggling hard" against an "opposing Cloud" to join other butterflies wheeling about. They are "Phantom", their destination "Nowhere", their flight patterns "purposeless". It seems to the narrator that they are just showing off their lovely colors and grace.

The Clover knows ...

            So far the poem seems as much commentary on ladies as it does on butterflies. Both groups of wandering idlers disdainfully watch the working population – here laborers, bees, and flowers (whose work is unclear, but who are tethered to the ground and must bow and blow with every puff of wind). But in the last stanza Dickinson reminds us that all are destined for oblivion. Converting the sky to sea (as she has in several previous poems), the approach of night becomes a relentless Tide that carries all in its path to the sea where they are "Extinguished". It is not just the haymakers and butterflies that are swallowed up, but time as well. The afternoon is extinguished by night as surely as the laborer and the idler.

            This last stanza forces us to re-think the rest of the poem. When darkness drowns the light, when life and time are over, what does it matter if we have laid up hay or honey, or been prudent like Aesop's hard-working ants; or, like lady and butterfly, flitted about, conducting miscellaneous Enterprise in the finery of our prime? (And I suspect Dickinson appreciated the ecological role of both butterfly and lady in their respective niches.)  "Vanity of vanities; all is vanity," writes Solomon in Ecclesiastes (12:8, King James Bible). "All things come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous, and to the wicked…" (9:2). "There is nothing better for a man", Solomon concludes, than that he should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labour (2:24).

Dickinson writes the poem in a quiet, observational tone. There are sixteen words of at least three syllables and this lends the poem a rather stately pace. They lead up to "Extinguished" in the final line, – a rich, iambic word that quietly puts to eternal bed the butterfly emerging from cocoon in the first line. Dickinson as observer can find "no Design" in the butterfly's movements that day, but as she contrasts it with the quotidian work going on in the meadow we see both as emblematic of a lovely and ephemeral summer's day.

  

A Night — there lay the Days between —

A Night — there lay the Days between —
The Day that was Before —
And Day that was Behind — were One —
And now — 'twas Night — was here —

Slow — Night — that must be watched away —
As Grains upon a shore —
Too imperceptible to note —
Till it be night — no more —

                                                            F609 (1863)  J471

Dickinson depicts a sleepless night using a rather numbing repetitive structure in the first stanza and a very slow pace in the second.  The first stanza could be paraphrased as "It was night." Dickinson stretches the notion out every which way, expanding on the notion of "night" as if counting sheep. The night is between two days: there is one Before and one Behind. It all seems one with the endless night.

painting, Lois Lang

            Dickinson sprinkles various rhymes throughout the stanza, increasing the repetitiveness. There are the repeating Day/Days and Night, plus two "and"s and four uses of "was".  "Lay" rhymes with "Day" and all the whispery "w" sounds seem to beg for drowsiness to take over: between, was, was, were, One, now, 'twas, was. There's not an active verb in the entire stanza. One imagines the poet lying in bed making a little chant about the situation.

           

The second stanza creeps along in a wearier voice. "Slow – Night – " is a very slow spondee with its long vowels and dashes. Long vowels predominate: slow, night, away, grains, shore, too, note, night, no, more. Watching the night away is as tedious as trying to discern the individual grains of sand on the beach. The moments seem endless.

I feel sleepy just studying this poem.

So glad we are — a stranger'd deem

So glad we are — a stranger'd deem
'Twas sorry – that we were —
For where the Holiday – should be –
There publishes – a Tear —

Nor how Ourselves be justified —
Since Grief and Joy are done
So similar — An Optizan
Could not decide between —
                           F608 (1863)  J329


Tears of joy and tears of grief – the manifestation of both emotions is so similar that the most discerning individual, or even an eye doctor, can't tell which is which. I personally find this an exaggeration, but Dickinson builds this light little poem around the conceit.

Who is happy here?
Photo, Mauricio Lima, Getty Images, 2012

        It's a familiar irony: we are overflowing with happiness, experiencing a "Holiday" of feeling. In the first stanza it is a stranger who can't tell that the crying person is experiencing joy. In the second it is an "Optizan" – a great made-up word – who can't distinguish between the two emotional extremes.
         I do like Dickinson's observation that "Grief and Joy are done / So similar" as if emotions are things one does as well as feels. Perhaps there is a very fine line between extremes. Surely if we have a sudden rush of joy it is because the potential for grief lay equally close to the surface. The strong potentials evoke similar responses.  
         Dickinson uses a very regular ballad form for the poem. You could sing "Yellow Rose of Texas" to it. The first two lines emphasize the emotions rather than the people: "So glad … / Twas sorry…"

David Preest says this is one of three poems Dickinson sent Samuel Bowles who had taken a trip to Europe in 1862. This one might have been the one she wrote on his return.

I think the longest Hour of all

I think the longest Hour of all
Is when the Cars have come —
And we are waiting for the Coach —
It seems as though the Time

Indignant — that the Joy was come —
Did block the Gilded Hands —
And would not let the Seconds by —
But slowest instant — ends —

The Pendulum begins to count —
Like little Scholars — loud —
The steps grow thicker — in the Hall —
The Heart begins to crowd —

Then I — my timid service done —
Tho' service 'twas, of Love —
Take up my little Violin —
And further North — remove –

                                                                    F607 (1863)  J635

When I first read this poem I imagined a beloved friend or family member coming for a visit by train. The longest hour would be the wait between the train (the "Cars") arriving at the station and the arrival home of the coach sent to pick the passenger up. In this reading the end is rather sad. Rather than join in the joyful greeting, the narrator goes upstairs. Her "little Violin" would be her voice and perhaps a gestating poem. This is consistent with what we know of Dickinson: when one of her dearest friends, Samuel Bowles, arrived after a long time abroad, Dickinson would not venture out to greet him, but retreated upstairs to her room and wrote a poetic note.

But I think it more likely that the poem depicts a household scene when someone dies. People would have arrived by carriages of some sort (the "Cars"), either to wait for the funeral hearse (a literal "Coach") or else for a death watch, death arriving here in a metaphorical coach as in "Because I could not stop for Death". Either way, death watch or gathering for a funeral procession, the hour that they wait is the "longest Hour".

Home funerals were held in the parlor

Time here seems a grasping creature of mortality. As the dying person meets her Joy and the immortal night of death arrives (or perhaps the blessing of interment), Time is "Indignant" and tries to stop the seconds from passing by blocking the hands of the clock. Yet its efforts are futile. Even that "slowest instant" when a moment seems to last forever passes and time resumes. The pendulum begins to swing again, ticking loudly to count the time. As if all is now in synchrony, the beating heart becomes full, crowded with feeling as mourners can be heard crowding in the hall. The carriage has arrived.

In terms of narrative, the ending is anticlimactic. We have the resumption of time, the increased movement of the crowd, the crowding of the heart … and then the mouse-like departure of the narrator. Her service was "timid", her violin, "little". Rather than stay or continue on with the others, she "remove[s]" herself "North" from the scene as if putting away the fancy plate.

Until that last stanza the voice of the poem seemed to be that of the poet writing in a detached, contemplative tone as if generalizing about the experience of death. But then Dickinson switches to the voice of someone present in that longest hour. Perhaps this person is a musician called upon to play soothing or uplifting music at such times. Or perhaps she is a family member, this is her own house, and her "little Violin" refers to her tears and expressions of grief.

But if we think of the narrator as Dickinson herself, we see the poet imbibing the sense of death, the feelings of the mourners, the strange abeyance of time. We see her disengaging from the public role at the end, removing herself, to return to the harsh truth of the North from where many of her poems come.

Note: One Victorian custom was to stop the clocks at the moment of death. Then the body would be constantly watched for three or four days. This would be the wake – in case the dead isn't really dead and wakes up. The family of the deceased would meanwhile provide the undertaker with information about how many carriages will be needed for the funeral procession. These would include the hearse carriage, and conveyance for family, pall bearers, and clergy – depending on what the family could afford.

As to the stopping of the clocks, I suspect  W.H. Auden had the stopping of the clocks in mind when he wrote this famous poem in 1936:

              Funeral Blues

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

Except the smaller size

Except the smaller size
No lives are round —
These — hurry to a sphere
And show and end —
The larger — slower grow
And later hang —
The Summers of Hesperides
Are long.
                          F606 (1863)  J1067

While it is easy, Dickinson implies in this short poem, for "smaller" lives to reach a satisfying completion before they pass on, "larger" souls have a longer process. Dickinson refers to the fabled Garden of the Hesperides (the Daughters of the Night) whose golden apples confer immortality.
        The first half of the poem depicts the exception to Dickinson's claim that "No lives are round". In contrast to the large Hesperian apples she invokes at the end, we can imagine little crab apples – among apples the smallest, roundest, and among the first to ripen. Some people likewise peak early. They have their day while the rest of us are flailing about, but their "show" is soon over. There are also those content with simple lives within the strictures of their times. Never deforming or chafing into rough edges, they too ripen quickly.

Garden of the Hesperides
Frederick Leighton, 1891

        Most people, however, struggle to establish themselves, exploring the myriad paths they find before them and often becoming battered in the process. But it is not these whom Dickinson emphasizes in this poem. When she invokes the Hesperides, she invokes the few who ripen slowly into some real greatness and immortality.
        It's helpful here to look at the history of this poem. It was first sent to Susan Dickinson, perhaps accompanied by apples [Emily Dickinson's Vision: Illness and Identity in Her Poetry, James Robert Guthrie, p. 88]. Later, in early 1866, she included it in a poem to Thomas Wentworth Higginson (L316):

"I will be patient – constant, never reject your knife and should my slowness goad you, you knew before myself that
Except the smaller size … ".

Ah… among those lives slowly growing golden and pendulous within the sacred orchard are poets, one of whom is Dickinson herself. And might some of those smaller apples be lesser poets? If so, Dickinson was taking a true measure of her worth. Her poetry endures and the appreciation of it continues to widen while poets regularly published in her day have by and large dropped from the tree. (Dickinson claims to have never read Whitman – oh, if only she had and detailed her response in one of her famous letters!)

The poem's pace mirrors the images. The smaller apples are dispatched with the quick-reading "hurry to a sphere" after which the poem moves with an almost heavy grandeur achieved by long vowels and dipthongs: show, larger, slower grow, and later.

The two-syllable last line, "Are long", hangs in its open space like the slowly ripening apples.