I meant to find her when I came;

I meant to find her when I came;
Death had the same design;
But the success was his, it seems,
And the discomfit mine.

I meant to tell her how I longed
For just this single time;
But Death had told her so the first,
And she had hearkened him.

To wander now is my abode;
To rest, —to rest would be
A privilege of hurricane
To memory and me.


     -Fr881, J718, 1878


When you read an Emily Dickinson poem line by line, as of course you must, then the meaning unwinds in the wiliest of ways. Take this one:

I meant to find her when I came;

This is what we “find” when we enter the poem. Her. The writer whom we meant to find. It's her poem after all. But the "her" we meant to find had in turn meant to find a "her." Notice the lower-case “her,” which is unusual for Emily. Why? There is something in the lower-case pronoun for me that is intimate. "I meant to find her, who I knew as a girl" is what the line suggests to me. The poem immediately sweeps me up into the regret of irretrievable loss.

Of course, as an Emily Dickinson lover you naturally want to know who she is talking about. She did attend a few girlfriends’ death beds in her life that we know of, including Sophia Holland's. She wrote beautifully about this scene in a letter to her friend Abiah Root. (See note #2 below.)

It is easy to read this poem’s death as metaphoric for the loss of a great love, such as the one she had with her friend and sister-in-law Sue, or Charles Wadsworth, or whatever your theory is, people who were still very much alive when this poem was written. But I don’t think so. Death is TOO present in this poem to be metaphorical. You can see this played out in the following lines,

Death had the same design;
But the success was his, it seems,

Here the poem takes a twist. This Death is almost predatory. “Design” is a funny word. I asked my friend, an opera singer named Eric Jones, if he had designs on a waitress we both knew and liked. He bristled at the word “design.” No, he said, I don’t have any designs on her. I don't think of it like that.” I knew what he meant and why he rejected the word. But hey, they ended up getting married a year later. Was that by design? I leave that answer up to the floor.

Does death have a design? That’s an awesome question, Emily. Death is the law of life, no doubt, but does it have to be? Was it someone in the upper office's design decision?

“Make it work!” -Tim Gunn, Project Runway.

Like Project Runway, this is a competition, between the poet and Death. Death was faster with his “design” and so "the success was his, it seems." 

IT SEEMS. I love when Dickinson slips an "it seems" in her poems. It throws everything into question. Does death really win?  

“One day you’re in, and the next day you're out.” -Heidi Klum, Project Runway.

Anyway, that’s where design gets you I guess. And death, like Michael Kors himself, is sitting there at the end and smirking. Chilling!

That leaves the one left behind, who is berating herself for not coming faster to the aid of the dead girlfriend with a potential salvation for both of them.

But the success was his, it seems,
And the discomfit mine.

According to David Preest, in the Johnson version of this poem, the one actually written in the fascicle, 15 years before this one, the word for “discomfit” is “surrender.” This is worth noting. Emily made the change from "surrender" to "discomfit" some 15 years later! That’s quite a turn of temperament, one that is perhaps befitting.

"Surrender," the word she used in 1864, would’ve been more dramatic, and it also would've played more into the idea of competition with death. "Discomfit" is less histrionic and, at the same time somehow, more resigned and sad.

I meant to tell her how I longed
For just this single time;

My best guess for this poem is that Dickinson went to see the body of a friend on her death bed, one whom she admired, and perhaps had even had a crush on, and (dun dun DUN) designs for. Here she is now, in despair, regretting the love affair that could never be. That “single time” is, as all lovers know, all you need. One day and night can feel like an eternity in a love affair.

There is something romantic, in the newer sense of the term romantic, about “For just this single time.” It’s slightly suggestive of something transcendent and fulfilling.

Only imagine if Emily had gotten there first, had beaten death to the maiden? What a difference it might have made! But the danger and the risk of making any such move both psychologically and socially would've been intense for Emily, and so perhaps she wavered. In the end, she didn’t make a move. She got there too late and it still haunts her years later. She’ll never know. But maybe, just maybe, if she at least writes a cautionary poem about it, future readers might get prodded by the poem's sharp point and not be so timid themselves. Such a tragic ending might yet be averted. 

Death is your enemy, and the enemy of your beloved too, so don’t delay, says Aunt Emily.

But Death had told her so the first,
And she had hearkened him.

At this point the poem goes full goth. Death had already seduced "her," is how I’m reading it. She “hearkened him," as if following the call of a lover.

The woman, to whom Emily wishes she had reached first, was seduced, instead, by the ease of death; she listened to it as if following a siren’s song. In other words, it was her own doing. But why? She must have been destitute, right? And so the question remains, what if Emily had arrived there first? Would the troubled girl have been mollified? Would the draw of death have been nullified? Would the poet's friend's life have been saved? Those are the stakes of this poem, and the cause of the hurricane to come.

To wander now is my abode;

In the earlier Johnson version of this poem, “abode” is “repose.” I have to say I like "repose" better here. The tension between "wandering" and "repose" is haunting. It means never resting, which sets up the next line,

To rest, —to rest would be

The tension comes to a peak in between those two “to rest”s. You can feel the poet falter here emotionally (though perfectly prettily of course, in full rhythmic control).

To rest, —to rest would be
A privilege of hurricane
To memory and me.

It's tricky grammar in that last stanza. I believe Dickinson is saying that rest would be a privilege to a hurricane. That makes most sense, in the context of this poem. It lets you know that the thoughts that she wishes to quiet are powerful and cyclical, looping through her head with mad emotion. This loss, and possibly her role in not preventing it, is like a tempest in her heart. (Maybe this is the terror she spoke of when she wrote to T.W. Higginson the year before that she had had a terror she could tell to no one?)

But there are other ways I can see for taking those lines, grammatically. If you take the line “A privilege of hurricane” by itself, there is a different idea that emerges. What is the privilege of a hurricane? Well, for one, it is to be wild and out of control. But two, there is the eye of calm in the center. I think Dickinson may be subtly getting at this idea between the lines; the necessity to allow emotional release, yet keep a cool inner eye.

But the foremost meaning here is that rest would be a privilege to the hurricane-like restlessness of...

The memory and me.

We might ask here, why is "memory" separate from "me?" (Is the memory a symbol for the "her" of this poem? Or is Dickinson emphasizing that memory and self are one and the same by presenting them together? Or is she suggesting that memory and self are quite different, yet the loss of the friendship affects both. I find it hard to get a precise reading of this decision.) But the general feeling is that the self would be relieved of its heartbreaking memory if only it too could rest, like the beloved. 

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The poet, like the deceased before her, is now being seduced by the promise of rest in death.

The narrative arc of this poem is intense. It goes from a kind of competition with death to see who can get to the beloved first, to a deep regret over not being quick enough to get there first, to having to wander for eternity in the restlessness of guilt and lost love, hoping for death. It's got a Romeo and Juliet level of tragedy.

No wonder Dickinson changed the word from “surrender” to “discomfit” 12 years after it was written. "Surrender" suggests giving up, surrendering. "Discomfit" is just...temporary.

Maybe by 1978 the hurricane of Emily Dickinson’s heart and soul had finally begun to quiet down. We only half hope so.

       -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Notes: 

1. compare this poem to Fr813, which has the same idea as this one, in miniature.

How well I knew Her not
Whom not to know has been
A Bounty in prospective, now
Next Door to mine the Pain.


2. From Marco Ordonez's Facebook page:

Three months after her fifteenth birthday, Emily recalled this loss when writing a note of condolence to Abiah Root.

Yesterday as I sat by the north window the funeral train entered the open gate of the church yard, following the remains of Judge Dickinson's wife to her long home. [The Amherst cemetery could be seen from the second story of the Dickinsons' house on North Pleasant Street.] His wife has borne a long sickness of two or three years without a murmur. She relyed wholly upon the arm of God & he did not forsake her. She is now with the redeemed in heaven & with the savior she has so long loved according to all human probability. I sincerely sympathise with you Dear. A. in the loss of your friend E. Smith. Although I had never seen her, yet I loved her from your account of her & because she was your friend. I was in hopes I might at sometime meet her but God has ordained otherwise & I shall never see her except as a spirit above. . . . I have never lost but one friend near my age & with whom my thoughts & her own were the same. It was before you came to Amherst. My friend was Sophia Holland. She was too lovely for earth & she was transplanted from earth to heaven. I visited her often in sickness & watched over her bed. But at length Reason fled and the physician forbid any but the nurse to go into her room. Then it seemed to me I should die too if I could not be permitted to watch over her or even to look at her face. At length the doctor said she must die & allowed me to look at her a moment through the open door. I took off my shoes and stole softly to the sick room.

There she lay mild & beautiful as in health & her pale features lit up with an unearthly─smile. I looked as long as friends would permit & when they told I must look no longer I let them lead me away. I shed no tear, for my heart was too full to weep, but after she was laid in her coffin & I felt I could not call her back again I gave way to a fixed melancholy.

I told no one the cause of my grief, though it was gnawing at my very heart strings. I was not well & I went to Boston [to visit Aunt Lavinia] & stayed a month & my health improved so that my spirits were better.*

Sophia Holland had died on April 29, 1844, when Emily Dickinson was thirteen years old. To a twentieth-century reader, unaccustomed to the presence of death in the home, Dickinson's persistence and curiosity may seem morbid, but the vigil over Sophia Holland constituted a part of Emily Dickinson's training for womanhood in mid-nineteenth-century Amherst; and if the confrontation with death inspired horror, as it seems to have done in this case, there was no adequate remedy. Dickinson's parents sent her away to Boston so that she might put the episode out of mind; however, death knew no boundaries of city or town, and she understood as much. Thus the event lingered in her imagination, crying out for redress or at least explanation.

Emily Dickinson, by Cynthia Griffin Wolff, Part One, III, «School: Faith and the Argument from Design», pp. 76-77; Perseus Publishing, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1988.

The Service without Hope—

The Service without Hope—
Is tenderest, I think—
Because 'tis unsustained
By stint—Rewarded Work—

Has impetus of Gain—
And impetus of Goal—
There is no Diligence like that
That knows not an Until—


     -Fr880, J779, Fascicle 39, 1864


I always loved the word avuncular, which means uncle-like, and I wondered... is there a similar word for aunts? The word for being aunt-like, it turns out, is materteral. It’s an awkward word, almost maternal, but with a dash of turtle.

If you ever want to read a great book, and who doesn’t, then pick up "Face to Face" which Emily’s niece Mattie wrote about her. Mattie makes her aunt sound like the coolest aunt who ever lived. It’s a great read.

Perhaps it is because of Mattie’s book that I’ve begun to think of Emily as my aunt too. And the poems, certain ones anyway, sound like the kind of pithy advice an amazing, impossible aunt might give you.

This poem, for instance, is praising the virtue of giving service for no other gain than the sake of giving service.

The Service without Hope—
Is tenderest, I think—

What would service without hope mean? What is it that you would be hoping for? Maybe a change in your own life, a promotion, say? Or maybe you are hoping for a change in the person you are giving service to? What kind of hopelessness is beyond giving your service too? Can you serve a hopeless addict for example? Or what about being of service to a homeless person? 

To help the hopeless is “tenderest, “ Emily thinks.

Another possibility of serving without hope would be giving love without expecting love in return. To care for someone without the expectation of being cared for in return is rare.

Because 'tis unsustained
By stint—

Unsustained by stint, besides sounding cool, has a clever meaning. A stint is something that is, by nature, unsustained. So this is saying that the service is unsustained by something short and, itself, unsustained. In other words, if this job had an end, that promise would, ironically, keep you going. But we are talking about a job that has no end in sight, like being a mother. Emily's sly materteral humor can sometimes be found in the smallest turn of phrase. 

By stint—Rewarded Work—

Has impetus of Gain—
And impetus of Goal—

Here’s a moment in the poem where a period might help. Dashes can often be misleading. In my reading of the poem there is a period after "stint" and a new sentence starts with “Rewarded Work.” Rewarded work has impetus of gain, and impetus of goal.

We have a two-pronged argument here. First, the most tender service has no hope of gain, and second, it has no end-goal. Both require an extraordinary effort.

There is no Diligence like that
That knows not an Until—

These last lines re-word the thesis of the poem. There is no "until," you're not waiting for anything in return for what you give. Here the preposition “until” becomes a noun, “an Until.” (Anybody else hear a little auntie in that phrase)?

To serve with no hope? No goal? No gain? Can one?

You know who has that kind of love? Your favorite aunt.


       -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

This that would greet—an hour ago—

This that would greet—an hour ago—
Is quaintest Distance—now—
Had it a Guest from Paradise—
Nor glow, would it, nor bow—

Had it a notice from the Noon
Nor beam would it nor warm—
Match me the Silver Reticence—
Match me the Solid Calm—


-Fr879, J778, fascicle 39, 1864f


Dickinson famously wrote, “If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.” From this letter we know her standard. Each poem had to come from that level of intensity.

“So cold that no fire could ever warm you" is a good description of where this poem takes you. It's cool as death. 

This that would greet—an hour ago—

“This” refers to a body. In Dickinson, corpses are often reduced to impersonal pronouns like “it” or “this.” An hour ago, this was a he or a she, someone who would have greeted you. Now it is only “this.”

Is quaintest Distance—now—

That person is now in “quaintest Distance.” To speak of death as “distance” is already thought-provoking. Is the person at any real distance at all? The word “quaint” complicates things further. It suggests something old-fashioned, even charming. A cabin can be quaint, death cannot. There is an unsettling irony in the word.

Had it a Guest from Paradise—
Nor glow, would it, nor bow—

We might assume the body has gone to be a guest in Paradise. But Dickinson imagines the opposite. If a guest from Paradise arrives, an angel, perhaps, the corpse would not glow or bow in response. The living, however, should respond with awe. The corpse does nothing. It cannot react. It is beyond reverence.

Had it a notice from the Noon
Nor beam would it nor warm—

No sunlight can warm this body. There is no “notice from the Noon.” The sun may shine, but the corpse does not register it. In contrast, we do. We can feel the beam. We can be warmed. We are the ones truly on notice.

Then comes the turn.

Match me the Silver Reticence—
Match me the Solid Calm—

At first this sounds like admiration. “Silver” evokes the pale sheen of death. (I'm reminded of Macbeth describing the murdered King Duncan as having "silver skin laced with his golden blood".) And reticence has a sense of dignified discretion to it.

But I think “Reticence” is ironic. A corpse is not discreet. It is simply dead. The word lends dignity to what is, in fact, a lifeless silence.

“Solid Calm” works the same way.  “Solid Calm” sounds desirable. Who doesn’t want to be solidly calm? Until we recognize what that calm entails. “Solid” recalls the sheer material fact of the body, dense inert matter.

On one level, the speaker seems to say: I don’t want to feel this pain anymore. Let me have that reticence. Let me be as calm too. Let me not glow or bow anymore to a wonderful guest. Let me be as cold and uncaring as the dead, because that's the way I feel after losing love.

But the poem sneakily operates by reversal. Do you really want to be like a corpse? By holding up the “silver” stillness of death, Dickinson makes us confront its cost. You cannot match that calm without surrendering warmth.

Out of this extreme cold, the poem quietly directs us back toward life. Notice the Noon. Don’t choose reticence. Go to where it is warm.

I often think about poems in terms of contra-valence. As soon as you push toward an extreme, the other side comes to the forefront. Dickinson uses this kind of reverse psychology often.

I should point out here something we've come to take for granted, which is Dickinson's unerring ear. The line "Nor beam would it nor warm" has that comforting "m" ending sound in "warm" and "beam." This gets picked up at the end of the poem in "calm" and at the beginning of the repeated word "Match." It's all soothing, whether this is pointing to death or to life depends on how you read the poem. 

It is worth mentioning the clever move in the last two lines. The two matches in those final lines match one another. Together the two matches make a match.

There is also perhaps a bit of a pun in the word "Match." "Match me" can also mean, "set me on fire." 

      

        -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Least Bee that brew—

Least Bee that brew—
A Honey's Weight
Content Her smallest fraction help
The Amber Quantity—


    -Fr878, J676, fascicle 39, 1864


This poem carries a sweet missive to us, like a bee carrying nectar from the flower back to the hive. 

It's pretty easy to understand for an Emily Dickinson poem, as if written for a child. It tells us that even the smallest bee can still make a honey to add to the “Amber Quantity” of the hive’s honeycomb. Do what you can do and be content with that. It doesn't have to be the most. 

What exactly is a "Honey’s Weight"? Well, there is no such thing, of course. It’s whatever the bee can carry. It could be any weight, as long as it is honey-sweet. It just has to be sweet right? If it’s sweet, it’s enough! This small bit of sweetness helps the whole hive.

It gives a funny feeling in the mouth that first line,  that ee, ee, aa ew vowel sequence of “Least bee that brew,” And then there’s that double B sound, which is apropos in a poem about “bees.” In fact the whole poem is a little odd. There is no rhyme. And the meter is unique in being 2/2/4/3. 

Another funny thing about this poem is the latinate language in it, the mathematical schoolmarminess of “Weight” and “fraction” and “Quantity.” It feels a bit arch, as if the poem is aware of its own status as a piece of advice and is gently making fun of itself. Also though, Emily's best friend Sue, to whom she gave many of poems too, was a mathematician and so I think Emily is playing with this. 

This poem is simultaneously letting the reader off the hook, and holding her to task. It’s okay to be the “least” if you are adding honey for the hive. But at the same time, one should be making honey for the hive. A little will do fine, says the poet, but do do a little, won’t you?

This poem is a like a single honey comb. A hive filled to capacity with honey is commonly referred to by beekeepers as a "honey-bound" hive. We can think of Emily, with her nearly 2000 poems, as queen bee of a honey-bound hive.

     -/)dam DeGraff  

P.S. I love the phrase, "The Amber Quantity." It sounds like a sci-fi book from the 1970s.

The Loneliness One dare not sound—

The Loneliness One dare not sound—
And would as soon surmise
As in its Grave go plumbing
To ascertain the size—

The Loneliness whose worst alarm
Is lest itself should see—
And perish from before itself
For just a scrutiny—

The Horror not to be surveyed—
But skirted in the Dark—
With Consciousness suspended—
And Being under Lock—

I fear me this—is Loneliness—
The Maker of the soul
Its Caverns and its Corridors
Illuminate—or seal—

 

    -Fr877, J777, fascicle 39, 1864

This poem contemplates true terror. When I read the first line “The Loneliness One dare not sound” I was reminded of all of those tales of prisoners going crazy in solitary confinement.

 An exploration of solitary confinement

The word “Sound” here is a verb which means to measure the distance of. One dare not sound the absolute distance of true loneliness. Sound also is a pun on vocalizing, sounding it out, or, in other words, putting it in a poem. But that is exactly what, in a way, Dickinson is daring to do here, sound out the terror of loneliness.

That “dare not” in the first line makes you think, dare not? Why not? Why would you dare not sound the depth of loneliness? In searching for the answer in your mind you remember the primal fear inside you and go, "Ohhhh!”

And would as soon surmise
As in its Grave go plumbing
To ascertain the size—

The poet would just as soon try to surmise (to guess, or, to understand) the true depths of loneliness as she would try to plumb the depths of the grave (death) to see just how large and all encompassing it actually is. Loneliness is overwhelmingly enormous, unfathomably large and deep, like death itself.

This is a truth most of us would rather not have to face. But Dickinson bravely does so. We hold our breath and go with her.

The Loneliness whose worst alarm
Is lest itself should see—

The worst fear is to face our worst fear.

And perish from before itself
For just a scrutiny—

We feel it might kill us to look at what true isolation looks like.

The Horror not to be surveyed—
But skirted in the Dark—

So we skirt around it in a thousand myriad ways, rather than looking at the horror straight in the face. 

With Consciousness suspended—
And Being under Lock—

We can’t stand to look, to imagine what it would mean to be alone with our own consciousness suspended. “Suspended” has the feeling of being raised up above, to be studied, but also has the sense here of being “kicked out,” like being suspended from school.

Why is consciousness “under Lock?” Lock makes you think a crime has been committed, the crime of self-consciousness maybe? But I think it’s more likely just meant by Dickinson to point to a feature of existence. We can only be inside our own conscious minds. We can’t truly be seen by, or see into, others' minds. We are both locked in and locked out.

I fear me this—is Loneliness—

The horror is emphasized again. “I fear me this.” Then a dash. I fear that THIS is loneliness, being locked inside our own minds.

This poem gives us pause. We can imagine how lonely Dickinson must have been at times. Her friends were mostly far away, and Sue, perhaps her truest friend, her soulmate, was only a hundred yards away, but she was busy as a mother, wife and socialite, and their relationship was, at times, fraught. 

But it’s also complicated because Dickinson also loved her solitude. She often framed loneliness as a chosen, empowered sanctuary rather than isolation. Her niece, Martha ("Mattie") Dickinson Bianchi, recalled Emily mimicking locking her bedroom door and saying, "It's just a turn—and freedom, Matty!"

There’s a push/ pull between autonomy and connection, and you can feel that tension in this poem.

The end of the poem gives us a possible out from this dilemma, a choice.

The Maker of the soul
Its Caverns and its Corridors
Illuminate—or seal—

The Maker of the soul. One might guess the Maker of the soul would be God, but the poem just previous to this one in fascicle 39 intimates that the Self is the maker of the self.

To be alive—and Will!
'Tis able as a God—
The Maker—of Ourselves—be what—

So we have “Will” in the making of our soul, and therefore we have a choice: caverns OR corridors. Caverns are hidden away, but corridors connect us to other rooms, to other people.

Illuminate—or seal— is also a choice. Do we illuminate the cavern and the corridor that is leading to it, or do we conceal it? The choice is ours, but it's is a difficult one, because it is not always easy to be in relation to others. “Just a turn --- and freedom, Mattie!” But to truly confront loneliness is akin to confronting death. Better, in the end, to leave a light on.

You might say that that is precisely what this poem is doing, confronting us with the terror of darkness only to “illuminate" the corridors leading into, and out of, our own dark caverns.

      

         -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

 

To be alive—is Power—

To be alive—is Power—
Existence—in itself—
Without a further function—
Omnipotence—Enough—

To be alive—and Will!
'Tis able as a God—
The Maker—of Ourselves—be what—
Such being Finitude!


      -Fr876,  J677, Fascicle 39, 1864


This is one of those poems that comprises an entire philosophy of life.

The first stanza makes a claim about pure existence. It is Power. One normally thinks of power as being hierarchical. You have power over something. But pure being is not power over anything. Or rather, it is power over nothing. The power resides in merely the hum of life. Feel the power in yourself.

Dickinson wrote in a letter to T.W. Higginson, "I find ecstasy in living - the mere sense of living is joy enough."

The Power here is inverse to the normal sense of dominating Power. It is the power of repose, of rest in the joy of living.

Omnipotence—Enough—

Mere existence is enough! You take a breath in and it feels good, because it is a release from breathing out, and vice versa. Marcel Proust writes, "...the act–as a rule not noticed–of drawing breath could be a perpetual delight."

This is not just Power, Emily says, but Omnipotence.

The irony is that the desire for any power over someone or something else is the very thing that takes away from the true Power you can find in the calm poise of pure being.

The first stanza by itself is, as it say, "Enough." The second stanza functions as a “but” clause. But wait, there’s more! But…

To be alive—and Will!
'Tis able as a God—
The Maker—of Ourselves—be what—

Okay, now we’re grooving. The power of our will to make of ourselves into what we will ourselves to be is God-like.

Such being Finitude!

Our lives may be finite, but the possibilities of our lives are infinite.

So we have two powers to wonder over here, the Power of pure being, and inside of our allotted time, an infinitely variable Power of will. Double wow. 

Here's the way I read the condensed syntax of those last two lines. 

The Maker—of Ourselves—be what (?)—
(considering) such being (is) Finitude!

In other words: what are we going to be considering that such being is finite? 

We don’t have forever to do our “willing.” The exclamation point that ends this poem is one of astonishment, but also one of urgency. Our possibilities may be endless, but not our time. 

Both stanzas of this poem are saying something powerful, but let's look at how they work together. There is a kind of logical progression between the two. If the Omnipotence of existence is "enough," then why will anything? The question hangs there.

What we choose to do, the idea in the second stanza, must rest on the “Enough” in the first stanza. The idea that WHAT we create may be grounded in our ability to accept our existence without any need for dominance. Our goodness can be found in that acceptance. 

If there was a book called "How Emily Dickinson can change your life" this poem would have to go in it. In the way the Power of "Will" of the second stanza rests on the Power of "Existence" of first, we have a solid foundation for virtue.

      -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Notes

1. It's worth looking a little deeper into the strange syntax in this poem, and, in particular the way Dickinson uses the unit of the line.

The Maker—of Ourselves—be what—

Note that the line never lands. “Be what—” is grammatically incomplete. It leaves identity open. It forces the reader to “dwell in possibility." You feel in this line the self is unfinished. Identity is not predetermined. The act of “being” is ongoing. The syntax performs the idea of becoming.

And look at the syntax in this line,

Such being Finitude!

Instead of calmly saying “even though we are finite,” she bursts out in amazement. The fractured syntax mirrors the shock. How can something finite contain such open-ended power?

2.

The argument in this poem serves as a rebuttal to the Calvinistic thinking that was dominant in Amherst in Emily’s time. Calvinism teaches God is absolutely sovereign. Human will is fallible (“not my will, but thy will be done."). Salvation depends entirely on God’s grace.

Dickinson takes the idea of God alone being omnipotent and relocates it in existence itself.

Existence—in itself—
Omnipotence—Enough—

She also elevates human will.

To be alive—and Will!
’Tis able as a God—

That’s pretty shocking in a Puritan context.

But I don’t see these thoughts as rebellious, necessarily. It’s more subtle than that. Dickinson internalizes divinity. She collapses the distance between Creator and creature.

3. I liked many things about the TV series, Dickinson, but one thing that irked me was that it characterized Emily as being in love with Death. This poem, as well as many others, show us that she was in love with life. But I forgive the show, because Wiz Khalifa plays death, and I can imagine Dickinson digging Wiz Khalifa. Also the first time she meets him the Billie Eilish song "Bury a Friend" is playing, which is perfect.

 

The Color of a Queen, is this—

The Color of a Queen, is this—
The Color of a Sun
At setting—this and Amber—
Beryl—and this, at Noon—

And when at night—Auroran widths
Fling suddenly on men—
'Tis this—and Witchcraft—nature keeps
A Rank—for Iodine—


       -Fr875, J776, fascicle 39, 1864

Here is Emily Dickinson doing her slippery, jewel-box thing. This poem is so tightly engineered.

At a high level, the poem is trying to name an unnameable color. That color turns out to have the power and mystery of nature. It’s the color of royalty, the color of a sunset, of gemstones like amber and beryl, an aurora and iodine.

 

amber and beryl, like fire and ice

She’s circling around something constantly changing depending on the light. She keeps saying “this” like she’s pointing at it, but never actually says what “this” is.

The poem, for me, functions as a riddle which in turn functions as a kind of poetic kaleidoscope, the beauty of the words becoming the beauty of the images, like the “ber” of Amber blending into the “Ber” of Beryl. The words themselves have a gem-like flame to them. Amber and beryl turns fleeting light into a royal and lasting treasure, both in sound and image, a trove of words. Or listen to the way the slant rhyme works through so many vowel sounds in Queen/ Sun/ Noon/ Auroran/ men and iodine.

The poem is luminous all around, a dazzling display, an “Auroran width" flung suddenly on the reader in sound.

And when at night—Auroran widths
Fling suddenly on men—

In the last stanza things get downright spooky. Auroras are flung at us, and witchcraft is in the air.

’Tis this—and Witchcraft—nature keeps
A Rank—for Iodine—

The poem cycles through skyscapes, each holding its own “rank,” or a distinguished position, depending on the time of day.

There is the lushness of sunset, but there is also the bright clarity of noon. The color "noon" is blindingly bright and illuminating, and perhaps, in countering the witchcraft, clear and logical. Later in the evening there are the glimmering green curtains of Aurora. 

What to make of the iodine though? Iodine is known for creating a violet vapor. For me that would make it either the last bit of daylight as it blends into darkness or the crack of dawn when midnight blue begins to perk up. I think either are possible here, the first being more eerie, like witchcraft, but the latter being more scientifically alchemical like iodine. Either way the opposites of night and day get transmuted into one another. Both magic and rational science are evoked here in the interplay between witchcraft and iodine.

iodine

Iodine was well known during Dickinson’s time as a standard antiseptic used by American Civil War surgeons to treat battlefield wounds. So this may be at play here too, if we see iodine as representing morning light, a kind of healing of the night. (Iodine was used to prevent gangrene too, commonly known then as "mortification of the flesh." One can imagine the witchy green of the auroras in the blackened sky as the color of gangrene, and the iodine as a kind of cure.)

The auroras are flung down at us, we are overwhelmed by an unbearably enchanting and eerie beauty. It's  like a witch's spell. 

Tis (for) this—and Witchcraft—(that) nature keeps

A Rank—for Iodine—.  

Nature provides a cure for too much bewitching beauty, and that cure can be seen in the iodine dawn of a new day, the velvety violet light that wakes us up so we can go to work again in the hot noon sun. 

Bravo for this, the way Dickinson captures in sound and image the colors of the sky in their moods and  meanings.

     -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

P.S. Those auroras flung down remind me of the the Emporer pelting the poet with rubies in Fr597. 

'Tis little I — could care for Pearls —
Who own the Ample sea —
Or Brooches — when the Emperor —
With Rubies — pelteth me —

If Blame be my side—forfeit Me—

If Blame be my side—forfeit Me—
But doom me not to forfeit Thee—
To forfeit Thee? The very name
Is sentence from Belief—and House—

         -Fr874, J775, Fascicle 39, 1864


First question: who is "Thee"? David Preest reads it as Christ, and says, "The word ‘Belief’ in line 4 suggests that Emily is pleading with Jesus." But I'm not so sure. Forfeit me, this poem says, but don't doom me forfeit you. This begs the question, does Christ forfeit us, or doom us to forfeit Him? In Christian theology, as I understand it, the answer would be no. God doesn't forfeit us. Rather we forfeit God. We make the choice.

Dickinson seemed to find so much of the divine in the earthly, and vice versa, that one can never be sure who she is talking about when she uses words like "Belief" and "Thee" and "House." But I think it makes more sense to see this poem as written to a beloved, and one close at hand too, one in the realm of "the House." It's fine if you blame me and don't love me, this poem says, but don't make me give you up by keeping yourself away from me. 

This all points to Susan Gilbert for me. She wasn't living in the house, but rather a hundred yards away in a house within sight of Emily's window. She lived there as the wife of Emily's brother Austin. For those of you who don't know, Emily had a very intimate relationship with Susan Gilbert before Austin did, one which went on, in some form or other, until Emily's death.

The Evergreens as seen from Emily's house.

Dickinson wrote in a letter to a family friend, “They say that ‘home is where the heart is.’ I think it is where the house is, and the adjacent buildings.”

The key for me though is in another poem written 13 years after this one, where that word "forfeit" pops up again. 

To own a Susan of my own
Is of itself a Bliss—
Whatever Realm I forfeit, Lord,
Continue me in this!

What is a reader to make of this poem? For me it points toward the idea that you can love someone without needing them to love you back. Is that desperate self-denial, or is it transcendence of the ego? I read it as the latter and here's why. An ego needs reassurance, but Dickinson isn't asking for the other to love her back here. All she asks is to be able to love. 

I believe that the poems that Dickinson kept for herself and transcribed into a fascicle were meant for future readers, and I think Dickinson was too smart, in her poems at least, to champion dysfunctional relationships. So I don't think she is telling us that it is okay to be pathetically clingy in a one-sided relationship, but rather is saying: don't shut yourself off from the divine to spite yourself. She is saying to Sue, essentially, that she doesn't need anything from her, except her presence. That is an example worth following. 

    -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

P.S. The perfect rhyme of the first couplet, "Me" and "Thee" is disrupted by the complete lack of rhyme in the second, "name" and "House," as if the "Me" and the "Thee" completely fell off the rails...