You taught me Waiting with Myself—
Appointment strictly kept—
You taught me fortitude of Fate—
This—also—I have learnt—
An Altitude of Death, that could
No bitterer debar
Than Life—had done—before it—
Yet—there is a Science more—
The Heaven you know—to understand
That you be not ashamed
Of Me—in Christ’s bright Audience
Upon the further Hand—
Adam DeGraff, blogmeister of ‘The Prowling Bee’, wrote a stunning explication of this poem, F774. For a real treat, visit this poem at TPB: (https://bloggingdickinson.blogspot.com/2025/02/you-taught-me-waiting-with-myself.html).
Adam’s layer by layer excavation defies imitation. For example, Adam suspects “you” is Sue, and Lines 9-11 confirm this:
“. . . . to understand
That you be not ashamed
Of Me— . . . .”
Why Sue would be ashamed of ED, at least in ED’s opinion, requires a little biographic history:
During their late teens and early 20s, ED and Sue shared an unusually close friendship, at least by 2025 standards. That it included romantic love, at least on ED’s part, is clear from her letters to Sue. Whether Sue felt romance is unclear, but many well informed modern fans of ED’s poetry think the relationship was lesbian, possibly including physical intimacy.
However, Sue was an orphan and had to find financial support. She majored in mathematics at Utica Female Academy and secured a job teaching math in Baltimore during the 1851-1852 academic year. During that time Emily experienced extreme loneliness and horrible separation anxiety, which was exacerbated by Sue’s infrequent responses to ED’s daily letters.
Sue disliked teaching and didn’t renew her contract after she returned to Amherst. Predictably, she visited the Dickinson ‘Homestead’ frequently, and, also predictably, this led to her courtship and marriage with ED’s older brother, Austin, a recent graduate of Harvard Law School. As a wedding present to the couple, Austin’s father and employer, Edward Dickinson, built a stylish two-storied mansion, ‘Evergreen’, next door to ‘Homestead.
There, Sue loved to host soirees for Amherst’s leading lights and distinguished visitors. At first Sue invited ED, but for unstated reasons soon stopped. My guess is that ED hated chit-chat and was prone to conversations as obscure as her poetry. These uninvitations became banishment, either mutual or unilateral, about the time ED composed this poem. This physical alienation continued until the 1883 death of Sue’s youngest child, 6-year-old Gilbert (Gib), who died of typhoid fever after wading with a friend in a town pond contained sewage. That banishment is what ED refers to in Lines 9-10.
Fortunately for us, during those two decades, ED and Sue communicated frequently by mailed letters or notes carried across the 100-yard meadow between the houses. Their correspondence consisted not only of poems by ED and editorial comments by Sue, but also included friend-to-friend thoughts and feelings of both women.