ED-LarryB

Experience is a crooked road that many believe the best teacher for life, and, paradoxically, the mind itself presumes that is true.

But the opposite is true and complicated. Discipline compels each man himself to choose his preappointed pain.
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ED’s experience of hearing Wadsworth preach in 1855 led her to try romance with him, a rational choice, she thought, but that didn’t go well for obvious reasons and led to years of emotional pain. Then ED choose what most people would consider a lonely “Angled Road”: writing poetry in a small second floor bedroom for 35 years.

She had her family chores and Sue next door to read her poems, and she wrote nearly 2000 of them. I don’t think she minded her chosen “Preappointed Pain”.

898.1865.An Hour is a Sea

An Hour is a Sea
Between a few, and me –
With them would Harbor be

Sent to Sue when she was in Geneva, New York.

‘An Hour is a Sea’ reminds me of F3, 1853, which ED also sent to Sue when she was out of town:

On this wondrous sea – Sailing silently –
Ho! Pilot! Ho!
Knowest thou the shore
Where no breakers roar –
Where the storm is o’er?

In the silent West
Many – the sails – at rest –
The Anchors fast.
Thither I pilot thee –
Land! Ho! Eternity!
Ashore at last!

I think ED felt safe when she knew Sue was living next door and reading her poems.

897.1865.She sped as Petals of a Rose

She sped as Petals of a Rose
Offended by the Wind—
A frail Aristocrat of Time
Indemnity to find—
Leaving on nature—a Default
As Cricket or as Bee—
But Andes in the Bosoms where
She had begun to lie—
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An interpretation of F897:

She left life quickly, like the petals of a rose during a gale. She was frail, but, during her short time on earth, her family privileged her with love, and she expected to find equal protection against harm in death as in life.

Nature cared equally about the dead girl as it cared about a dead cricket or bee, but in the bosoms of her family, her memory was as big as the Andes.
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If my interpretation comports with ED’s, this poem is a seismic shift from her earlier poem, ‘Nature – the Gentlest Mother is’ (F741).
Or maybe Nature is equally gentle with crickets, bees, and little girls.

896.1865.Purple – is fashionable twice –

Purple – is fashionable twice –
This season of the year,
And when a soul perceives itself
To be an Emperor.
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AI tells me purple’s in fashion any season but spring calls for lighter violet colors and fall for darker, royal purple. One of ED’s favorite flowers was purple gentian, which blooms after the first frost, so my guess is ED’s season is autumn. Purple gentian is deep wine-red, purple, or dark violet.

ED’s last two lines may have been a comment on an acquaintance who thought highly of themselves, but they are also apt for our current political egomaniac, with emphasis on the “perceives”.

895.1865.Further in Summer than the Birds –

Further in Summer than the Birds –
Pathetic from the Grass –
A Minor Nation celebrates
It’s unobtrusive Mass –

No Ordinance be seen –
So gradual the Grace
A pensive [gentle} Custom it becomes
Enlarging Loneliness –

‘Tis Antiquer {Antiquest}, at Dusk –
When Day’s attempt is done –
And Nature nothing waits to do
But terminate in Tune –

Nor difference it knows
Of Cadence, or of Pause –
Yet {But} simultaneous as Same –
The Service emphacize –

Nor know I when it cease –
At Candles, it is here –
When Sunrise is – that it is not –
Than this, I know no more –

The Earth has many keys –
Where Melody is not
Is the Unknown Peninsula –
Beauty – is Nature’s Fact –

But Witness for Her Land –
And Witness for Her Sea –
The Cricket is Her utmost
Of Elegy, to Me –
…………………………………………………………………….

My interpretation of ‘895.1865.Further in Summer than the Birds –‘:

Stanza 1.

Further in Summer than the Birds –
Pathetic from the Grass –
A Minor Nation celebrates
It’s unobtrusive Mass –

S1

In summer after the birds have stopped singing, a new chorus begins from the grass. A less visible but abundant nation of crickets sings its late-summer chants.

Stanza 2.

No Ordinance be seen –
So gradual the Grace
A pensive Custom it becomes
Enlarging Loneliness –

S2.

There is no religious ritual seen, but the chorus gradually begins its annual ceremony, which makes me feel lonely.

Stanza 3.

‘Tis Audiblest, at Dusk –
When Day’s attempt is done –
And Nature nothing waits to do
But terminate in Tune –

S3.

The singing is loudest at dusk, when day is done and nature has nothing to do but terminate in tune.

Stanza 4

Nor difference it knows
Of Cadence, or of Pause –
But simultaneous as Same –
The Service emphacize –

S4.

The chorus is a monotone without rhythm or pause. The performance seems to include all crickets, as if emphasizing their solidarity.

Stanza 5,

Nor know I when it cease –
At Candles, it is here –
When Sunrise is – that it is not –
Than this, I know no more –

S5.

I don’t know when the chorus stops. It’s here when I go to bed but not in the morning when I wake.

Stanza 6

The Earth has many keys –
Where Melody is not
Is the Unknown Peninsula –
Beauty – is Nature’s Fact –

S6

The Earth has many keys, like a piano, but some keys make no sound when struck. Instead, they play the silent songs of the soul, inaudible but real, and they are beautiful.

Stanza 7.

But Witness for Her Land –
And Witness for Her Sea –
The Cricket is Her utmost
Of Elegy, to Me –

S7

I witness the beauty of both land and sea, but a full-throated cricket chorus is elegy enough for me.
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Same interpretation in three paragraphs:

In summer after the birds have stopped singing, a new chorus begins from the grass. A less visible but abundant nation of crickets sings its late-summer chants. There is no religious ritual seen, but the chorus gradually begins its annual ceremony, which makes me feel lonely.

The singing is loudest at dusk, when day is done and nature has nothing to do but terminate in tune. The chorus is a monotone without rhythm or pause. The performance seems to include all crickets, as if emphasizing their solidarity. I don’t know when the chorus stops. It’s here when I go to bed but not in the morning when I wake.

The Earth has many keys, like a piano, but some keys make no sound when struck. Instead, they play the silent songs of the soul, inaudible but real, and they are beautiful. I witness the beauty of both land and sea, but a full-throated cricket chorus is elegy enough for me.
…………………………………………………………………….

ED’s first variant of ‘Further in Summer than the Birds’, Variant A in Franklin’s 1998 ‘Variorum’, has seven stanzas and is often referred to as ‘The Vanderbilt Variant’. There are five other variants and three  alternate words: in Line 7 (pensive → gentle), Line 9 (antiquer → antiquest), L:ine 15 (yet → but). I prefer all her alternate words, as did ED, who used them in her final four-stanza Variant F (1883).

In  1865, ED sent the poem to Gertrude Vanderbilt, a college friend of Susan Dickinson, and a copy to her cousins in Boston. In 1986, exactly 100 years after ED’s death, the Vanderbilt Variant was found in the Special Collections Room of Scripps College Library, Claremont, California.
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894.1865.The Overtakelessness of Those
Variant B, with alternate words in {curly brackets}.

The Overtakelessness of Those
Who have accomplished Death —
Majestic is to me beyond
The Majesties of Earth —
The Soul her “Not at Home”
Inscribes upon the Flesh,
And takes a {her} fine aerial gait
Beyond the Writ {hope} of Touch.
…………………………………………………………………………………….

There are two variants. Variant A is Susan’s transcription of ED’s lost manuscript and Variant B, in ED’s handwriting (above). There are two alternate words: in Line 7, “her” in Variant A becomes “a” in Variant B and, in Line 8, “hope” becomes “Writ”.

I prefer both of ED’s alternate words in Variant A because “The Soul” in Line 5 is a “Her”, and “Writ” is legalese, while “hope” is not.

For the sake of her poetry, ED assumes there is something “Majestic . . . beyond / The Majesties of Earth —”, but I’m not convinced she’s convinced there is.  If there isn’t, this poem is fiction, but it makes for good poetry. ED’s waiting for some empirical evidence.

My interpretation of ‘The Overtakelessness of Those (F894)’:

A woman who has died hangs a “Not at Home” sign on her corpse, then takes her “fine aerial gait / Beyond the hope” of anyone alive touching her . . .

ED sounds confident she knows what she’s talking about; she’s saying what she “hopes” death will be, but I don’t think she’s confident she’s right.

893.1865. Her sovereign People

Her sovereign People
Nature knows as well
And is as fond of signifying
As if fallible –
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My translation of F893:

Nature knows who her geniuses are and enjoys bragging about them, as if Nature is fallible.
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That is the same as saying Nature is infallible. A humbler Nature would have said “As if infallible”.

Like the previous poem, F892, this one continues ED’s thinking about gifted children/people. By age 34, she was certain she was a “sovereign” person. To me her “As if fallible” goes over the top of healthy self-confidence. In my experience, secure geniuses don’t flout themselves as this poem does.

I know, it’s just a private poem between two close friends with a long track record between them. Maybe I’m just jealous.