767 One blessing had I than the rest (Late 1863)
ED’s alternative words in parentheses
One Blessing had I than the rest
So larger to my Eyes
That I stopped guaging – satisfied –
For this enchanted size –
It was the limit of my Dream –
The focus of my Prayer –
A perfect – paralyzing Bliss –
Contented as Despair –
I knew no more of Want – or Cold –
Phantasms (fictitious) both become
For this new Value (fortune -• portion -) in the Soul –
Supremest Earthly Sum –
The Heaven below the Heaven above
Obscured with ruddier (nearer• comelier) Blue –
Life’s Latitudes leant over – full –
The Judgment perished – too –
Why Bliss so scantily disburse –
Why Paradise defer –
Why Floods be served to Us – in Bowls
I speculate no more
ED’s “Blessing” // “was so larger than the rest” that only two possibilities come to mind: an intense mystical experience or an overwhelming moment of love. For me, a poem’s “Sense” undergirds its “Sound”, and faith assures me that ED’s poems make sense. In that light, ‘One Blessing had I than the rest’ translates as a combination: mystical love.
The word “mystic” occurs only four times in ED’s poems: mystic green (F13), mystic mooring (F33), mystic creature (F315), mystic bread (F1106); “love”, or its derivatives, appear 141 times. However, 31 years after ED’s death, William James (1917) coined the phrase “mystical experience”, and TPB denizens have used that phrase time after time in explications and comments.
A translation:
One mystical experience had I
That was so larger than the rest
That I stopped gauging them, satisfied
With its enchanted size
It was the limit of my Dream –
The focus of my Prayer –
A perfect – paralyzing Bliss –
Enduring as Despair
I knew no more of Want – or Cold –
Fictitious both became
For this new Fortune – in the Soul –
Supremest Earthly Sum –
The blue heaven below God’s Heaven,
Obscured by ruddier hue –;
Spilled over – full –,
God’s Judgement perished – too –
Why Bliss so scantily disbursed
Why Paradise deferred til Death –
Why mystic Floods be served to Us – in such small Bowls –
I speculate no more