753.1863. Grief is a Mouse – An interpretation
My Heart is Grief –
He chooses Ribs of my Breast
For His shy House –
And baffles quest –
My Heart is a Thief, easily startled
He listens carefully for report
From that Vast Dark
That stole His Reason to exist
My Heart is a Juggler, performing clever tricks
To hide His Bruises, One, say, or Many
My Heart feeds on Pain
Allow Him His luxury
My Heart is Tongueless – before He’ll tell –
Burn Him in the Public square –
His Ashes will tell, possibly
If they refuse – You’ll never know –
Since a Rack couldn’t coax a syllable – now
Loss of love by death or separation grieved ED from girlhood. At 13, death of her 15-year-old friend and cousin, Sophia Holland, drove ED into deep depression relieved only by a month of rest and distraction in Boston with her Aunt Lavinia (L11, 28 March 1846). However, her greatest test by grief was in May 1862 when the male love of her life, Rev. Charles Wadsworth, relocated from Arch Street Presbyterian in Philadelphia to a new church, Calvary Presbyterian, in San Francisco.
ED suspected or knew that Wadsworth’s wife was unaware of their correspondence before he visited her in March 1860 in Amherst. For ED, their “friendship” demanded absolute secrecy (Stanza 4) because she feared consequences for them both if Wadsworth’s wife and congregation got wind of it. In addition, Whicher (1938) speculates: “There is . . . . much to lead us to surmise that [Wadsworth] paid Emily a second visit [in 1861]. . . . . . Her poems, . . . . though not to be taken literally, repeatedly emphasize a momentous interview on ”a day at summer’s full”. One protective measure ED took to bypass the gossipy Amherst postmistress was to mail all private letters by-way-of trusted friends in nearby towns for forwarding in cover envelopes (Habegger 2002).
PS. Time heals all wounds: “For Emily no passion ever died” (Judith Farr).
• In May 1862, Wadsworth moved to San Francisco.
• In late 1863, ED copied ‘Grief is a Mouse’ into Fascicle 36.
• In July 1869, Wadsworth moved back to Philadelphia.
• In fall 1876, “we have the first evidence of renewed correspondence with Wadsworth” (Habegger 2002, p. 676)
• In 1876: “[T]he most erotic poem composed by Dickinson between 1870 and 1878 [F1405] has been assigned to 1876 [by Franklin].” (Habegger 2002, p. 677):
(F1405, 1876)
“Long Years apart – can make no
Breach a second cannot fill –
Who says the Absence of a Witch
Invalidates his spell?
“The embers of a Thousand Years
Uncovered by the Hand
That fondled them when they were Fire
Will stir and understand”
• In 1879, ED composed a quatrain/invitation (F1485, 1879) that asked Wadsworth to correspond with or visit her in Amherst:
(F1485, 1879)
“Spurn the temerity —
Rashness of Calvary —
Gay were Gethsemane
Knew we of Thee —”
• In summer 1880, without sending an RSVP, Wadsworth showed up at ED’s front door for a Sunday afternoon visit.
For information about ED’s use of codewords for Wadsworth (Calvary) and herself (Gethsemane), see TPB comments:
• F676, 1863, ‘You know that Portrait in the Moon”, comment on February 20, 2024
• F714, 1863, ‘No Man can compass a Despair’, comment on May 12, 2024
• F749, 1863, ‘Where Thou art – that – is Home’, comment on October 22, 2024
Wadsworth returned to Philadelphia in 1869 and preached there until his death in 1882. Before his death, ED’s surviving letters have only one comment about him. Writing the Hollands after their trip to the Philadelphia Centennial [in 1876], Dickinson offered to send them the minister’s Thanksgiving message, ‘God’s Culture’: “The Sermon you failed to hear, I can lend you”. (L695, about January 1877)
“Again and again, the slender evidence as to the identity of the man Dickinson loved points to Wadsworth. Every other known candidate of either sex can be ruled out; he never is. Yet he is never confirmed. The probable explanation is that the love was on her side only, it was a question of feeling and imagination more than action, she covered her tracks well, and the intensely private Wadsworth was equally careful.” (Habegger, 2002)
• Habegger, Alfred. 2002. My Wars Are Laid Away in Books: The Life of Emily Dickinson, Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
• Whicher, George. 1938. ‘This was a Poet: A Critical Biography of Emily Dickinson’, Amherst College; Special edition 1992 by Amherst College with a new Introduction by Richard Sewall, Professor of English Emeritus, Yale University