761.1863.So much Summer
ED’s alternate words (in parentheses)
So much Summer
Me for showing
Illegitimate –
Would a Smile’s minute bestowing
Too exorbitant (extravagant – • importunate -)
To the Lady
With the Guinea(s)
Look – if she should know
Crumb of Mine
A Robin’s Larder
Would (Could) suffice to stow –
To my knowledge, no one except David Preest has quoted from or commented on this poem. He was baffled: “The syntactical structure of this poem is not immediately obvious”. ED’s 37-word riddle reminds me of Molly Bloom’s 24,000-word monologue ending Ulysses, except Molly was less obscure. There’s nothing left to do but crawl out on a thin limb and hope.
ED had begged Sue for a smile before, in F735, ‘The Moon was but a Chin of Gold’:
“Her Lips of Amber never part –
But what must be the smile
Upon Her Friend she could confer
Were such Her silver will –“
In Lines 4-7 of ‘So much Summer’, ED again begs Sue for a small smile: “Would a Smile’s minute bestowing / Too exorbitant [be] // To the Lady / With the Guinea(s)”? That “minute” smile would be a “Crumb of Mine / A Robin’s Larder / Would suffice to stow”. ED referred to Sue as a “Robin” in ‘I have a Bird in spring’ [F4, 1854, Line 6].
If ‘So much Summer’ is about Sue, then what are we to make of Lines 1-3, and how are they connected to ED’s plea for a sympathetic smile? These opening lines, taken literally, are about “Me”, the poet, ED, who apparently is “showing / illegitimate” in her “Summer” frock and begging Sue for a “minute smile”. Occam’s Razor fails sometimes, but in the absence of compelling alternatives, these lines provide circumstantial evidence supporting Shurr’s 1983 hypothesis of ED’s pregnancy [Comment 1, F745, ‘Sweet Mountains’, TPB].
Mabel Todd wrote in her diary that Austin had told her that during the early years of their marriage, before Ned’s birth in June 1861, Sue had had three or four pregnancies “artificially terminated” [Longsworth 1984]. If so, this shocking poem may be ED’s plea, not just for Sue’s sympathy, but for her empathy as well. And, if so, two questions: Why did ED leave such damning words in a poem, and why did Austin’s scissors spare this poem when he censored ED’s manuscripts after her death?
ed-larryb.com/2024/12/761-1863-so-much-summer
PS1. Preest’s “explication” makes no sense to me:
Poem F761, ‘So much Summer’, Explication by David Preest
“The syntactical structure of this poem is not immediately obvious, but perhaps Emily is saying, ‘In return for me showing the Lady with the Guinea so much illegitimate summer, would the very small bestowing of a smile seem too extravagant a reward from her to me, if I were to tell her that a very small crumb, no bigger than what would fit a robin’s larder, would be enough.’
“Emily does not say who the Lady with the Guinea was, but the illegitimacy of their summer together may show that she was married.”
PS2: Adam DeGraff, Blogmeister of ‘The Prowling Bee’ (TPB), kindly reminded me that ED’s Poem F12, ‘I had a guinea golden’, shares two words with F721: “Robin” and “guinea”. I believe both poems are about Sue and Emily. In fact, F12’s last stanza tells us in plain camouflaged English (“ïts” = “her”):
“My story has a moral—
I have a missing friend—
“Pleiad” its name, and Robin,
And guinea in the sand.”
- Longsworth, Polly. 1984. Austin and Mabel. University of Massachusetts Press.
- Preest, David. 2014. ‘Emily Dickinson: Notes on All Her Poems’. 672 pp. [For Preest’s entire PDF of 1775 commentaries (Johnson 1955) free of charge, go to: https://studylib.net/download/8773657
Click “Not a Robot”, and download PDF.] - Shurr, William H. 1983. The Marriage of Emily Dickinson. University of Kentucky Press, 230 pages; pp.170-188.