762.1863.Promise This – When You be Dying –

762.1863.Promise This – When You be Dying –

Franklin’s (1999) ‘Reading Version’

ED’s alternate words in (parentheses) and my preference in bold font:

Promise This – When You be Dying –
Some shall (Some one) summon Me –
Mine belong Your latest Sighing –
Mine – to Belt Your Eye –

Not with Coins – though they be Minted
From An Emperor’s Hand –
Be my lips – the only Buckle
Your low (meek) Eyes – demand-

Mine to stay – when all have wandered –
To devise once more
If the Life be too surrendered –
Life of Mine – restore –

Poured like this – My Whole (best) Libation –
Just that You should see
Bliss of Death – Life’s Bliss extol thro’
Imitating You –

Mine – to guard Your Narrow Precinct –
To seduce (entice – • persuade) the Sun
Longest (Latest) on Your South, to linger [loiter],
Largest (Newest – • Freshest) Dews of Morn

To demand, in Your low favor –
Lest the Jealous Grass
Greener lean – Or fonder cluster (later linger)
Round some other face –

Mine to supplicate Madonna –
If Madonna be
Could behold (regard) so far (small – dim) a Creature –
Christ – omitted -Me –

It’s doubtful anyone ever has or ever will compose a more thoughtful analysis of Fr762, ‘Promise This – When You be Dying –’, than Adam DeGraff’s explication on The Prowling Bee blog:

(https://bloggingdickinson.blogspot.com/2024/12/promise-thiswhen-you-be-dying.html)

EDLex defines Madonna as Mary, a “holy woman who serves as an intermediary between humanity and Jesus Christ.” The speaker isn’t sure if Madonna exists, but if she does,

“Could [she intercede for] so (small) a Creature –
[Because] Christ – omitted – Me [from Heaven] -”

My insertions in [brackets] and my preferred alternate word in bold font.

ED’s presumptuous imperative, “Promise this – when you be dying [in San Francisco] / You’ll send someone – to summon me”, without hint of grief, sounds me-centered, ignoring Wadsworth’s wife and family. ED wants to be there when death happens because Wadsworth’s “latest sighing” [death rattle?], belongs to “Me”, as does the right to close his eyes, not with coins, but with her kiss.

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After commenting on Poems 1-763 (Franklin) on The Prowling Bee’, I am convinced that (virtually) all of Emily Dickinson’s (ED’s) poems have a factual historical level in addition to their various poetic levels of meaning. The reason for her instant and continuing public adulation (1890 - present) was and is, by far, poetic. She is one of the "Greats" that she always dreamed to be, despite her lifelong refusal to publish. That refusal freed her from criticism and allowed her to explore the outer boundaries of poetic power.

More than a century of scholarly research has resulted in somewhere between 10,000 and 100,000 books and published academic papers about ED. A large majority of these publications focus only on the “poetic levels” of one or more of ED’s poems. Publications that consider both the “historic level” and “poetic levels” comprise a small minority. Publications that focus only on the factual history of her life probably number less than 100. (All numbers in this paragraph are my estimates.)

Unfortunately for ED’s universe of readers, these two basic levels (historical and poetic) cannot be separated into two ivory towers. Every history-level publication that I know of includes at least some discussion of the poetic level(s).

The reverse is not true. In fact, authors of the “poetry-level” school seem to avoid commenting on the historical level, sometimes admonishing that a poem must stand on its own, without concern for its historical roots. To my knowledge, there are (virtually) no published “history-level” books or articles that totally ignore ED’s poems and their poetic levels.

Of course, ED’s refusal to publish her poems was only possible because of lifelong financial and daily social/housekeeping support by her family, especially her father and sister, respectively. In addition, throughout her life, the Dickinsons hired servants, first Negro and later Irish, some of whom became much more than housekeepers for ED.

My point is that our appreciation of ED's poems can be enhanced by understanding both poetic and historical levels of her sound and sense. We impoverish ourselves if we ignore their historical base.