765.1863.The Sunrise runs for Both
The Sunrise runs for Both –
The East – Her Purple Troth
Keeps with the Hill –
The Noon unwinds Her Blue
Till One Breadth cover Two –
Remotest – still –
Nor does the Night forget
A Lamp for Each – to set –
Wicks wide away –
The North – Her blazing Sign
Erects in Iodine –
Till Both – can see –
The Midnight’s Dusky Arms
Clasp Hemispheres, and Homes
And so
Upon Her Bosom – One –
And One upon Her Hem –
Both lie –
Franklin dates ED’s fascicle copy of ‘The Sunrise runs for Both’ (F765) “about late 1863”. On December 21, 1863, sunrise in Amherst was 7:16 AM (night’s “Hem”), but 7:16 AM in Amherst was 4:16 AM in San Francisco (night’s bosom).
When ED obsessed over Wadsworth, she wished she could share what he was doing each moment, so she adjusted for the three-hour time difference. When she was waking up in Amherst, in San Francisco Wadsworth would have been snoring on night’s “Bosom”:
“And so
Upon Her Bosom – One –
And One upon Her Hem –
Both lie -”
“Her” refers to “Night” in Stanza 3, but no doubt ED wished it referred to “Her Bosom”.
PS. Thank you, David Preest, wherever you are, for the time-zone clue.
When ED composed this poem in 1863, there were 300 different local times in the US, each based on Local Meridian Time (LMT) for a nearby city. Noon was when the Sun was directly over the local city , and nearby areas used that city’s LMT. That ancient scheme worked until railroad companies tried to print schedules for arrivals and departures. Finally, in 1883 the US adopted four times zones, each differing by one hour.