Emily Dickinson Poetry Blog
The Robin for the Crumb
Returns no syllable
But long records the Lady’s name
In Silver Chronicle.
The Robin’s “Silver Chronical” will “long record the Lady’s name”, just as ED’s poem will immortalize her Aunt Lucretia (M&ML432, JL633). Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 said it best:
“So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee”
Good to have had them lost
For news that they be saved!
The nearer they departed Us
The nearer they, restored,
Shall stand to Our Right Hand—
Most precious— are the Dead—
Next precious, those that rose to go
Then thought of Us, and stayed—
ED was not a religious person in the traditional, stand-at-the-right-hand-of-God ilk. I think this poem is unlikely to be about religion or a love relationship. But one thing we do know for certain is that ED was composing during the bloody last year of the Civil War. She had known men in her early social circle who had been killed:
“[They] Shall stand to Our Right Hand—
Most precious— are the Dead—”
We also can be certain that in the confusion of newspaper lists, a few of her friends likely were reported dead when in fact they were badly wounded but not killed:
“Next precious, those that rose to go [almost died]
Then thought of Us, and stayed—”
I think this poem is about them.
The lovely flowers embarrass me,
They make me regret I am not a Bee –
Text of Letter M&ML422, JL1042 to Lucretia Gunn Bullard, ED’s aunt, about late spring 1864, Cambridge, MA:
“The lovely flowers embarrass me,
They make me regret I am not a Bee –
Was it my blame or Nature’s?
Thank you, dear Aunt, for the thoughtfulness, I shall slowly forget – The beautiful Plant would entice me, did I obey myself, but the Doctor is rigid –
Will you believe me grateful,
Truly,
Emily
Given ED’s disinclination for visiting, she’s got a good excuse. I agree with Johnson (1958), the poem is a poet’s polite RSVP for a medical reason
Cristanne Miller and Domhnall Mitchell, 2024, The Letters of Emily Dickinson, Harvard University Press. Kindle Edition.
807.1864.Away from Home are some and I —
Away from Home are some and I —
An Emigrant to be
In a Metropolis of Homes
Is easy, possibly —
The Habit of a Foreign Sky
We — difficult — acquire
As Children, who remain in Face
The more their Feet retire.
My interpretation of Fr807:
A biographical interpretation makes the meaning of this poem clear; I think ED intended Line 1 to be read literally, “Away from Home are some and I —”:
She used the word “Emigrant” because her travel experience helped her empathize better with the Irish immigrants in Amherst who had arrived in a strange new land under a “Foreign Sky”.
During ED’s months of treatment she apparently composed some poems. However, she was under strict orders not to use her eyes, so she may have dictated new poems to her cousins, Louisa and Francis Norcross. That may explain some of the upcoming short poems.
Habegger, Alfred. 2001. My Wars Are Laid Away in Books: The Life of Emily Dickinson. Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
806.1864.Partake as doth the Bee,
ED’s alternate Lines 3-4 in parentheses:
Partake as doth the Bee,
Abstemiously.
The Rose is an Estate— (I know the Family)
In Sicily. (In Tripoli).
Johnson (1955) tells us:
“The diary of ED’s cousin, Perez Dickinson Cowan, who was graduated from Amherst College in 1866, under date of 26 April 1864, records that ED presented him with a bouquet of flowers with this poem [Variant 803B] enclosed as a note.”
Perez Dickinson Cowan (1843-1923) was born and raised in Knoxville, Tennessee. He was 20 or 21 when ED wrote this poem. Tennessee was a Confederate state, and Cowan was a student at Amherst College during the Civil War. East Tennessee leaned toward the Union, as did Cowan’s family, and ED’s father was Cowan’s uncle once removed, which may explain Cowan’s presence at Amherst College, a safe refuge for a draft-age, privileged southern boy.
That Perez graduated late, at age 23 in 1866, and after Lee’s 1865 surrender, supports this conjecture.
ED tells us, “I know the Family”. Also, her three-syllabled “Tripoli” is likely a camouflaged alliteration for three-syllabled “Tennessee”. Clearly, ED was being extremely careful to avoid implicating her second cousin or his Knoxville family in draft-dodging.
These Strangers, in a foreign World,
Protection asked of me—
Befriend them, lest Yourself in Heaven
Be found a Refugee—
The plural “Strangers” of Line 1 of “These Strangers, in a foreign World” suggests that a family of Irish immigrants, newly arrived from the potato famines of Ireland, are the recipient of ED’s generosity. She did the same earlier for a young boy, probably also Irish, in F486, 1862 (Stanza 1)
“He told a homely tale
And spotted it with tears —
Upon his infant face was set
The Cicatrice of years —”
The influx of Irish immigrants into Amherst was a result two things: the Irish potato famine of 1845-1855 and the completion of a railroad spur line to Amherst in 1853, a project sponsored by ED’s father . “During the Great Irish Potato Famine, between 1845 and 1855, an estimated 2.1 million Irish people emigrated from Ireland to North America, with the majority coming to the United States.” (Google AI).
Before Massachusetts banned slavery in 1783, many wealthy landowners in the upper Connecticut River Valley owned slaves. Their descendants were the domestic workers for wealthy families until the 1840s. During ED’s youth, the Dickinsons hired African Americans as gardeners, stable managers, and house maids. Several academic studies suggest traces of Negro dialect in ED’s letters and poems:
Fielder, Brigitte. 2022. “Emily Dickinson’s Black Contexts.” The Oxford Handbook of Emily Dickinson, edited by Cristanne Miller and Karen Sánchez-Eppler, OUP Oxford, pp. 353–71.
Murray, Aife. 2010. Maid as Muse: How Servants Changed Emily Dickinson’s Life and Language. University of Massachusetts Press, 299 pp.
Romer, Robert H., 2009, Slavery in the Connecticut Valley of Massachusetts, Levellers Press, 286 pp.
804.1864.Ample make this Bed—
Ample make this Bed—
Make this Bed with Awe—
In it wait till Judgment break
Excellent and Fair.
Be its Mattress straight—
Be its Pillow round—
Let no Sunrise’ yellow noise
Interrupt this Ground—
My interpretation, or simple repeat, of this seemingly simple, imperative poem (Variant A):
ED’s misguided editors “corrected” her manuscript’s incorrect possessive, “it’s” in Lines 5-6.
Of the many ways to interpret this poem: Lines’ 2-3 command to “make” and “wait”, Lines’ 7-8 command to “Let no Sunrise’ yellow noise / Interrupt this “Ground”, and ED’s love-hate obsession with Death, my money’s on a coffin-bed in a fresh grave.
In 1883, one year after Wadsworth died and three years before ED’s death, a prominent Boston publisher, Thomas Niles, solicited her poems. She replied with a cryptic note and three poems:
“Dear friend –
“Thank you for the kindness.
“Please efface [erase] the others and receive these three, which are more like him – a Thunderstorm – a Humming Bird, and a Country Burial [F804]. . . . .”
Niles politely demurred.
ED’s letter to Niles is cryptic to me because she doesn’t identify “him”, but my first guess would be Rev. Charles Wadsworth, who had died one year earlier
Only two poems ago, Fr 802 suggested that ED did not know whether Wadsworth was still alive when she composed Fr803 and 804 in early 1864. In late 1863, 116 poems ago, in ‘To know just how He suffered’ (Fr688), ED obsessed about what Wadsworth said or might have said as he died.
Stanza 1 of 6:
To know just how He suffered – would be dear –
To know if any Human eyes were near
To whom He could entrust His wavering gaze –
Until it settled broad – on Paradise –