804.1864.Ample make this Bed—

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):

Ample make this bed, make this bed with awe; in it wait till judgement day, excellent and fair.

Make it’s mattress straight, make it’s pillow round; let no sunrise’s yellow noise interrupt this ground.

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 –

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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.