Month: September 2025

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.

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.

I think ED intended Line 1 to be read literally, “Away from Home are some and I —”; a biographical interpretation makes the literal meaning of this poem clear:

Stanza 1

In October 1864, ED took the train from Amherst to Cambridge for eye treatments by the best ophthalmologist in Boston. She became an “Emigrant” when she left her home in Amherst bound for Boston, a “Metropolis of Homes” compared to Amherst. The train ride was “easy” but she’s uneasy about what lies ahead, hence the stanza-closing “possibly —”.

Stanza 2

Getting used to the “Foreign Sky” of Cambridge and Boston was not easy for ED, a small-town “girl” who liked her home on Amherst’s Main Street. She felt like a child whose “Face” was physically in an unfamiliar place where she was supposed to be, but her heart and brain had returned to her second-floor bedroom at Homestead to write poetry, or at least try to.

She used the word “Emigrant” because she was leaving her Amherst home. Her uneasiness helped her empathize with Irish immigrants in Amherst who had arrived in a strange new land under a “Foreign Sky”.

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 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 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 at age 23 in 1866, after Lee’s surrender, supports this conjecture.

Given those biographical details, I prefer ED’s alternative Lines 3-4 because “Tripoli” is a metrically perfect, three-syllable, stand-in name for “Tennessee”. ED would not want to take the chance of implicating her second cousin or his family in Knoxville in draft-dodging.

Their Hight in Heaven comforts not—
Their Glory—nought to me—
’Twas best imperfect—as it was—
I’m finite—I can’t see—

The House of Supposition—
The Glimmering Frontier that skirts the Acres of Perhaps—
To Me—shows insecure—

The Wealth I had—contented me—
If ’twas a meaner size—
Then I had counted it until
It pleased my narrow Eyes—

Better than larger values—
That show however true—
This timid life of Evidence
Keeps pleading—”I don’t know.”

The antecedent of “Their” in Lines 1&2 is anybody’s guess; mine is angels. ED remained skeptical about heaven and resurrection her entire life. She wanted credible evidence. A letter to ED from Reverend Washington Gladden, dated May 27, 1882, quotes her question from a missing letter: “Is immortality true?”

His reply: “My friend: ‘Is immortality true?’ . . . . Absolute demonstration there can be none of this truth; but a thousand lines of evidence converge toward it; and I believe it.” (Miller and Mitchell 2024, p.682). I doubt ED was convinced.

Stanzas 1 & 2 cleverly enjamb: “I’m finite – I can’t see // The House of Supposition – / “The Glimmering that skirts / The Acres of Perhaps”. This description of Heaven feels too modern, too skeptical to have come from the pen of a mid-19th century rural recluse.

Stanzas 3 & 4 also enjamb: “It pleased my narrow Eyes // Better than larger values / that show, however [whether or not] true”. [My interpretation of “however” In brackets]

ED’s last two lines beg like an honest scientist:

“This timid life of Evidence
Keeps pleading – ‘I don’t know’”

OED lists 1500 AD as the most recent use of the Old English word “hight” to mean “height”. We can safely assume “hight” is an example of ED’s (intentional?) misspelling of a few common words, such as “opon” for “upon”.

Cristanne Miller and Domhnall Mitchell, eds., 2024. The Letters of Emily Dickinson, Harvard U. Press. Cambridge, MA, p. 683, Kindle edition.

ED’s alternative words in parentheses:

Each Life converges to some Centre—
Expressed — or still —
Exists in every Human Nature
A Goal —

Embodied (Admitted) scarcely to itself — it may be —
Too fair
For Credibility’s presumption (temerity)
To mar (dare)—

Adored (Beheld) with caution — as a Brittle Heaven —
To reach
Were hopeless, as the Rainbow’s Raiment
To touch —

Yet persevered toward — surer (stricter) — for the Distance —
How high —
Unto the Saints’ slow diligence (industry) —
The Sky —

Ungained — it may be — in a Life’s low Venture —
But then —
Eternity enable the endeavoring
Again.

ED’s eight alternative words suggest she wasn’t entirely happy with this poem, but they may give us a clue as to where she wanted go:

In Line 5, I prefer “Admitted” because it seems to imply ED’s true feelings.

In Lines 7 & 8, I prefer the alternative “temerity” because it implies assertiveness that would “mar”, my preferred final word in the stanza.

In Line 9, I prefer ED’s alternative verb “Beheld” because its subject is “Centre” in Line 1, and “Adored” puts a too positive spin on its subject.

In Lines 13 & 15, I prefer ED’s original words over her alternatives because they fit better in their contexts.

Pronouns “itself” and “it” in Stanzas 2 and 5 refer to “Centre” and “Goal” in Stanza 1. For ED, one would think poetry would be Life’s “Centre”/ “Goal”, and it was, but known only to herself and her friends. She knew that writing for publication would hamstring her freedom to write whatever she wanted whenever she wanted, without kowtowing to some (old male!) editor. Nevertheless, ED dreamed of eventually taking her place among poets of the ages (e.g., F470, 1862):

“That first Day, when you praised Me, Sweet,
And said that I was strong —
And could be mighty, if I liked —
That Day — the Days among —

“Glows Central — like a Jewel
Between Diverging Golds —
The Minor One — that gleamed behind —
And Vaster — of the World’s.”

Stanza 5 seems to rule out poetry as the “Centre/ Goal’ of Stanza 1 unless ED plans to compose poems in Heaven or Hell for Angels or Demons:

“But then-
Eternity enable the endeavoring
Again.”

Nevertheless, there is something “Eternity” might “enable” in the afterlife. By 1863 it was clear to ED that her two attempts at love relationships, Susan Gilbert and Charles Wadsworth, would be “Ungained . . . by a Life’s low Venture -”. Maybe in “Eternity” she’ll get a second chance at love. Oddly, ‘Each Life converges to some Centre’ may be a love poem for Sue or Wadsworth or both, like the dual-purpose ‘You left me – Sire – two Legacies –’ (F713, 1863 ).

In this poem, ED uses a single iamb in nine consecutive even-numbered lines, L4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, and L20, which feels a bit contrived but gives the poem’s sound the rhythm of a song. As it reads now, only even-numbered L2 breaks this repetition with two iambs. If her manuscript didn’t firmly format Stanza 1, I would suspect she intended a single iamb in Line 2:

“Each Life converges to some Centre— Expressed —
[O]r still —
Exists in every Human Nature
A Goal —”

A mundane question: What is the subject of the verb “Exists” in Line 3? Clearly, ED intends “Centre” to be the subject, but the lines don’t make sense to me as written. Perhaps she intended an understood subject: “It] Exists in every Human Nature”. I guess if the test is “Does it communicate what the poet meant” then ED gets a free pass for the missing subject.

ED’s alternate words in parentheses:

Have any like Myself
Investigating March,
New Houses on the Hill descried—
And possibly a Church—

That were not, We are sure—
As lately as the Snow—
And are Today—if We exist—
Though how may this be so?

Have any like Myself
Conjectured Who may be
The Occupants of the Adobes—
So easy to the Sky—

Twould seem that God should be
The nearest Neighbor to—
And Heaven—a convenient Grace
For Show, or Company—

Have any like Myself
Preserved the Charm secure (Vision sure, Vision clear)
By shunning carefully the Place (Spot, Site)
All Seasons of the Year,

Excepting March—’Tis then
My (The) Villages be seen—
And possibly a Steeple—
Not afterward—by Men—

In Line 13, ED omitted the contracting apostrophe of “‘Twould”, which is not her usual practice (Fr574). Both Johnson (1955) and Franklin (1998) emend her omission, which seems reasonable to me. In Line 18, I prefer ED’s alternative “Vision clear” over “Charm secure” because it emphasizes that ED realizes the “Villages” are a “Vision”, not real. In Line 19, I prefer “Spot” over “Place” because of its alliteration with “shunning” and the firm sound of the final “t”. In Line 22, I like the possessiveness of “My” better than the alternative “The”.

In New England March, bright blue skies and puffy white clouds occasionally break the dreariness of winter. It’s hard to resist a walk on such a day, and if a poet feels her imagination stirring, she could easily see houses and a steeple in the clouds behind a hill’s horizon. Return tomorrow, it’s likely gone, “Not [seen] afterward – by Men –”.

Stanzas 1-3 describe this mystical village and conjecture who lives there. Her first two lines of Stanza 4 (L9-10) guess that God should live there because the village lies between Earth and Heaven.

Then, suddenly, Lines L11-L12 slam a question in our face. Is “Heaven – a convenient Grace / For Show, or Company?” What happened to the village in the sky with new houses and a steepled church? That question about Heaven sure seems skeptical and even sarcastic to me.

A village that appears once a century is an old German motif, most recently revisited in Brigadoon (1947 musical by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe). Brigadoon’s precursor, ‘Germelshausen’ is an 1860 German story by Friedrich Gerstäcker about a young artist being forever separated from his love, but the motif predates 1860.

“A cursed village that sank into the earth long ago is permitted to appear for only one day every century. The protagonist happens to be traversing the area as Germelshausen appears. He encounters, and becomes smitten with, a young woman from the village. The romantic tale ends with him leaving the vicinity just in time to avoid becoming entombed with the village and its denizens, but thereby he loses the love of his life.”

ED’s village appears once a year, but the result is the same, gender reversed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germelshausen