Year: 2025

So well that I can live without –
I love thee – then How well is that?
As well as Jesus?
Prove it me
That He – loved Men –
As I – love thee –

Who is lowercase “thee” (Lines 2 and 8), and at whom is the imperative “Prove it me” aimed? In her poems, ED honored Jesus, God, and Reverend Charles Wadsworth by capitalizing their referring pronouns (Line 7). Her friend and sister-in-law, Susan Gilbert, was a lifelong committed Christian, and ED was not; hence, I suspect Sue is “thee” and ED’s imperative target for Line 6: “ Prove it me”!

I hear a note of pique in this poem. It sounds like a lover’s confrontation to me, which is likely given Sue’s distancing from ED during the first ten years or so of her marriage to Austin (1856-1895).

There’s something odd about the capitalized “How” in Line 2. ED crunched this six-line poem into the bottom third of a page of small manuscript paper in Fascicle 32. She also apparently intentionally raised the “How well is that ?” part of Line 2 slightly above the first part, as if she intended a new line but saw she would run out of room for the poem’s last line, so converted the two enjambed lines into one line.

In 1929, Martha Dickinson Bianci, ED’s niece, published this poem for the first time in ‘Further Poems’. She recognized the enjambed nature of Line 2 but lower-cased “How” without starting a new line and oddly split the end of Line 2 into two lines:

“So well that I can live without —
I love Thee; then how well
Is that?
As well as Jesus?
Prove it me
That He loved men
As I love Thee.”

I suspect ED envisioned a seven-line septet or a two-quatrain poem:

“So well that I can live without —
I love Thee – then
How well is that?
As well as Jesus?
Prove it me
That He loved men
As I love Thee.”

or,

“So well that I can live without —
I love Thee – then
How well
Is that?

As well as Jesus?
Prove it me
That He loved men
As I love Thee.”

Alternate words in parentheses:

Don’t put up my Thread & Needle –
I’ll begin to Sow
When the Birds begin to whistle –
Better stitches – so –

These were bent – my sight got crooked –
When my mind – is plain
I’ll do seams – a Queen’s endeavor
Would not blush to own –

Hems – too fine for Lady’s tracing
To the sightless Knot –
Tucks – of dainty interspersion –
Like a dotted Dot –

Leave  my Needle in the furrow –
Where I put it down –
I can make the zigzag stitches
Straight – when I am strong –

Till then – dreaming (deeming) I am sewing
Fetch the seam I missed –
Closer – so I – at my sleeping – (sighing –)
Still surmise I stitch –

My take is that this poem is not about sewing or eyesight, but about ED healing from winter depression (‘When Night is almost done’, F679, ). She looks forward to spring’s abundant sunlight when her winter funk will heal and she can compose with her former facility.

An interpretation:

Don’t take my paper and pencil
I’ll begin composing
In spring when birds begin to sing,
Better poems too

My recent poems were “bent” – my mind was troubled.
When my brain clears
I’ll compose poems Royalty
Would not blush to own.

Poems too skillful for ‘my Lady’
To find slant rhymes,
Concealed thoughts interspersed
Like dotted dots

Leave my pencil on the table
Where I put it down
I can make the poems sing
When my mind clears –

Till then I’ll dream I’m composing,
Improving lines I bungled
With better words, so I, when my mind clears
Can really write.

McDermotte (2001) analyzed ED’s seasonal periodicity of poem production during eight years, 1858-1864, and concluded [brackets mine]:

“Her 8-year period of productivity was marked by two 4-year phases. The first [1858-1861] shows a seasonal pattern characterized by greater creative output in spring and summer and a lesser output during the fall and winter. This pattern was interrupted by an emotional crisis that marked the beginning of the second phase (1862-1865), a four-year sustained period of greatly heightened productivity and the emergence of a revolutionary poetic style.”

Rereading Susan Kornfeld’s explication on TPB, especially its excellent biographic sketch, compels me to agree, ED’s malady is probably vision, but wouldn’t ailing eyesight drive most poets into a sterile funk? I say “most” because John Milton (1608-1674) gradually lost his sight during the 1650s and was completely blind by 1660, yet composed ‘Paradise Lost’ from 1658-1664 (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Milton). ED owned a copy of ”Paradise Lost” and “knew Milton’s great poem very well”.

John F. McDermott, M.D., 2001. Emily Dickinson Revisited: A Study of Periodicity in Her Work. American Journal of Psychiatry. 158: 686–690.

Funny — to be a Century —
And see the People — going by —
I — should die of the Oddity —
But then — I’m not so staid — as He —

He keeps His Secrets safely — very —
Were He to tell — extremely sorry
This Bashful Globe of Ours would be —
So dainty of Publicity —

Susan Kornfeld (TPB) is probably right; ED is just having a little fun, but it’s so unlike her to not have a second level of meaning. Has she heard a juicy morsel of gossip? Or does she know some humorous secret that would make good gossip, were she to indulge, which I doubt?

This poem seems to be an exception to my general assumption about capitalized masculine pronouns, that is, they refer to God or Wadsworth. I can’t escape concluding capitalized “He” and “Him” refer to “Century”. With ED, never say “never” or “always”.

ED’s alternative word in parentheses (Line 11)

You know that Portrait in the Moon —
So tell me who ’tis like —
The very Brow — the stooping eyes —
A fog for — Say — Whose Sake?

The very Pattern of the Cheek —
It varies — in the Chin —
But — Ishmael — since we met — ’tis long —
And fashions — intervene —

When Moon’s at full — ‘Tis Thou — I say —
My lips just hold the name —
When crescent — Thou art worn — I note (mind) —
But — there — the Golden Same —

And when — Some Night — Bold — slashing Clouds
Cut Thee away from Me —
That’s easier — than the other film
That glazes Holiday —

Line 7, “Ishmael”

Had ED ever read Moby Dick? We have no evidence that she did, but she may have read Melville’s review of Hawthorne’s ‘Mosses from an Old Manse’, ‘Hawthorne and His Mosses’:

“For in this world of lies, Truth is forced to fly like a scared white doe in the woodlands; and only by cunning glimpses will she reveal herself, as in Shakespeare and other masters of the great Art of Telling the Truth,–even though it be covertly, and by snatches.” (Melville, H., August 17, 1850, ‘The Literary World’, p 125,)

A magazine titled “‘The Literary World’ [was] published … in New York City from 1847 to 1852. There is no direct evidence confirming Emily Dickinson read ‘The Literary World’, [but] [s]he was a wide reader, especially of literary magazines and newspapers, and ‘The Literary World’ was a prominent publication of the time for discussing books.”

If that Melville quote sounds familiar, compare Dickinson’s famous F1263 (1872):

“Tell all the truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth’s superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind —”

Stanza 4.

Whoa!

To me, Peter Donahue’s artist rendition (Deviant Art) of The Man in the Moon looks no more like Sam Bowles’ photo than it looks like Charles Wadsworth’s:

https://poet-emily-dickinson.weebly.com/rev-charles-wadsworth.html. 

The capitalized “Thou” in Lines 9 and 11, and “Thee” in Line  14 are compelling evidence that ED referred to Wadsworth because she only capitalized personal pronouns for God and Wadsworth.

ED obsessed in poem after poem about Wadsworth, one minute angry (F672), next minute fawning (F673), finally forgiving (F658, F652) and eventually asking how he was doing in her last “Calvary” poem (F1485, 1879). I suspect she sent F1485 to Wadsworth, who had been back in Philadelphia since 1869. Calvary was ED’s codeword for Wadsworth and she thought of herself as Gethsemane, the Garden of Sorrow:

“Spurn the temerity —
Rashness of Calvary —
Gay were Gethsemane
Knew we of Thee —”

In 1880, being the gentleman he was and reminiscing about ED, Wadsworth showed up unannounced at ED’s door. They had an amical afternoon together. Wouldn’t we like to have a recording of their conversation?

Wadsworth died two years later, in 1882.

Take your Heaven further on —
This — to Heaven divine Has gone —
Had You earlier blundered in
Possibly, e’en You had seen
An Eternity — put on —
Now — to ring a Door beyond
Is the utmost of Your Hand —
To the Skies — apologize —
Nearer to Your Courtesies
Than this Sufferer polite —
Dressed to meet You —
See — in White!

ED had reached the anger stage of grief recovery, and she aimed her darts at Wadsworth, yet she still loved him. As evidence of her enduring love for Wadsworth and his for her, here is an 1879 “Calvary” poem (F1485) that affirmed her concern for Wadsworth in a sweet quatrain, ‘Spurn the temerity —’:

“Spurn the temerity —
Rashness of Calvary —
Gay were Gethsemane
Knew we of Thee —

It would not surprise me if she mailed F1485 to Wadsworth in 1879, though we have no hard evidence that happened. At any rate, the following summer, 1880, he showed up unannounced at her front door:

“Where did you come from,” I said, for he spoke like an Apparition.

“I stepped from my Pulpit to the Train” was [his] simple reply, and when I asked “how long,” “Twenty Years” said he with inscrutable roguery – but the loved Voice has ceased.”
(Letter 1040 to Charles Clark, April 15, 1886, exactly one month before she died)

The ED-Wadsworth “love affair” was likely a marriage of two disparate minds who agreed to disagree, both deeply spiritual, one an eloquent conservative Christian minister, the other a world-class agnostic poet. They died good friends, in 1882 and 1886 respectively.

PS1, Apparently, “Calvary” and “Gethsemane” are ED’s code names for Wadsworth and herself. She had to be careful in her poems to protect Wadsworth’s reputation and her privacy. ‘Spurn the temerity —’ (F1485, 1879) is the 12th and last of her “Calvary” poems.

PS2, Wadsworth, who was 66 in 1880 and nearing the end of his life, apparently made the 500-mile roundtrip from his home in Philadelphia to visit friends James and Charles Clark in Northampton and deliver a sermon at their church. He must have made the 12-mile train trip to Amherst that afternoon to visit ED. “Twenty Years” was a his roguish reference to his previous visit with her in Amherst in summer 1860.