Year: 2025

Prayer is the little implement
Through which Men reach
Where Presence — is denied them –
They fling their Speech

By means of it — in God’s Ear —
If then He hear —
This sums the Apparatus
Comprised in Prayer —

As ED poem succeeds ED poem, it feels she moves gradually from “God the loving Father” to “God the Watchmaker” to “God the Unconcerned” to “God the Deaf, Dumb, and Blind” to “God the Human Invention”. That final nihilistic tenet leaves us expecting nothing, nada, nichts after death. I wonder whether ED ever reached that entirely reasonable, anxiety-relieving, and simply stated belief: there is no there there.

ED, you are a courageous miracle.

To interrupt His Yellow Plan
The Sun does not allow
Caprices of the Atmosphere —
And even when the Snow

Heaves Balls of Specks, like Vicious Boy
Directly in His Eye —
Does not so much as turn His Head
Busy with Majesty —

‘Tis His to stimulate the Earth —
And magnetize the Sea —
And bind Astronomy, in place,
Yet Any passing by

Would deem Ourselves — the busier
As the minutest Bee
That rides — emits a Thunder —
A Bomb — to justify —

” ‘Tis His to stimulate the Earth —”: Sun’s cycles spur spring flowers, ripen summer hay, paint autumn red, shape winter snow.

“And magnetize the Sea —”: Sun’s pull tugs oceans into tides.

“And bind Astronomy, in place”: Sun’s gravity binds planets in their place.

Ancient Egyptians had it right: Ra deserves worship above all other gods. He gives us life and asks nothing in return. He will die, but Homo (un)sapiens will be gone and forgotten. Did ED sense these truths in 1863 when she wrote this poem?

The Wind — tapped like a tired Man —
And like a Host — “Come in”
I boldly answered — entered then
My Residence within

A Rapid — footless Guest —
To offer whom a Chair
Were as impossible as hand
A Sofa to the Air —

No Bone had He to bind Him —
His Speech was like the Push
Of numerous Humming Birds at once
From a superior Bush —

His Countenance — a Billow —
His Fingers, as He passed
Let go a music — as of tunes
Blown tremulous in Glass —

He visited — still flitting —
Then like a timid Man
Again, He tapped — ’twas flurriedly —
And I became alone —

Is the “Wind” an allegory for something else? Some contenders:

1. The wind is simply the wind.

2. A Ruby-throated Hummingbird.

3. Physical existence:

“So this life of man appears for a short space, but of what went before, or what is to follow, we are utterly ignorant” (Bede, 731 AD)

4.Spiritual existence:

“Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more.” (Macbeth, 1606)

5. Charles Wadsworth: Wadsworth blew into her life in March 1855 and out in May 1862, “And I became alone —”.

6. And the winner is: All of the above and many more.

If any sink, assure that this, now standing —
Failed like Themselves — and conscious that it rose —
Grew by the Fact, and not the Understanding
How Weakness passed — or Force — arose —

Tell that the Worst, is easy in a Moment –
Dread, but the Whizzing, before the Ball –
When the Ball enters, enters Silence –
Dying – annuls the power to kill –

An interpretation, sans corpse. Death of a Love, on May1, 1862:

If you fail and sink, be assured that I, now standing –
Failed like you – and, conscious that I rose –
Grew brave in heart, without understanding
How weakness passed – or Strength – returned –

Know that the Pain is bearable if Dread is brief –
Like the whizzing of the Ball before it strikes.
When it Strikes, Silence reigns –
Dying, in heart or head, annuls your will to kill.

‘Twas warm — at first — like Us —
Until there crept upon
A Chill — like frost upon a Glass —
Till all the scene — be gone.

The Forehead copied stone —
The Fingers grew too cold
To ache — and like a Skater’s Brook —
The busy eyes — congealed —

It straightened — that was all —
It crowded Cold to Cold —
It multiplied indifference —
As Pride were all it could —

And even when with Cords —
‘Twas lowered, like a Weight —
It made no Signal, nor demurred,
But dropped like Adamant.

The vote is in. All published reviewers and TPB commenters on this poem agree on the obvious, it is about a corpse. But before we close the coffin, I’d like to take a second look for a metaphor level. As a mature poet, ED’s poems typically have two or more levels. If this death poem has only one, the literal one, it would be an unusual ED poem.

My guess is that ‘Twas warm — at first — like Us —’ (F614, 1863) is a metaphor describing the death a love relationship that ED thought would last for the rest of her life and then eternally in Heaven. The funeral was May 1, 1862, when Reverend Charles Wadsworth boarded a ship in New York Harbor and set sail to San Francisco. She had to be extremely circumspect in this poem because its metaphor meaning could ruin the lives of both Wadsworth and her.

∙See the explication of the previous poem, F613, ‘The Day that I was crowned’, on this blog, ‘ED-LarryB’.

The Day that I was crowned
Was like the other Days —
Until the Coronation came —
And then — ’twas Otherwise —

As Carbon in the Coal
And Carbon in the Gem
Are One — and yet the former
Were dull for Diadem —

I rose, and all was plain —
But when the Day declined
Myself and It, in Majesty
Were equally — adorned —

The Grace that I — was chose —
To Me — surpassed the Crown
That was the Witness for the Grace —
‘Twas even that ’twas Mine —

During summer 1860. Reverend Charles Wadsworth visited ED at the Dickinson’s “Homestead” in Amherst. My guess is that his visit was “The Day that I was crowned” (Line 1, F613). I think that in ED’s fertile imagination, “Diadem” was a codeword for “Mrs.”. Supporting that contention, Poem F194 (1861), “Title divine, is mine”, begins:

“Title divine, is mine.
The Wife without the Sign –
Acute Degree conferred on me –
Empress of Calvary –
Royal, all but the Crown –
Betrothed, without the Swoon
God gives us Women –
. . . . ”

After that summer day in 1860, ED was convinced Wadsworth had told her that they could marry when they met in Heaven. Meanwhile, ED resigned herself to a life of chastity, “Betrothed, without the swoon / God gives us Women”. EDLex defines “swoon” as “a fainting fit, delirium, excitement, exaggeration of emotion.” Given ED’s frankness about sex in later poems, my guess is she meant orgasm. After about 1862 she wore only white, and she was buried in a white coffin in 1886.

From 1861-1863, ED used “Diadem” in 13 poems, skipped the years 1864-1865, and in 1866 she used the word in one poem, F1121. She never used the word in a poem before 1861 or after 1866. She capitalized “Diadem” in all 14 poems. Clearly, “Diadem” was important to ED during 1861-1863 and in 1866, but not before or after those years.

“Diadem” was also one of Wadsworth’s favorite words. He used it in an estimated 56 sermons during 33 years of preaching, 1850-1882. He used it in 20 sermons he delivered in San Francisco, 1862-1869. After he returned to Philadelphia in 1869, he used the word “diadem” in 15 published sermons, for a total of 35 sermons in 20 years. If, in his first 12 years of ministry (Philadelphia, 1850-1862), he used the word at the same rate, his lifetime total use of “diadem” was about 56 times in 33 years of ministry.

In 1941, without benefit of computer word search, Mary Barbot concluded: “Somewhat impressive, also, is Wadsworth’s use of [one] of Emily Dickinson’s favorite words, ‘diadem’, no less than thirty times” (Barbot, 1941).

Today, Barbot would have to conclude: “Somewhat impressive, also, is Dickinson’s use of ‘Diadem’, one of Wadsworth’s favorite words, no less than 14 times in six years of poetry, 1861-1866. He used the word approximately 56 times in 33 years of ministry”.

As always, evidence of Wadsworth’s influence on ED is circumstantial, but 1861-1866 is exactly the period of ED’s manic turmoil. During those six years ED wrote 947 poems, well over half of her 36-year career total. It is worth noting that Wadsworth and family set sail from New York Harbor on May 1, 1862, bound for San Francisco, where they lived for nine years. ED thought she was never going to see Reverend Charles Wadsworth again. Her 14^th and last “Diadem” poem (F1121, 1866), bids him an angry but sad sayonara:

“The Sky is low — the Clouds are mean.
A Travelling Flake of Snow
Across a Barn or through a Rut
Debates if it will go —

A Narrow Wind complains all Day
How some one treated him
Nature, like Us is sometimes caught
Without her Diadem”

The word “him” is a gender switch, one of ED’s favorite camouflage tricks.

When Charles Wadsworth died in 1882, ED sent his best friend, James Clark, a letter containing containing this sentence: “He was my Shepherd from “Little Girl”hood and I cannot conjecture a world without him, so noble was he always – so fathomless – so gentle.” (L994 to James D. Clark, August 22, 1882).

She was wrong about never seeing him again. In summer 1880 he showed up unexpectedly at her front door, but that’s another story.

ED’s 14 “Diadem” poems  (Franklin Number, Franklin Year, Title):

1. F124, 1861, Safe in their Alabaster Chambers
2. F246, 1861, The Sun – just touched the Morning
3. F248, 1861, One life of so much consequence!
4. F253, 1861, I’m ceded – I’ve stopped being Theirs’s –
5. F254, 1861, A Mien to move a Queen –
6. F267, 1861, Rearrange a “Wife’s” Affection!
7. F385, 1862, I’ll clutch – and clutch –
8. F418, 1863, Your Riches – taught me – Poverty.
9. F481, 1863, Fame of Myself, to justify,
10. F553, 1863, When Diamonds are a Legend,
11. F597, 1863, ‘Tis little I – could care for Pearls –
12. F600, 1863, Her – last Poems –
13. F613, 1863, Were dull for Diadem –
14. F1121, 1866, The Sky is low – the Clouds are mean.

1. Barbot, Mary E. 1941. Emily Dickinson Parallels. The New England Quarterly. 14(4): 689-696.
2. Franklin, R.W. 1999. The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Reading Edition. Harvard University Press. Kindle Edition. 1040 pp.