822.1864.Midsummer, was it, when They died—

I prefer ED’s alternate phrase in Line 7, “When These Two – leaned in Perfectness —” but would omit the first hyphen: “When these Two leaned in Perfectness —”.

“Midsummer, was it, when They died—
A full, and perfect time—
The Summer closed upon itself
In Consummated Bloom—

The Corn, her furthest kernel filled
Before the coming Flail—
When These Two leaned in Perfectness —
Through Haze of Burial —”

On ‘The Prowling Bee’ blog about this poem, Adam Wade DeGraff offers three interpretations of ‘Midsummer, was it, when they died’:

1. “[A general] meditation on two ‘summer’ deaths”,
,
2. “The version of the poem with ‘Two’ in it was given to Emily’s cousins Louisa and Frances Norcross, so it is likely about the death of friends or family.”,

3. “The ‘They’, the ‘Two’ in this poem could also refer to a couple who have ‘died’ into each other in ‘consummated Bloom’.”

https://bloggingdickinson.blogspot.com/2025/07/midsummer-was-it-when-they-died.html

Of course, my take is ‘Interpretation #3’, the sexual one, but I would add some biographical details:

The events in this poem fit well into ED’s biographical experience, in particular, her romantic (?), spiritual relationship with Reverend Charles Wadsworth, superstar minister of Arch Street Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia. ED heard him preach one sermon in late March 1855 and, according to her niece Martha Dickinson Bianci, fell into head-over-heels love:

“Certainly in that first witchery of an undreamed Southern springtime Emily was overtaken – doomed once and forever by her own heart. It was instantaneous, overwhelming, impossible.” (Bianci 1924)

After hearing Wadsworth’s sermon, ED initiated a correspondence that culminated during summer 1860 when he visited her for a “Midsummer” afternoon in Amherst. Four years later, ED wrote this poem, ‘Midsummer, was it, when they died’. I think Adam DeGraff’s third interpretation is right, ED and Wadsworth “died” in the Shakespearian sense.

The euphoria of ED’s midsummer 1860 rendezvous lasted until September 1861, when Wadsworth let her know he planned to move to San Francisco. He gave her no reason and did not say goodbye when he sailed from New York Harbor on May 1, 1862. After hearing his plans, ED’s brain began bipolar cycles whose valleys bordered on suicide. As she told Higginson in her second letter to him (JL338, April 28, 1862):

“. . . . . I had a terror – since September – I could tell to none – and so I sing, as the Boy does by the Burying Ground, because I am afraid. . . . . .”

“Sing” she did. Over the next four years, 1862-1865, ED’s productivity was prodigious. She wrote 849 poems, which is about one poem every two days. During a single year, 1863, she wrote 295 poems, an average of one poem every 30 hours.

What malevolent muse sent ED inspirations at that mind-murdering rate for 365 straight days? What poet wouldn’t gladly die to receive inspirations at that rate?

To put ED’s experience during that 1860 “Midsummer’s” rendezvous into modern perspective, Baylor University research (Baylor 2026) shows that experienced ministers know well their sexual power over troubled female congregants and should, but frequently don’t, guard against getting too familiar with them during counseling sessions.

PS1. Philadelphia is 250 miles south of Amherst; to someone who grew up in Amherst, late March in Philadelphia is “Southern springtime”.

PS2. Many modern biographers consider Bianci’s memories unreliable, but several contemporary sources confirm her memory of ED’s 1855 “whichery”.

PS3. My candidates for Suicide Poems (and Franklin’s estimate of copy date) include:

Fr252, ‘I think just how my shape will rise –’, “about 1861”,
Fr279, ‘Of all the Souls that stand create –’, “about second half of 1861”,
Fr308, ‘A shady friend – for Torrid days –’, “about early 1862”.
Fr320, ‘There’s a certain slant of light’, “about early 1862″,
Fr340, ‘I felt a Funeral, in my Brain’, “about summer 1862”,
Fr386, ‘Taking up the fair Ideal’, “about autumn 1862”, and
Fr784, ‘I sometimes drop it, for a Quick –’, “about late 1863”
.
Other candidate Suicide Poems welcome. I will add them to this list.

Baylor University, 2026, The Reality of Pastoral Power (Google AI overviews, downloaded 2026-03-05, Below ↓ )

Bianchi, Martha Dickinson, 1924, The Life and Letters of Emily Dickinson, Houghton Mifflin Co. p. 66 of 420.

Franklin, RW (ed.), 1998, The Poems of Emily Dickinson, 3 vols. Harvard University Press, 1654 pp.

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The Reality of Pastoral Power

Misuse of Position: Sexual contact in ministry is recognized as an abuse of power, not an “affair,” because the power differential renders true, meaningful consent from a vulnerable congregant impossible.

High Risk and Frequency: Studies suggest that between 20% and 39% of surveyed clergy have admitted to sexual contact with parishioners.

Vulnerability Exploitation: Clergy abuse often targets people in crisis, such as those experiencing marital problems, grief, or trauma, as they are most in need of support.

Awareness vs. Action: While many ministers understand the theological prohibitions against adultery, they often fail to implement the practical, daily boundaries needed to prevent situations where sexual sin is easily initiated.

The “Black Pit” of Entitlement: Some ministers fall into the trap of using their role to gain sexual access, often by appearing as a “tired minister” needing care, or by grooming individuals through, for example, long-term, cross-gender counseling sessions.

Prevention Methods: Those who successfully guard against this abuse often use strategies like:

Strict Counseling Boundaries: Avoiding long-term, private, one-on-one counseling with members of the opposite sex.
Peer Accountability: Regular supervision and consultation with colleagues.
Self-Awareness: Acknowledging personal needs and addressing them outside the congregation.
Systemic Failure: When boundary violations occur, churches sometimes prioritize protecting their reputation over the safety of vulnerable members, allowing predators to continue their behavior.”

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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.