875.1864.The Color of a Queen, is this—

The Color of a Queen, is this—
The Color of a Sun
At setting—this and Amber—
Beryl—and this, at Noon—

And when at night—Auroran widths
Fling suddenly on men—
‘Tis this—and Witchcraft—nature keeps
A Rank—for Iodine—
………………………………………………………………………

My interpretation of ‘The Color of a Queen, is this—’, with ED’s alternate phrase in {curly brackets}:

Stanza 1.

The Color of a Queen, is this —
The Color of a Sun
At setting — this and Amber —
Beryl — and this, at Noon —

S1.

The color of a queen is the color of a sunset: this color, yellow amber, golden beryl, all bright as noon.

Stanza 2.

And when at night — Auroran widths
Fling suddenly on men —
‘Tis this — and Witchcraft — nature {has
An awe of } Iodine —

S2.

And when the northern lights fling suddenly on men, it’s this color and witchcraft. Nature has “An awe of iodine”.
…………………………………………………..

The northern lights are mostly green but often include royal purple.

………………………………………………………………………………

ED added titles to only three poems in her entire fascicles and sets. This poem, ‘The Color of a Queen’, F875, she named “Purple”, the color of iodine.
……………………………………………………..

In addition to her alternative Phrase 1 (above), ED offered three other alternatives for Lines 7-8:

Phrase 1: nature keeps/ A Rank – for
Phrase 2: nature has / respect to –
Phrase 3: nature knows / the rank of –
Phrase 4: nature has / an awe of –

I prefer ED’s alternate, Phrase 4, because “nature has / an awe of iodine” makes more sense than her original “keeps / A Rank — for”. I have used Phrase 4 in my interpretation of Stanza 2.

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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.