721.1863.“Nature” is what We see—

“Nature” is what We see—
The Hill—the Afternoon—
Squirrel—Eclipse—the Bumble bee—
Nay—Nature is Heaven—

“Nature” is what We hear—
The Bobolink—the Sea—
Thunder—the Cricket—
Nay—Nature is Harmony—

“Nature” is what We know—
But have no art to say—
So impotent Our Wisdom is
To Her Sincerity—

In F721, ED returns to “the Conscious Ear” of F718 and, for good measure, adds the Conscious Eye. Once again, in F721, she distinguishes between natural and supernatural. Natural nature is tangible things we see, “The Hill – the Afternoon – / Squirrel – Eclipse – the Bumble bee”, and hear, “The Bobolink – the Sea – / Thunder – the Cricket –”.

But is that all “Nature is”? “Nay”, she firmly injects:

“Nature is Heaven” //
“Nature is Harmony” //
“Nature is what We know / But have no Art to say –”.

Spiritual Nature is inexplicable, “So impotent our Wisdom is / To Her Sincerity”. Just as any honest scientist will tell us, “Humans can never know exactly what is true in nature; we can only approximate truth”, likewise, ED says, “I have no Art to say” exactly what Nature is, only that it is “Heaven”, it is “Harmony”, it is “Melody” that can only be heard and seen with the “Conscious Ear” and Eye. Neither scientists nor ED can explain why some people hear the music of the spheres (Wikipedia, 2024), “the spirit ditties of no tone” (Keats, 1819), “The Singing Wilderness” (Olson, 1961).

Shakespeare’s Lorenzo tells Jessica, Shylock’s daughter, that only immortal souls can hear the music of the spheres:

“Such harmony is in immortal souls,
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.”

ED would disagree; she heard the “Harmony”, “But have no Art to say -”. Nor did Shakespeare, Keats, or Olson “have . . . art to say”.

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musica_universalis
• Shakespeare, 1598, ‘The Merchant of Venice’, Act 5, Scene 1
• John Keats, 1819 ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’
• Sigurd F. Olson, 1961, ‘The Singing Wilderness’

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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.