737.1863.I many times thought Peace had come

I many times thought Peace had come
When Peace was far away —
As Wrecked Men — deem they sight the Land —
At Centre of the Sea —

And struggle slacker — but to prove
As hopelessly as I —
How many the fictitious Shores —
Before the Harbor be —[Variant B] (Or any Harbor be – [Variant A])

ED sometimes wrote two variants of a poem for different audiences. She copied this poem with the “pessimist” last line, “Or any Harbor be” (Variant A), into Fascicle 35 but added the optimistic alternative, “Before the Harbor be –” (Variant B) beside the poem. Editors who present the optimistic variation include Todd (1891), Johnson (1955), Bianchi (1960), and DeGraff (2024, above). Franklin (1999) and Miller (2024) chose the pessimistic variation. ED certainly knew what she was doing when she added the alternative.

Perhaps she was leaving the door open to accommodate her mood du jour. Or perhaps, in modern parlance, ED described her bipolar cycles. How many times did she see a mirage of “Shores” or “Harbor” in a mental storm, only to drown in another maelstrom of depression? Or F737 may describe the painful disintegration of ED and Sue’s teenage infatuation. When Ed wrote this poem in 1863, their differences were unresolved and they remained that way [brackets mine]:

“After a quarter century’s intimacy [1850-1875] with Sue, Emily sent her ‘What mystery pervades a well!’, F1433, 1877] across the stretch of lawn between their homes. . . . In the end, [ED] identified the one vast attribute her earthly idol [Sue] shared with the harsh, judgmental, patriarchal God [whom ED] had rejected. Both were unknowable” (Longsworth 1984).

“But Susan is a Stranger yet
The Ones who cite her most
Have never scaled her Haunted House
Nor compromised her Ghost-

To pity those who know her not
Is helped by the regret
That those who know her know her less
The nearer her they get”

Fr1433

• Longsworth, Polly. 1984. Austin and Mabel. University of Massachusetts Press. Paperback edition. 1999

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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.