739.1863.Joy to have merited the Pain—

ED’s alternate words in parentheses

Joy to have merited the Pain—
To merit the Release—
Joy to have perished every step—
To Compass Paradise—

Pardon—to look upon thy face—
With these old fashioned Eyes—
Better than new—could be—for that—
Though bought in Paradise—

Because they looked on thee before—
And thou hast looked on them—
Prove Me—My Hazel (swimming) Witnesses
The features are the same—

So fleet thou wert, when present—
So infinite—when gone—
An Orient’s Apparition—
Remanded of the Morn—

The Height I recollect—
‘Twas even with the Hills—
The Depth upon my Soul was notched—
As Floods—on Whites of Wheels—

To Haunt—till Time have dropped
His last Decade (slow Decades) away,
And Haunting actualize—to last
At least—Eternity—

Line 11: ED told Higginson her eyes were hazel, “like the sherry in the glass, that the guest leaves” [JL345, 1862-07-22]. I prefer the alternate “swimming” because she’s been crying. Line 22: I prefer ED’s alternate, “slow Decades” because ED expects to live several “slow Decades” before she dies and joins Wadsworth in Heaven. “His last decade” implies she must wait until the end of “Time”, which is not her intended meaning.

Especially for this poem, which ED copied into Fascicle 36 “about the second half of 1863” (Franklin 1998), it’s important to know that:

“Emily Dickinson first went to Boston for eye treatment in February 1864 and stayed until November, followed by another treatment period in April 1865. She was being treated by Boston ophthalmologist Dr. Henry Willard Williams for an eye affliction that began the previous year [1863]. During these times away from her home in Amherst, she stayed with her cousins, Frances and Lavinia Norcross” (Google AI). No wonder ED focuses so much on “old eyes and new eyes”; hers were failing.

ED’s best poems can be read at many levels, personal to universal. To see the universe in a blade of grass is a skill that requires a big mind. However, universalizing ‘Joy to have merited the Pain—’ eludes me, so here’s a biographical take, stanza by stanza, with my apologies to purists:

Stanza 1 sounds masochistic to me: “It feels so good when the beating ends”. ED Lex defines the verb “compass” as “achieve; arrive at”, so Lines 3-4, “Joy to have perished every step – / To Compass Paradise –”, translates for me “Since you left me, I’ve perished painfully every day, but when we meet in Paradise, that daily dying will be worthwhile”. Marianne Noble (1994) argues “that a broad undercurrent of masochistic imagery characterizes mid-nineteenth-century American sentimental fiction”, ED’s guilty pleasure, but that’s over my pay grade.

Stanzas 2-3 echo Master Letter 3 (Summer 1861): “Would Daisy disappoint you-no-she would’nt-Sir-it were comfort forever-just to look in your face, while you looked in mine – then I could play in the woods till Dark- till you take me where Sundown cannot find us -”. Master’s identity will likely elude proof, but ED’s most recent leading biographer concludes “To date, there is only one candidate who matches what we infer about the unknown [Master] . . . Reverend Charles Wadsworth” (Habegger 2002, p.504), as did Whicher (1939) and Sewall (1974)..

Stanzas 4-5 likely relive an 1860 invited visit to Homestead by Rev. Wadsworth. At the time, he was the superstar pastor of Philadelphia’s Arch Street Presbyterian Church, and ED had heard him preach in March 1855 when she was 24. Apparently, that sermon planted a seed of adoration, infatuation, and love that affected her until the day she died.

The poet and the preacher corresponded over the next five years, probably including Master Letter 1 (spring 1858; Franklin 1984). ED’s memory of that 1860 visit, faulty or not, was that Wadsworth assured her they would meet and marry in Heaven

Stanza 6 closes the poem: You will haunt me / Until Time’s “last Decade” / That haunting will last / “At least – Eternity”. Apparently, ED believed Wadsworth, literally.

As a child, ED’s conception of heaven began in uncertain agnosticism: “Maybe heaven exists”. By 1863 her conception probably was certain agnosticism: “We have no evidence heaven exists, but absence of evidence doesn’t prove heaven’s non-existence”. See F725, ‘Their Height in Heaven comforts not—’, especially ED’s last two lines:

“This timid life of Evidence
Keeps pleading – ‘I don’t know’”.

We can’t assume ED was logical about her beliefs, as these two quotes suggest:

“The Emily Dickinson revealed in her works is complex and inconsistent, often contradictory, moving from ecstasy to desperation, from a fervent faith to a deep suspicion and skepticism, from humility and submissiveness to defiance and scorn. She is blasphemous as often as devout, and in her poetry God is accused of petty vindictiveness and cold indifference as often as He is celebrated for benevolence or admired for His majesty.”

Sherwood, W.R., Circumference and Circumstance. 1968.

“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function”.

F. Scott Fitzgerald. February, 1936. ‘The Crack-Up’. Esquire magazine.

During summer 1860, while visiting his best friend, James Clark in Northampton, Wadsworth took the 12-mile train ride to Amherst for an invited visit with ED. For a superstar Philadelphia minister to take such an interest in her, an unpublished, unmarried, small town, 29-year-old poet, must have sent her brain spinning.

Reverend Wadsworth’s memory of that 1860 meeting and his feelings for ED will never be known. The only thing we know for certain is that during a 1939 interview, Wadworth’s youngest son, Dr. William S. Wadsworth, Coroner of Philadelphia, answered a question by an early biographer, George F. Whicher:

“Did your father ever speak of Emily Dickinson’s poems?”. Dr. Wadsworth replied, “He would not have cared for them. The poetry he admired was of a different order. . . . My father was not one to be unduly impressed by a hysterical young woman’s ravings” (Whicher 1949).

During late summer 1861 Wadsworth probably informed ED that he was considering a “remove” to San Francisco’s new Calvary Presbyterian Church. In May 1862 he and his family did move, and ED, prone to separation anxiety, sank into a painful mental maelstrom that lasted at least two years (L338 to Higginson, April 28, 1862, “I had a terror – since September – I could tell to none”) Perhaps ‘Joy to have merited the Pain’ (F739, 1863) was a stage of her recovery.

Franklin, R. W. (ed.). 1984. The Master Letters of Emily Dickinson. Amherst College Press, Amherst, MA. 52 pp.
Habegger, Alfred. 2002. My Wars Are Laid Away in Books: The Life of Emily Dickinson, p.504
Noble, Marianne. 1994. ‘“Joy to Have Merited the Pain”: The Masochistic Pleasures of the Sentimental Voice’. Columbia University Dissertation. 448 pp.
Sewall, Richard B. 1974. The Life of Emily Dickinson. Paperback edition. 1998. Harvard U. Press.
Whicher, G. F. 1938. A Critical Biography of Emily Dickinson; A Special Edition with an Introduction by Richard B. Sewall, Amherst College Press, 1992.
Whicher, G. F. 1949. Pursuit of the Overtakeless. The Nation. Issue 2. Pp. 14-15.

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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.