819.1864.The Luxury to apprehend

The Luxury to apprehend
The Luxury ‘twould be
To look at Thee a single time
An Epicure of Me

In whatsoever Presence makes
Till for a further Food
I scarcely recollect to starve
So first am I supplied —

The Luxury to meditate
The Luxury it was
To banquet on thy Countenance
A Sumptuousness bestows

On plainer Days, whose Table far
As Certainty can see
Is laden with a single Crumb
The Consciousness of Thee.

My interpretation of ‘The Luxury to apprehend’:

The luxury to look at you again would make an epicure of me.
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In whatever presence you might appear, after looking at your face I would forget I’m starved for food and hardly remember I’m starving because my first look at your face during summer of 1860 has fed my soul so well.
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The luxury to remember, the luxury it was to feast upon your face that summer day, enriches my life.
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Now, on plainer days, as far as I can see with certainty, my table is laden with a single crumb, my memory of you.
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One payoff for ED’s poetic obscurity is that her poems are multipurpose, they seem to be written about whomever we want them to be. Because ED first shared this poem with Sue, we assume she was thinking of Sue when she wrote it, but that may be incorrect. I think ED had someone else in mind when she composed this poem. I also think Master Letter 3 reveals the identity of that someone:
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“I want to see you more-Sir-than all I wish for in this World and the wish — altered a little — will be my only one — for the skies.“Could you come to New England — [this summer — could] would you come to Amherst — Would you like to come — Master? . . . .
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“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.”
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Many eminent historians and biographers have concluded the identity of ED’s “Master” was Reverend Charles Wadsworth (Whicher 1939, Johnson 1955, Sewall 1974, Habegger 1998). I agree with those scholars. It’s an understatement to say, but ED got a lot of poetic mileage out of that one day in 1860 when Wadsworth came to visit her in Amherst.
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ED wrote seven poems that include the capitalized word “Master”. The fourth “Master” poem, Fr395, has the word “face” in its title: ‘The face I carry with me – last –‘. I think Fr395 identifies beyond reasonable doubt that “The face I carried with me — last —” belonged to Charles Wadsworth:

“The face I carry with me — last —
When I go out of Time —
To take my Rank — by— in the West—
That face — will just be thine —

I’ll hand it to the Angel —
That — Sir — was my Degree —
In Kingdoms — you have heard the Raised —
Refer to — possibly.

He’ll take it — scan it — step aside —
Return — with such a crown
As Gabriel — never capered at —
And beg me put it on —

And then — he’ll turn me round and round —
To an admiring sky —
As One that bore her Master’s name —
Sufficient Royalty!”

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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.