831.1864. Till Death—is narrow Loving—

831.1864.Till Death—is narrow Loving—

Till Death—is narrow Loving—
The scantest Heart extant
Will hold you till your privilege
Of Finiteness—be spent—

But He whose loss procures you
Such Destitution that
Your Life too abject for itself
Thenceforward imitate—

Until—Resemblance perfect—
Yourself, for His pursuit
Delight of Nature—abdicate—
Exhibit Love—somewhat—

My interpretation of ‘Till Death—is narrow Loving—’, Fr831:

Stanza 1

Till Death—is narrow Loving—
The scantest Heart extant
Will hold you till your privilege
Of Finiteness—be spent—

To love someone “till death” is “narrow loving”. Even the “scantiest heart”, the heart least capable of love, can keep a you in a relationship “Till Death”. All you have to do is stay together. If married, don’t divorce even if time proves you and your partner incompatible. But prolonging unresolved incompatibility often results in unhappy or even bitter final years “till your privilege / Of Finiteness—be spent—”. If married, the older you get, the more difficult it is to separate because of children, grandchildren, and finances.

Stanza 2

But He whose loss procures you
Such Destitution that
Your Life too abject for itself
Thenceforward imitate— (enjambed with Stanza 3)

ED hopelessly loved Wadsworth, and he moved to San Francisco in May 1862. Her life felt “Destitute”. ED believed when Wadsworth visited her in 1860, he had promised they could meet and marry in Heaven, but she didn’t want to wait that long to see him. Her life felt “too abject for itself”. “Thenceforward” she would “imitate” (enjambed with Stanza 3) Wadsworth by following his exhortations in his sermons.

It’s significant that after Wadsworth left the east coast, ED felt horrible terror, as she told Higginson in JL261, dated April 25, 1862:

“I had a terror – since September – I could tell to none – and so I sing, as the Boy does by the Burying Ground – because I am afraid. “

She could either commit suicide (see Fr305 below) or sing poems like this one, ‘Till Death—is narrow Loving’. ED chose to sing poems, but she still worshiped Wadsworth. . and tried to emulate the exhortations

It’s also significant that Eliza Coleman, ED’s second cousin and close friend, lived in Philadelphia, attended Wadsworth’s Arch Street Presbyterian Church, and took ED to hear his sermon in late March of 1855. Eliza knew ED had strong feelings for Wadsworth and mailed her copies of his sermons until 1862. Presumably, ED tried to imitate his admonishings (enjambed) . . . .

Stanza 3

Until—Resemblance perfect—
Yourself, for His pursuit
Delight of Nature—abdicate—
Exhibit Love—somewhat—

. . . . Until she perfected a “Resemblance” to him in her life. Sadly, in her obsessive attempt to live his sermons’ exhortations, ED “abdicate[d]” her former “Delight of Nature”. She had hoped her imitation, her sacrifices for her imagined marriage to Wadsworth, “Exhibited Love” for him. Sadly, she knew she was only fooling herself, hence the final “somewhat”.

305.1862.What if I say I shall not wait!

What if I say I shall not wait!
What if I burst the fleshly Gate—
And pass Escaped—to thee!

What if I file this Mortal—off—
See where it hurt me—That’s enough—
And wade in Liberty!

They cannot take me—any more!
Dungeons can call—and Guns implore
Unmeaning—now—to me—

As laughter—was—an hour ago—
Or Laces—or a Travelling Show—
Or who died—yesterday!

. . . . . . . . . .

Billy Collins had this to say about poetry fans like me who want to know the historical seed that gestated into a poem, in this case Emily Dickinson’ poems:

“INTRODUCTION TO POETRY

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,
or walk inside the poem’s room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author’s name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.”

I think Collins (1988) overstates his case, but his poem is delightful.

William James Collins (1941- ) is an American poet who served as the Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003.^[1] He was a Distinguished Professor at Lehman College of the City University of New York for 30 years, retiring in 2016.

Billy Collins, 1988, The Apple that Astonished Paris, University of Arkansas Press.

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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.