844.1864.This Merit hath the worst—

844.1864.This Merit hath the worst—

This Merit hath the worst—
It cannot be again—
When Fate hath taunted last
And thrown Her furthest Stone—

The Maimed may pause, and breathe,
And glance securely round—
The Deer attracts no further
Than it resists—the Hound—

My biographical interpretation of ‘This Merit hath the worst—‘ (F844), by stanza:

This Merit hath the worst—
It cannot be again—
When Fate hath taunted last
And thrown Her furthest Stone—

At dusk on a summer Sunday in 1860, the most famous Presbyterian minister on the east coast and I made love in the orchard of my family’s ‘Homestead’. I was hopelessly in love with him, and, for two or three years after, I felt that afternoon and evening with him was the apogee of my life. Even though I was 29 at the time, I now feel he took advantage of my naivete with men by plying me with skillful words of love. Call it seduction, if you will, but remembering that afternoon rewakens painful memories. Since that day, he has never responded to my many letters and poems. I will never make that same mistake again.

The Maimed may pause, and breathe,
And glance securely round—
The Deer attracts no further
Than it resists—the Hound—

Now, when I think about that day, I have to pause, take a deep breath, and glance round to make sure I am safe. Wadsworth seduced and I consented; he has no further interest in me.
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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.