855.1864.Two were immortal twice

Two—were immortal twice—
The privilege of few—
Eternity—obtained—in Time—
Reversed Divinity—

That our ignoble Eyes
The quality conceive
Of Paradise superlative—
Through their Comparative.

MANUSCRIPTS:

Two, variant, about early 1864. A fair copy was sent to Susan Dickinson, now in Morgan Library.

Variant A

Two – were immortal- twice –
The privilege of few –
Eternity – obtained – in Time –
Reversed – Divinity –
That our ignoble Eyes
The Quality perceive
Of Paradise Superlative –
Thro’ their – comparative.

A copy is in Fascicle 38, with alternatives in Lines 3 and 6 in curly brackets.

Variant B

Two – were immortal twice –
The privilege of few –
Eternity – obtained – in Time – {Eternity – in Time obtained -}
Reversed Divinity –

That our ignoble Eyes
The quality conceive {perceive}
Of Paradise superlative –
Through their Comparative.

I much prefer ED’s alternative for Line 3 because her original line is misleading: “in time” for what?

In Line 6, I much prefer ED’s alternative because “conceive” suggests the reader must create a meaning, while “perceive” implies that the meaning was always there, and the reader must merely “see” it.

Manuscript details are cut and pasted from Franklin (1998).

Franklin.1998.The Poems of ED, Variorum Edition, three volumes, Harvard Press.
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ED (1864) shared a moment when “Two – were immortal twice -”. Wordsworth (1807) left us a solo view of “Eternity – in Time obtained” in his ‘Intimations of Immortality’:

“The thought of our past years in me doth breed
Perpetual benediction: not indeed
For that which is most worthy to be blest;
Delight and liberty, the simple creed
Of Childhood, whether busy or at rest,
With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast:—
Not for these I raise
The song of thanks and praise
But for those obstinate questionings
Of sense and outward things,
Fallings from us, vanishings;
Blank misgivings of a Creature
Moving about in worlds not realised,
High instincts before which our mortal Nature
Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised:
But for those first affections,
Those shadowy recollections,
Which, be they what they may
Are yet the fountain-light of all our day,
Are yet a master-light of all our seeing;”

Both Dickinson and Wordsworth are describing mystical experiences that “Are yet a masterlight of all our seeing”.
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Definition of “ignoble” from EDLex

Humble; lowly; less able to see; [fig.] human; mortal; earthly.
Base; unworthy; insignificant; slight; trivial; hollow; less in status.

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My biographical interpretation of ‘Two—were immortal twice—’, with my preferred alternates:

Stanza 1.

Two – were immortal twice –
The privilege of few –
{Eternity – in Time obtained -}
Reversed Divinity –

S1.

Wadsworth and I were “immortal twice”, first when we made love in our orchard that fateful evening in summer 1860. Only a “few”people have the” privilege” of sensing “eternity” during their “time” on Earth. When that happens it’s “Divinity Reversed” because we see what heaven is like before we die.

Stanza 2.

That our ignoble Eyes
The quality {perceive}
Of Paradise superlative –
Through their Comparative.

S2.

It’s amazing that we two mortals, with ordinary human eyes, are able to perceive “paradise superlative” here and now and, in our imaginations, to “compare” our present experience with what heaven might be. Our mystical experience will shine a “master-light of all our seeing” for the rest of our lives.

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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.