869.1864.What I see not, I better see –

What I see not, I better see—
Through Faith—my Hazel Eye
Has periods of shutting—
But, No lid has Memory—

For frequent, all my sense obscured
I equally behold
As someone held a light unto
The Features so beloved—-

And I arise—and in my Dream—
Do Thee distinguished Grace—
Till jealous Daylight interrupt—
And mar thy perfectness—
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My interpretation, ED’s alternate words in {curly brackets}; [square brackets] are mine:

Stanza 1.

What {When} I see not, I better see –
Through Faith -My Hazel Eye
Has periods of shutting –
But, No lid has Memory-

S1.

What I can’t see with my hazel eye, I see better through faith because my hazel eye has periods of shutting, but my faith eye has no lid blocking memories.

Stanza 2.

For frequent {often}, all my sense obscured
I equally behold
As some one held a light unto {opon}
The Features so beloved –

S2.

For frequently, when my physical senses fail, I see you equally well, with all the features I so belove, as if someone held a light on them.

Stanza 3

And I arise – and in my Dream –
Do Thee distinguished Grace –
Till jealous Daylight interrupt—
And mar thy perfectness—

S3.

I awake and recall my dream, which you [Thee] distinguished with your grace, till jealous daylight interrupts and mars your [thy] perfectness.
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I think “Thee” [Line 10] is Charles Wadsworth, who shares capitalized pronouns with God in ED’s poems. Context [Line 8] rules out God as “Thee”. However, note that ED uses lowercase “thy” in Line 12.
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ED’s manuscript shows that she did not break Stanza 2, an octet, into two quartets (Franklin 1998), but the first bona fide editor of this poem (Johnson 1955) took that liberty. Subsequent publications, including Adam DeGraff’s blog, ‘The Prowling Bee’ , and this blog, ‘ED-LarryB’, have followed Johnson’s lead.
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This poem, F869, 1864, ‘What I see not, I better see –’, exhibits a change in ED’s religious attitude from agnosticism to a belief of her own liking:

In F866, 1864, ‘This Dust, and its Feature—’, she described “This Dust”, “This Mind”, and “This World” as insignificant in a “second Future”. These statements are not agnostic. Rather, they serve as bones for ED’s emerging religion, which, unlike Judaism or Christianity, is “too concluded . . for its absorbed attention’s remotest scrutiny—” of physical reality: “This Dust”, “This Mind”, and “This World”.
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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.