877.1864.The Loneliness One dare not sound—

The Loneliness One dare not sound—
And would as soon surmise
As in its Grave go plumbing
To ascertain the size—

The Loneliness whose worst alarm
Is lest itself should see—
And perish from before itself
For just a scrutiny—

The Horror not to be surveyed—
But skirted in the Dark—
With Consciousness suspended—
And Being under Lock—

I fear me this—is Loneliness—
The Maker of the soul
Its Caverns and its Corridors
Illuminate—or seal—
………………………………………………………………..

My interpretation of ‘The Loneliness One dare not sound’, including
ED’s alternate words in {curly brackets}:

Stanza 1.

The Loneliness One dare not sound—
And would as soon surmise
As in its Grave go plumbing {measuring}
To ascertain {register} the size—

The belief that we are alone in the universe is something we would rather forget, not go measuring to ascertain the depth of this assertion.

Stanza 2

The Loneliness whose worst alarm
Is lest itself should see—
And perish from before itself
For just a {simple} scrutiny—

S2.

Acknowledging that we are alone in the universe is scary, and we would rather die than scrutinize that line of thought.

Stanza 3.

The Horror {Chasm} not to be surveyed—
But skirted in the Dark—
With Consciousness suspended—
And Being under Lock—

S3.

The horror of this loneliness is better unsurveyed, unskirted in the dark, with consideration suspended, under lock and key.

Stanza 4.

I fear me this—is Loneliness—
The Maker of the soul
Its Caverns and its Corridors
Illuminate {Make populate{manifest}} — or seal—

S4,

What I’m afraid of admitting is that we are the makers of our own souls, with all their dark caverns and corridors, which we can illuminate or seal.
………………………………………………………………………………………

To me, this poem describes existentialism, well before Sartre (1905-1980).

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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.