LarryB

753.1863. Grief is a Mouse – An interpretation

My Heart is Grief –
He chooses Ribs of my Breast
For His shy House –
And baffles quest –

My Heart is a Thief, easily startled
He listens carefully for report
From that Vast Dark
That stole His Reason to exist

My Heart is a Juggler, performing clever tricks
To hide His Bruises, One, say, or Many
My Heart feeds on Pain
Allow Him His luxury

My Heart is Tongueless – before He’ll tell –
Burn Him in the Public square –
His Ashes will tell, possibly
If they refuse – You’ll never know –
Since a Rack couldn’t coax a syllable – now

Loss of love by death or separation grieved ED from girlhood. At 13, death of her 15-year-old friend and cousin, Sophia Holland, drove ED into deep depression relieved only by a month of rest and distraction in Boston with her Aunt Lavinia (L11, 28 March 1846). However, her greatest test by grief was in May 1862 when the male love of her life, Rev. Charles Wadsworth, relocated from Arch Street Presbyterian in Philadelphia to a new church, Calvary Presbyterian, in San Francisco.

ED suspected or knew that Wadsworth’s wife was unaware of their correspondence before he visited her in March 1860 in Amherst. For ED, their “friendship” demanded absolute secrecy (Stanza 4) because she feared consequences for them both if Wadsworth’s wife and congregation got wind of it. In addition, Whicher (1938) speculates: “There is . . . . much to lead us to surmise that [Wadsworth] paid Emily a second visit [in 1861]. . . . . . Her poems, . . . . though not to be taken literally, repeatedly emphasize a momentous interview on ”a day at summer’s full”. One protective measure ED took to bypass the gossipy Amherst postmistress was to mail all private letters by-way-of trusted friends in nearby towns for forwarding in cover envelopes (Habegger 2002).

PS. Time heals all wounds: “For Emily no passion ever died” (Judith Farr).

• In May 1862, Wadsworth moved to San Francisco.
• In late 1863, ED copied ‘Grief is a Mouse’ into Fascicle 36.
• In July 1869, Wadsworth moved back to Philadelphia.
• In fall 1876, “we have the first evidence of renewed correspondence with Wadsworth” (Habegger 2002, p. 676)
• In 1876: “[T]he most erotic poem composed by Dickinson between 1870 and 1878 [F1405] has been assigned to 1876 [by Franklin].” (Habegger 2002, p. 677):

(F1405, 1876)

“Long Years apart – can make no
Breach a second cannot fill –
Who says the Absence of a Witch
Invalidates his spell?

“The embers of a Thousand Years
Uncovered by the Hand
That fondled them when they were Fire
Will stir and understand”

• In 1879, ED composed a quatrain/invitation (F1485, 1879) that asked Wadsworth to correspond with or visit her in Amherst:

(F1485, 1879)

“Spurn the temerity —
Rashness of Calvary —
Gay were Gethsemane
Knew we of Thee —”

• In summer 1880, without sending an RSVP, Wadsworth showed up at ED’s front door for a Sunday afternoon visit.

For information about ED’s use of codewords for Wadsworth (Calvary) and herself (Gethsemane), see TPB comments:

• F676, 1863, ‘You know that Portrait in the Moon”, comment on February 20, 2024
• F714, 1863, ‘No Man can compass a Despair’, comment on May 12, 2024
• F749, 1863, ‘Where Thou art – that – is Home’, comment on October 22, 2024

Wadsworth returned to Philadelphia in 1869 and preached there until his death in 1882. Before his death, ED’s surviving letters have only one comment about him. Writing the Hollands after their trip to the Philadelphia Centennial [in 1876], Dickinson offered to send them the minister’s Thanksgiving message, ‘God’s Culture’: “The Sermon you failed to hear, I can lend you”. (L695, about January 1877)

“Again and again, the slender evidence as to the identity of the man Dickinson loved points to Wadsworth. Every other known candidate of either sex can be ruled out; he never is. Yet he is never confirmed. The probable explanation is that the love was on her side only, it was a question of feeling and imagination more than action, she covered her tracks well, and the intensely private Wadsworth was equally careful.” (Habegger, 2002)

• Habegger, Alfred. 2002. My Wars Are Laid Away in Books: The Life of Emily Dickinson, Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
• Whicher, George. 1938. ‘This was a Poet: A Critical Biography of Emily Dickinson’, Amherst College; Special edition 1992 by Amherst College with a new Introduction by Richard Sewall, Professor of English Emeritus, Yale University

752.1863.Ah, Teneriffe – Receding Mountain –

David Preest (2014) is franker than usual in his sexual interpretation of Line 7, Variant A, F752, which ED signed and sent to Sue:

“The peak of Teneriffe, in geography a dormant volcano on the largest Canary island, in the poem stands for Sue herself. Just as the mountain of Teneriffe is heedless of the purple sunset displays of nature that take place before her day by day and indeed retreats from them, so Sue is heedless of Emily’s adoration which blazes a hundred yards away unnoticed. Sue is still and unmoved, made of steel, covered in unmeltable ice, with granite thighs that do not open in welcome, not even aware that she and Emily are parted. All Emily can do is to go on kneeling in adoration, and wait for Sue to notice her once more.

“In the [Variant B] version the sexual overtones of [Line 7] are toned down to ‘Eye of Granite – and Ear of Steel.’

“‘Teneriffe’ is a four-syllable word.”

[Get Preest’s closing joke?]

No wonder Sue wrote Lines 6-9 in her 1891 elegy for ED, ‘Minstrel of the Passing Days’ (TPB Comment on F752, July 3, 2024):

“Of all the gaudy shameless tints
That fire the passions of the prince
Strangling vines clasping their Cleopatras
Closer than Antony’s embrace”
_______________________________________________
David Preest, 2014. Emily Dickinson Poems Commentary, pp. 224-225.

For a free copy of Preest’s ED Commentary, go to
https://studylib.net/download/8773657
Click “Not a Robot”, and download PDF.

ED’s alternate words/phrases in parentheses.

On a Columnar Self—
How ample to rely
In Tumult—or Extremity—
How good the Certainty

That Lever cannot pry—
And Wedge cannot divide
Conviction—That Granitic Base—
Though None be on our Side—

Suffice Us—for a Crowd—
Ourself—and Rectitude—
And that Assembly (Companion)—not far off
From furthest (Faithful) Spirit (Good Man)—God—

I prefer all three of ED’s alternate words/phrases because they illustrate how ED refuses to be pidgeonholed into “atheist” or “deist”. In this poem, God is a “Companion” for the “Faithful Good Man”.

As Sherwood (1968) said:

“The Emily Dickinson revealed in her works is complex and inconsistent, often contradictory, moving from ecstasy to desperation, from a fervent faith to a deep suspicion and skepticism, from humility and submissiveness to defiance and scorn. She is blasphemous as often as devout, and in her poetry God is accused of petty vindictiveness and cold indifference as often as He is celebrated for benevolence or admired for His majesty.”

ED Lexicon defines “columnar” as “stony; rigid, like granite; similar to a marble pillar”, and ED’s poem fits that description.

Stanza 1 states ED’s quasi-religious belief that a stiff spine in times of “Tumult – or Extremity” rewards the true believer or disbeliever with “good” feelings of “Certainty”.

Stanza 2 reiterates ED’s belief in no uncertain terms: “Lever cannot pry – / And Wedge cannot divide / Conviction – That Granitic Base – / Though none be on our side –“. ED’s refusal at age 16 to stand and accept Christ as her savior, despite Mount Holyoke’s Headmistress’s exhortation in front of a class of schoolgirls, no doubt loomed large in ED’s mind while she composed this poem.

Stanza 2 closes with royal plural; “our” means “my”. ED has a history of speaking of herself in third person. Line 8 probably means “Though none be on my side”.

Stanza 3 continues royal plural in Lines 9-10; “Us” and “Ourself” probably mean “Myself”:

“Suffice Myself – for a Crowd –
Myself – and Rectitude -”.

In Line 12, ED pulls an ace from her pocket by adding “God” to her “Crowd”, forming a trio: “Myself”, “Rectitude”, and “God”. It’s always good to have God on your side. As Adam pointed out, she also suggested three alternative words for Lines 11 & 12: “Assembly” [Companion], “furthest” [Faithful], “Spirit” [Good Man].

Editors Johnson (1955) and Franklin (1998) decided to disregard alternative words in Stanza 3 and keep the royal plural. That wording confuses me. Does “Assembly” refer to “God” or to “Myself – and Rectitude”?

Inserting all three alternative words and converting royal plural to standard singular, Stanza 3 reads:

“Suffice Myself – for a Crowd –
Myself – and Rectitude -.
And that Companion – not far off
From Faithful Good Man – God –”

Now Stanza 3 makes sense; “Crowd” clearly consists of “Myself”, “Rectitude”, and “God”. For once, ED tells us what she means with her alternative words – or does she? ED’s coziness with God, “that Companion – not far off / From Faithful Good Man”, seems strange given their troubled relations. Maybe she’s just covering her agnostic bets.

Shira Wolosky (2000) asks a rhetorical question: “Is New England self-reliance, à la Emerson, a choice preferrable to traditional social interdependence or does it devolve into cold self-defeating stoniness?”

Her answer: “[W]e can see how desperate, and how self-defeating, this “Columnar Self” [is], for all its array of certain, granitic, language . . . . Posed almost frantically against tremendous, threatening forces — “Tumult,” “Extremity” — and assaultive intrusion — a “Wedge” that threatens to “divide” — this self stands in utter isolation, “None be on our side.” And the self’s rescue costs in fact the self itself: its liberty, its mobility, indeed consciousness itself — for here Dickinsonian selfhood is lapidary [stony], a downward metamorphosis from motive, sentient, conscious being into inorganic stone. What first appears, then, to be a declaration of absolute independence, emerges instead as a defensive, ambivalent contraction of selfhood, unto its own undoing.”

• Shira Wolosky. 2000. ‘Dickinson’s Emerson: A Critique of American Identity’. The Emily Dickinson Journal, 9(2):134-141

In my experience, adherence to “That Granitic Base” of a “Columnar Self” often “emerges instead as a defensive, ambivalent contraction of selfhood, unto its own undoing”, i.e., stolid stoicism.

Sherwood, W.R., 1968. Circumference and Circumstance, Columbia University Press.

Shira Wolosky. 2000. Dickinson’s Emerson: A Critique of American Identity. The Emily
Dickinson Journal, 9(2):134-141

ED’s alternate words in parentheses

Joy to have merited the Pain—
To merit the Release—
Joy to have perished every step—
To Compass Paradise—

Pardon—to look upon thy face—
With these old fashioned Eyes—
Better than new—could be—for that—
Though bought in Paradise—

Because they looked on thee before—
And thou hast looked on them—
Prove Me—My Hazel (swimming) Witnesses
The features are the same—

So fleet thou wert, when present—
So infinite—when gone—
An Orient’s Apparition—
Remanded of the Morn—

The Height I recollect—
‘Twas even with the Hills—
The Depth upon my Soul was notched—
As Floods—on Whites of Wheels—

To Haunt—till Time have dropped
His last Decade (slow Decades) away,
And Haunting actualize—to last
At least—Eternity—

Line 11: ED told Higginson her eyes were hazel, “like the sherry in the glass, that the guest leaves” [JL345, 1862-07-22]. I prefer the alternate “swimming” because she’s been crying. Line 22: I prefer ED’s alternate, “slow Decades” because ED expects to live several “slow Decades” before she dies and joins Wadsworth in Heaven. “His last decade” implies she must wait until the end of “Time”, which is not her intended meaning.

Especially for this poem, which ED  copied into Fascicle 36 “about the second half of 1863” (Franklin 1998), it’s important to know that:

“Emily Dickinson first went to Boston for eye treatment in February 1864 and stayed until November, followed by another treatment period in April 1865. She was being treated by Boston ophthalmologist Dr. Henry Willard Williams for an eye affliction that began the previous year [1863]. During these times away from her home in Amherst, she stayed with her cousins, Frances and Lavinia Norcross” (Google AI).   No wonder ED focuses so much on “old eyes and new eyes”; hers were failing.

ED’s best poems can be read at many levels, personal to universal. To see the universe in a blade of grass is a skill that requires a big mind. However, universalizing ‘Joy to have merited the Pain—’ eludes me, so here’s a biographical take, stanza by stanza, with my apologies to purists:

Stanza 1 sounds masochistic to me: “It feels so good when the beating ends”. ED Lex defines the verb “compass” as “achieve; arrive at”, so Lines 3-4, “Joy to have perished every step – / To Compass Paradise –”, translates for me “Since you left me, I’ve perished painfully every day, but when we meet in Paradise, that daily dying will be worthwhile”. Marianne Noble (1994) argues “that a broad undercurrent of masochistic imagery characterizes mid-nineteenth-century American sentimental fiction”, ED’s guilty pleasure, but that’s over my pay grade.

Stanzas 2-3 echo Master Letter 3 (Summer 1861): “Would Daisy disappoint you-no-she would’nt-Sir-it were comfort forever-just to look in your face, while you looked in mine – then I could play in the woods till Dark- till you take me where Sundown cannot find us -”. Master’s identity will likely elude proof, but ED’s most recent leading biographer concludes “To date, there is only one candidate who matches what we infer about the unknown [Master] . . . Reverend Charles Wadsworth” (Habegger 2002, p.504), as did Whicher (1939) and Sewall (1974)..

Stanzas 4-5 likely relive an 1860 invited visit to Homestead by Rev. Wadsworth. At the time, he was the superstar pastor of Philadelphia’s Arch Street Presbyterian Church, and ED had heard him preach in March 1855 when she was 24. Apparently, that sermon planted a seed of adoration, infatuation, and love that affected her until the day she died.

The poet and the preacher corresponded over the next five years, probably including Master Letter 1 (spring 1858; Franklin 1984). ED’s memory of that 1860 visit, faulty or not, was that Wadsworth assured her they would meet and marry in Heaven

Stanza 6 closes the poem: You will haunt me / Until Time’s “last Decade” / That haunting will last / “At least – Eternity”. Apparently, ED believed Wadsworth, literally.

As a child, ED’s conception of heaven began in uncertain agnosticism: “Maybe heaven exists”. By 1863 her conception probably was certain agnosticism: “We have no evidence heaven exists, but absence of evidence doesn’t prove heaven’s non-existence”. See F725, ‘Their Height in Heaven comforts not—’, especially ED’s last two lines:

“This timid life of Evidence
Keeps pleading – ‘I don’t know’”.

We can’t assume ED was logical about her beliefs, as these two quotes suggest:

“The Emily Dickinson revealed in her works is complex and inconsistent, often contradictory, moving from ecstasy to desperation, from a fervent faith to a deep suspicion and skepticism, from humility and submissiveness to defiance and scorn. She is blasphemous as often as devout, and in her poetry God is accused of petty vindictiveness and cold indifference as often as He is celebrated for benevolence or admired for His majesty.”

Sherwood, W.R., Circumference and Circumstance. 1968.

“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function”.

F. Scott Fitzgerald. February, 1936. ‘The Crack-Up’. Esquire magazine.

During summer 1860, while visiting his best friend, James Clark in Northampton, Wadsworth took the 12-mile train ride to Amherst for an invited visit with ED. For a superstar Philadelphia minister to take such an interest in her, an unpublished, unmarried, small town, 29-year-old poet, must have sent her brain spinning.

Reverend Wadsworth’s memory of that 1860 meeting and his feelings for ED will never be known. The only thing we know for certain is that during a 1939 interview, Wadworth’s youngest son, Dr. William S. Wadsworth, Coroner of Philadelphia, answered a question by an early biographer, George F. Whicher:

“Did your father ever speak of Emily Dickinson’s poems?”. Dr. Wadsworth replied, “He would not have cared for them. The poetry he admired was of a different order. . . . My father was not one to be unduly impressed by a hysterical young woman’s ravings” (Whicher 1949).

During late summer 1861 Wadsworth probably informed ED that he was considering a “remove” to San Francisco’s new Calvary Presbyterian Church. In May 1862 he and his family did move, and ED, prone to separation anxiety, sank into a painful mental maelstrom that lasted at least two years (L338 to Higginson, April 28, 1862, “I had a terror – since September – I could tell to none”) Perhaps ‘Joy to have merited the Pain’ (F739, 1863) was a stage of her recovery.

• Franklin, R. W. (ed.). 1984. The Master Letters of Emily Dickinson. Amherst College Press, Amherst, MA. 52 pp.
• Habegger, Alfred. 2002. My Wars Are Laid Away in Books: The Life of Emily Dickinson, p.504
• Noble, Marianne. 1994. ‘“Joy to Have Merited the Pain”: The Masochistic Pleasures of the Sentimental Voice’. Columbia University Dissertation. 448 pp.
• Sewall, Richard B. 1974. The Life of Emily Dickinson. Paperback edition. 1998. Harvard U. Press.
• Whicher, G. F. 1938. A Critical Biography of Emily Dickinson; A Special Edition with an Introduction by Richard B. Sewall, Amherst College Press, 1992.
• Whicher, G. F. 1949. Pursuit of the Overtakeless. The Nation. Issue 2. Pp. 14-15.

No Other can reduce Our
Mortal Consequence
Like the remembering it be Nought –
A Period from hence –

But Contemplation for
Cotemporaneous Nought
Our Mutual Fame – that haply
Jehovah – recollect –

No Other can exalt Our
Mortal Consequence
Like the remembering it exist –
A Period from hence –

Invited from Itself
To the Creator’s House –
To tarry an Eternity –
His – shortest Consciousness –

To begin, ED composed three variants of F738 (A, B, C). DeGraff (2024) presents Variant A, and Johnson (1955) and Franklin (1999) published Variant B, which is the version she sent Sue in 1865. Here are the three variants for comparison:

Variant A    Second half 1863    Fascicle 36

No Other can reduce Our
Mortal Consequence
Like the remembering it be Nought –
A Period from hence –

But Contemplation for
Cotemporaneous Nought –
Our Mutual Fame – that haply
Jehovah – recollect –

No Other can exalt (reduce) Our
Mortal Consequence
Like the remembering it exist –
A period from hence –

Invited from Itself
To the Creator’s House –
To tarry an Eternity –
His – shortest Consciousness –

Variant B  1865  To Sue

“No Other can reduce
Our Mortal Consequence
Like the remembering it be Nought (exist) –
A Period from hence –
But Contemplation for
Cotemporaneous Nought –
Our only competition
Jehovah’s estimate

Emily”

Variant C   1865

No other can reduce
Our mortal Consequence
Like the remembering it be nought
A period from hence
But Contemplation for
Cotemporaneous nought (Nought)-
Our mutual fame, that haply   (Our only Competition)
Jehovah recollect   (Jehovah’s Estimate)

Franklin (1998) suggested that “The placement of “Our” at the end of line 1 [in Variant A] may have been a copying error [by ED], not repeated thereafter [in Variants B & C]”.

ED’s Line 2 in all variants (including emended Variant A), “Our Mortal Consequence”, can be read at least two ways, as her poems or as her soul. ED posits her poems may amount to “Nought – / A Period from hence”, but there’s nothing coy about ED suggesting God might disagree: “Our only competition / Jehovah’s estimate”. On occasion, ED feigned she did not care about fame, but this poem (Variant B) belies her posturing. She really hoped she had Jehovah on her side, and she did.

As to “Our Mortal Consequence”, that could mean her poems (mortal consequence = extant poems), or capitalized “Mortal Consequence” may mean her soul, what’s left over after her physical body rots in Amherst’s West Cemetery. ED seems to care more about her poems’ immortality than about her soul’s, so my vote is that “Our Mortal Consequence” means her poems.

In 2022, Christiane Miller published a 3-paragraph history of ED’s editing of ‘No Other can reduce’ in her ‘Oxford Handbook of Emily Dickinson’ (excerpt from Page 226):

“Dickinson copied “No Other can reduce Our / Mortal Consequence” (M370 and M462, Fr738, J982) around the second half of 1863 and included it in a fascicle now numbered 36. Around 1865, she sent the first two stanzas of this four-stanza poem to Susan, without contextualizing comment, rewriting the last two lines of the second stanza and moving “Our” from the end of line 1 to the beginning of line 2, making a more conventionally metrical opening. In this version, lines 7–8 read: “Our single Competition / Jehovah’s Estimate.” In the fascicle copy, they read: “Our Mutual Fame – that haply / Jehovah – recollect –”.

“This poem is particularly interesting because around the time she sent two stanzas to Susan, Dickinson made a second fair copy to retain, which—like the version to Susan—both included only the first two stanzas and altered the line break in the opening lines (M 462). This copy maintained the fascicle version of lines 7–8 (with different capitalization and punctuation) but included the final lines sent to Susan as alternatives, slightly revised, below a long, drawn line. In this version, the poem ends: “Our mutual fame, that haply / Jehovah recollect [line across the page] Our only Competition / Jehovah’s Estimate.” (see Figure 13.1).

“No Other can reduce Our” was completed as a poem, without alternatives and apparently without thought of a specific audience, before it was circulated—as Franklin’s numbering indicates (Fr738A). When Dickinson returned to the poem around two years later, it is unclear whether she first rewrote it to retain, with an imagined alternative, or first sent a revised version to Susan, then revised it again, keeping the (slightly altered) version circulated as part of her record.

Characteristically, Franklin lists the copy sent to Susan as 738B and the unbound sheet (“Set”) copy as 738C. If Dickinson made the unbound sheet copy before sending the stanzas to Susan, it could imply that the version circulated was her final word on the poem, or that the copy to Susan constituted one manifestation of what she might do with the now-revised poem. If the circulated version came first, then it indeed might have been a trial run, as Franklin surmises, but in this case the trial led to no decisive conclusion and even its alternative lines were revised for retention.”

• Cristanne Miller. 2022. Writing for Posterity: Editing, Evidence, and Sequence in Dickinson’s Composition and Circulation of Poems, pp. 217-234 [in] Miller, Cristanne; Sánchez-Eppler, Karen, Eds. ‘The Oxford Handbook of Emily Dickinson’, Oxford University Press, Kindle Edition.

In his ‘Notes on Emily Dickinsons’ poems’ (no longer available on the web), David Preest informed us “This stanza [Stanza 1, Variant A], gloomily stating that ‘No Other [thing] can reduce/our mortal Consequence’ like knowing that soon we shall not exist,’ was in the original version of the poem the first of a pair of stanzas of eight lines each {Preest errs, Variant A manuscript is four quatrains]. The second stanza triumphantly proclaimed that ‘No other [thing] can exalt/our mortal Consequence’ like the belief that we shall exist again. Emily’s final version, two years later, omitted the second stanza.”

I much prefer ED’s four-quatrain Variant A because of its contrast between Stanzas 1-2 and Stanzas 3-4. It tells a more complete story than Variants B or C.

I many times thought Peace had come
When Peace was far away —
As Wrecked Men — deem they sight the Land —
At Centre of the Sea —

And struggle slacker — but to prove
As hopelessly as I —
How many the fictitious Shores —
Before the Harbor be —[Variant B]  (Or any Harbor be – [Variant A])

ED sometimes wrote two variants of a poem for different audiences. She copied this poem with the “pessimist” last line, “Or any Harbor be” (Variant A), into Fascicle 35 but added the optimistic alternative, “Before the Harbor be –” (Variant B) beside the poem. Editors who present the optimistic variation include Todd (1891), Johnson (1955), Bianchi (1960), and DeGraff (2024, above). Franklin (1999) and Miller (2024) chose the pessimistic variation. ED certainly knew what she was doing when she added the alternative.

Perhaps she was leaving the door open to accommodate her mood du jour. Or perhaps, in modern parlance, ED described her bipolar cycles. How many times did she see a mirage of “Shores” or “Harbor” in a mental storm, only to drown in another maelstrom of depression? Or F737 may describe the painful disintegration of ED and Sue’s teenage infatuation. When Ed wrote this poem in 1863, their differences were unresolved and they remained that way [brackets mine]:

“After a quarter century’s intimacy [1850-1875] with Sue, Emily sent her ‘What mystery pervades a well!’, F1433, 1877] across the stretch of lawn between their homes. . . . In the end, [ED] identified the one vast attribute her earthly idol [Sue] shared with the harsh, judgmental, patriarchal God [whom ED] had rejected. Both were unknowable” (Longsworth 1984).

“But Susan is a Stranger yet
The Ones who cite her most
Have never scaled her Haunted House
Nor compromised her Ghost-

To pity those who know her not
Is helped by the regret
That those who know her know her less
The nearer her they get”

Fr1433

• Longsworth, Polly. 1984. Austin and Mabel. University of Massachusetts Press. Paperback edition. 1999

ED’s alternate word in parentheses

You said that I “was Great” — one Day —
Then “Great” it be — if that please Thee —
Or Small — or any size at all —
Nay — I’m the size suit Thee —

Tall — like the Stag — would that?
Or lower — like the Wren —
Or other heights of Other Ones
I’ve seen?

Tell which — it’s dull to guess —
And I must be Rhinoceros
Or Mouse —
At once — for Thee —

So say — if Queen it be —
Or Page — please Thee —
I’m that — or nought —
Or other thing — if other thing there be —
With just this Stipulus (Reservation)—
I suit Thee —

This poem can be read as happy, sad, funny, serious, angry, begging, imperative, and/or combinations of the above. Ambiguity, thy name is ED.

It could be a funny Valentine for a couple in the throes of infatuation or a silly Valentine for an older couple with a shared sense of humor. It could be a begging poem from a needy codependent in an unrequited relationship or a disguised demand from a dissatisfied, dominatrix. Or it could be a clever but barbed swipe at a married member of an imaginary ménage à trois from an abandoned lover who happens to be a world-class wordsmith.

A simple complement in a mixed-motive dyad can be interpreted in so many ways, particularly if both carry deep scars from childhood. When ED protests, “When I state myself, as the Representative of the Verse – it does not mean – me – but a supposed person” (L268 → L345), I take it with a grain of salt.

This poem tracks with a few other poems in Fascicle 35 in which Dickinson wonders why an unnamed friend is withholding their smile.” Both her premier biographer, Sewall (1974), and an insightful Ph.D. student, Murray (1988), commented on ED feeling rejected:

Sewall (1974) posited

“Throughout her life, she never achieved a single, wholly satisfying relationship with anybody she had to be near, or with, for any length of time. . . . . As for Emily’s correspondents, affectionate as she might have been in her letters, they were always at a safe distance.

“The reason seems not far to seek. All her life she demanded too much of people. Her early girlfriends could hardly keep up with her tumultuous letters or, like Sue, could not or would not take her into their lives as she wanted to be taken.”

Similarly, Murray (1988) observes,

“Dickinson established a traceable pattern of behavior in her girlhood friendships that she continued into the relationships of her adult life. When she discovered a person who potentially shared her feelings about a certain subject, she responded with surprise, enthusiasm, and selfishness. . . . In Dickinson’s pattern, after initial discovery, the friendship would blossom and grow, fueled by a great profusion of letters sharing confidences, feelings, and ideas. In these letters, she engaged her fertile imagination, savoring the kinship that she perceived between her and the kindred spirit she believed she had found.

“The friend, at some point following the relationship’s blossoming, realized that he or she could not reciprocate with the same ardor, frequency, or depth of feeling as Emily, to meet the poet’s intense emotional, spiritual, or intellectual needs. The friend then usually withdrew, withholding contact from her. Dickinson, then perceiving the slackening on the friend’s part, sought in letters to renew the friendship through chiding and wheedling. When these attempts failed to secure the desired results, she decided that the slowing of the friendship had occurred because of the friend’s disloyalty and betrayal, and she cooled in her once-passionate feelings for the friend. In most cases, correspondence stopped. And she opened once again the lid to what she called her “box of Phantoms” and put away another friend.” (Murray 1988).

PS. ED coined her phrase, “Box of Phantoms”, in two letters, M&M / L181 and M&M / L185.

Apropos? A letter comment by ED, age 29, about being “great” (L244. To Louisa Norcross, a close, lifelong friend, December 20, 1859):
. . . . .
“I have known little of you, since the October morning when our families went out driving, and you and I in the dining room decided to be distinguished. It’s a great thing to be “great” Loo, and you and I might tug for a life, and never accomplish it, but no one can stop our looking, but the orchard is full of birds and we all can listen.”
. . . .
Emily

• Cristanne Miller and Domhnall Mitchell.2024. The Letters of Emily Dickinson. Harvard University Press. Kindle Edition.
• Sewall, Richard B. 1974. The Life of Emily Dickinson. 2 vols. New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux
• Murray, Barbara M. 1988. The scarlet experiment: Emily Dickinson’s abortion experience. Ph.D. dissertation. University of Tennessee. 391 pages. (https://www.proquest.com/openview/0eecb3a583e119ca3a94cde080a874d1/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y )