All Poems

901.1865.The Soul’s distinct connection

The Soul’s distinct connection
With immortality
Is best disclosed by Danger
Or quick Calamity—

As Lightning on a Landscape
Exhibits Sheets of Place—
Not yet suspected—but for Flash—
And Click—and Suddenness.
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Most folks have experienced Stanza 2, a flash of lightning on a dark  night, when the scene stays frozen in short-term memory for a few seconds.

But Stanza 1 challenges and may be the proverbial experience of life “flashing before your eyes”, a well-documented phenomenon that can happen during sudden, extreme physical danger, near-death experiences, or severe stress.  AI explains what happens:

• Rapid Memory Recall: Instead of playing out like a literal movie, it often feels like an instantaneous, panoramic burst of memories, intense emotions, or distinct life snapshots, or in ED’s case, a brief mystical experience which she equates to “Immortality“.
• Time Distortion: During a crisis, your brain goes into hyper-alert mode, making time feel like it slows down while your mind rapidly scours stored experiences.
• The Science: Neuroscientific studies—such as recordings of brain activity during cardiac events—show a surge of neural oscillations associated with memory retrieval and deep processing as the brain faces trauma or oxygen deprivation. (Google AI)

900.1865.Twas awkward, but it fitted me —

Twas awkward, but it fitted me —
An Ancient fashioned Heart —
Its only lore — its Steadfastness —
In Change — unerudite —

It only moved as do the Suns —
For merit of Return —
Or Birds — confirmed perpetual
By Alternating Zone —

I only have it not Tonight
In its established place —
For technicality of Death —
Omitted in the Lease —
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That last stanza sure sounds to me like the speaker’s dead. Interpretation of Stanza 3:

I don’t have my ancient-fashioned heart in its established place tonight because of a minor technicality, I’m dead. Death wasn’t mentioned in my lease.

Of course, “dead” likely means emotionally dead. Normally, ED’s heart is “Steadfast” and unsophisticated (“unerudite”), but “Tonight” she admits she’s lost her steady love for someone. I suspect Wadsworth, who now lives in San Francisco, has not responded to her letters and poems.

The same thing happened with Susan long before her marriage to Austin. For example, JL105 to Sue in March 1853 begins with “Write, Comrade, write”, followed by poem F3, ‘On this wondrous sea”.

On March 18, 1853, ED sent Austin JL108, and in a post script said “I have not heard from Sue again, tho’ I’ve written her three times.”

899.1865.Experience is the Angled Road

Experience is the Angled Road
Preferred against the Mind
By — Paradox — the Mind itself —
Presuming it to lead

Quite Opposite — How Complicate
The Discipline of Man —
Compelling Him to Choose Himself
His Preappointed Pain —
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My interpretation of F899:

Experience is a crooked road that many believe the best teacher for life, and, paradoxically, the mind itself presumes that is true.

But the opposite is true and complicated. Discipline compels each man himself to choose his preappointed pain.
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ED’s experience of hearing Wadsworth preach in 1855 led her to try romance with him, but that didn’t go well for obvious reasons and led to years of emotional pain. Then ED choose what most people would consider a lonely “Angled Road”: writing poetry in a small second floor bedroom for 35 years.

She had her family chores and Sue next door to read her poems, and she wrote nearly 2000 of them. I don’t think she minded her chosen “Preappointed Pain”.

 

898.1865.An Hour is a Sea

An Hour is a Sea
Between a few, and me –
With them would Harbor be

Sent to Sue when she was in Geneva, New York.

‘An Hour is a Sea’ reminds me of F3, 1853, which ED also sent to Sue when she was out of town:

On this wondrous sea – Sailing silently –
Ho! Pilot! Ho!
Knowest thou the shore
Where no breakers roar –
Where the storm is o’er?

In the silent West
Many – the sails – at rest –
The Anchors fast.
Thither I pilot thee –
Land! Ho! Eternity!
Ashore at last!

I think ED felt safe when she knew Sue was living next door and reading her poems.

897.1865.She sped as Petals of a Rose

She sped as Petals of a Rose
Offended by the Wind—
A frail Aristocrat of Time
Indemnity to find—
Leaving on nature—a Default
As Cricket or as Bee—
But Andes in the Bosoms where
She had begun to lie—
……………………………………………………………

An interpretation of F897:

She left life quickly, like the petals of a rose during a gale. She was frail, but, during her short time on earth, her family privileged her with love, and she expected to find equal protection against harm in death as in life.

Nature cared equally about the dead girl as it cared about a dead cricket or bee, but in the bosoms of her family, her memory was as big as the Andes.
……………………………………………………………………….

If my interpretation comports with ED’s, this poem is a seismic shift from her earlier poem, ‘Nature – the Gentlest Mother is’ (F741).
Or maybe Nature is equally gentle with crickets, bees, and little girls.

896.1865.Purple – is fashionable twice –

Purple – is fashionable twice –
This season of the year,
And when a soul perceives itself
To be an Emperor.
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AI tells me purple’s in fashion any season but spring calls for lighter violet colors and fall for darker, royal purple. One of ED’s favorite flowers was purple gentian, which blooms after the first frost, so my guess is ED’s season is autumn. Purple gentian is deep wine-red, purple, or dark violet.

ED’s last two lines may have been a comment on an acquaintance who thought highly of themselves, but they are also apt for our current political egomaniac, with emphasis on the “perceives”.

895.1865.Further in Summer than the Birds –

Further in Summer than the Birds –
Pathetic from the Grass –
A Minor Nation celebrates
It’s unobtrusive Mass –

No Ordinance be seen –
So gradual the Grace
A pensive [gentle} Custom it becomes
Enlarging Loneliness –

‘Tis Antiquer {Antiquest}, at Dusk –
When Day’s attempt is done –
And Nature nothing waits to do
But terminate in Tune –

Nor difference it knows
Of Cadence, or of Pause –
Yet {But} simultaneous as Same –
The Service emphacize –

Nor know I when it cease –
At Candles, it is here –
When Sunrise is – that it is not –
Than this, I know no more –

The Earth has many keys –
Where Melody is not
Is the Unknown Peninsula –
Beauty – is Nature’s Fact –

But Witness for Her Land –
And Witness for Her Sea –
The Cricket is Her utmost
Of Elegy, to Me –
…………………………………………………………………….

My interpretation of ‘895.1865.Further in Summer than the Birds –‘:

Stanza 1.

Further in Summer than the Birds –
Pathetic from the Grass –
A Minor Nation celebrates
It’s unobtrusive Mass –

S1

In summer after the birds have stopped singing, a new chorus begins from the grass. A less visible but abundant nation of crickets sings its late-summer chants.

 

Stanza 2.

No Ordinance be seen –
So gradual the Grace
A pensive Custom it becomes
Enlarging Loneliness –

S2.

There is no religious ritual seen, but the chorus gradually begins its annual ceremony, which makes me feel lonely.

 

Stanza 3.

‘Tis Audiblest, at Dusk –
When Day’s attempt is done –
And Nature nothing waits to do
But terminate in Tune –

S3.

The singing is loudest at dusk, when day is done and nature has nothing to do but terminate in tune.

 

Stanza 4

Nor difference it knows
Of Cadence, or of Pause –
But simultaneous as Same –
The Service emphacize –

S4.

The chorus is a monotone without rhythm or pause. The performance seems to include all crickets, as if emphasizing their solidarity.

 

Stanza 5,

Nor know I when it cease –
At Candles, it is here –
When Sunrise is – that it is not –
Than this, I know no more –

S5.

I don’t know when the chorus stops. It’s here when I go to bed but not in the morning when I wake.

 

Stanza 6

The Earth has many keys –
Where Melody is not
Is the Unknown Peninsula –
Beauty – is Nature’s Fact –

S6

The Earth has many keys, like a piano, but some keys make no sound when struck. Instead, they play the silent songs of the soul, inaudible but real, and they are beautiful.

 

Stanza 7.

But Witness for Her Land –
And Witness for Her Sea –
The Cricket is Her utmost
Of Elegy, to Me –

S7

I witness the beauty of both land and sea, but a full-throated cricket chorus is elegy enough for me.
…………………………………………………………………………….

Same interpretation in three paragraphs:

In summer after the birds have stopped singing, a new chorus begins from the grass. A less visible but abundant nation of crickets sings its late-summer chants. There is no religious ritual seen, but the chorus gradually begins its annual ceremony, which makes me feel lonely.

The singing is loudest at dusk, when day is done and nature has nothing to do but terminate in tune. The chorus is a monotone without rhythm or pause. The performance seems to include all crickets, as if emphasizing their solidarity. I don’t know when the chorus stops. It’s here when I go to bed but not in the morning when I wake.

The Earth has many keys, like a piano, but some keys make no sound when struck. Instead, they play the silent songs of the soul, inaudible but real, and they are beautiful. I witness the beauty of both land and sea, but a full-throated cricket chorus is elegy enough for me.
…………………………………………………………………….

ED’s first variant of ‘Further in Summer than the Birds’, Variant A in Franklin’s 1998 ‘Variorum’, has seven stanzas and is often referred to as ‘The Vanderbilt Variant’. There are five other variants and three  alternate words: in Line 7 (pensive → gentle), Line 9 (antiquer → antiquest), L:ine 15 (yet → but). I prefer all her alternate words, as did ED, who used them in her final four-stanza Variant F (1883).

In  1865, ED sent the poem to Gertrude Vanderbilt, a college friend of Susan Dickinson, and a copy to her cousins in Boston. In 1986, exactly 100 years after ED’s death, the Vanderbilt Variant was found in the Special Collections Room of Scripps College Library, Claremont, California.
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