All Poems

134.1860.Did the Harebell loose her girdle

Did the Harebell loose her girdle
To the lover Bee
Would the Bee the Harebell hallow
Much as formerly?

Did the “Paradise”—persuaded—
Yield her moat of pearl—
Would the Eden be an Eden,
Or the Earl—an Earl?
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””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””’

My interpretation of ‘Did the Harebell loose her girdle’ [F134]:

Stanza 1.

Did the Harebell loose her girdle
To the lover Bee
Would the Bee the Harebell hallow
Much as formerly?

S1.

If the Harebell consented to sexual intercourse with lover Bee, would Bee still respect her in the morning?

Stanza 2.

“Did the “Paradise”—persuaded—
Yield her moat of pearl—
Would the Eden be an Eden,
Or the Earl—an Earl?”

S2.

If my vagina [paradise] were persuaded [or “seduced”] to yield its hymen [moat] to my lover, would our romantic love still exist, would my lover’s reputation be ruined?
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ED copied neither this poem (F134) nor the preceding F133, ‘Mute – thy Coronation —’, into her fascicles even though she copied other poems of this vintage into fascicles.
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Almost all publications of this poem ignore ED’s underlining of four words: Line 3, “hallow”; Line 5, “persuaded”; Line 7, “be”; and Line 8, the second “Earl”. These omissions deny the reader important information. ED intended those words to be emphasized.
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A chronological timeline places this poem at a critical and vulnerable interval of ED’s life:

1855 March – ED, age 24, attends one of Rev. Wadsworth’s sermons and falls in love with him, from a distance.

1860 March – Rev. Charles Wadsworth visits ED in Amherst.

1860 “Second half” (Franklin) – ED composes ‘Mute — thy Coronation (F133)’

1860 “Second half” (Franklin) – ED composes ‘Did the harebell loose her girdle (F134)’

1861 Early – ED drafts the second surviving “Master” letter

1861 Summer – ED drafts the third surviving “Master” letter

Reverend Wadsworth (1814-1882) was a charismatic Presbyterian pastor at a large church in Philadelphia. He was 16 years older than ED, married and had two children.
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Given the chronological timeline, Wadsworth was probably the intended recipient of the three “Master Letters” and the protagonist of F133 and F134.

Reverend Wadsworth’s response to one ED’s letters shows deep concern for her mental and emotional condition:

“My Dear Miss Dickenson [sic]

“I am distressed beyond measure at your note, received this moment, – I can only imagine the affliction which has befallen, or is now befalling you.

“Believe me, be what it may, you have all my sympathy, and my constant, earnest prayers.

“I am very, very anxious to learn more definitely of your trial- and though I have no right to intrude upon your sorrow yet I beg you to write me, though it be but a word.

“In great haste
Sincerely and most
Affectionately Yours –“

The manuscript is unsigned and without date, but is in the handwriting of the Reverend Charles Wadsworth, with an embossed crest, “C.W.”
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In Line 1, ED uses the archaic verb “loose”. The ‘Emily Davidson Lexicon’ defines “loose” as “Release; unbind; set free; remove the restraints from”. Many other dictionaries also define it as “untie”.

Today, the use of the verb “loose” in the sense of “untie” is extremely rare. However, classic literature texts use the archaic form, “loose”, frequently. For example, The verb “loose” or its other forms, “loosed” and “looseth”, are used 63 times in ED’s copy of the King James Bible. (Google AI).

ED knew her Bible backward and forward, which probably explains her use of “loose” in Line 1 of this poem.
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Susan Kornfeld, founder of the Emily Dickinson poetry blog, ‘The Prowling Bee‘, posted a delightful explication of this poem on November 21, 2011:

“A delightful proto-feminist poem, Dickinson is wondering why there are sexual double standards for men versus women. The lovely harebell has perhaps loosened her girdle (“belt” we would say today) to that rogue lover Bee (lucky insect – he gets to stand in for God sometimes, too). The Big Question is: Will he still respect her in the morning? Dickinson selects the word “hallow” – even italicizing it for emphasis to show she really means it – to suggest a religious aspect. Marriage is a sacrament, but just a bit of fun between bees and flowers… well, maybe the Bee is right not to feel that hallow feeling. Except the reader senses this is wrong. The Bee would be quite foolish, as well as stupefyingly arrogant to feel anything other than yummy delight at the Harebell’s delicious, life-giving nectar.

            “But just in case the reader is too thick skulled to follow the metaphor, the poet then moves us closer to the realm of ordinary men and women. “Paradise” is of course a way of referring to that blissful refuge men might find beyond the “moat of pearl” when making love. Here the lover is an Earl (helpfully rhyming with “pearl” or else he might have been a king) and if he had successfully “persuaded” his lady love to “yield” to him, the poet wants to know if Paradise / Eden would still be the same. Or would it become, say, Paradise Lost? Or worse, the lady just some now used-goods fallen woman. But the Earl – would he, too, undergo degradation? Dickinson doesn’t even bother to answer that last question. Yes, the Earl will still be an Earl no matter how many virgins he deflowers.

            “The poem is a very playful and clever way of pointing out this inequity that still bedevils much of the world – and in some countries can be a life-and-death  matter.

            “The poem also is fun to read aloud – it just trips off the tongue. The “Did the” and “Would the” doublings strengthen the metaphor and give a nursery-rhyme feel to this adult-content poem. The rhymes are fun: Bee / formerly; and pearl / Earl. The four 4-letter-word “e”s of the last two lines not only link together visually, but showcase Dickinson’s gift for compaction. In both lines she uses the E word first as a specific and then as a general case. Would the Eden of this blossom still be in the category of unsullied Paradise? Would this particular Earl still belong in the category of princely nobility denoted by “Earl”?”
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Between June 18, 2011 and January 30, 2024 Susan Kornfeld wrote and published explications on the first 878 of Emily Dickinson’s known 1789 poems (Poems F1-F878). Since then, Susan has continued to read and occasionally comment on poems.

The new explicator on ‘The Prowling Bee’ blog is Adam Wade DeGraff, who published his first explication on Poem 879 on February 17, 2026, and is currently (September 18, 2026) writing an explication on Poem 946. Doing the math, that’s 66 poems in 213 days, a prodigious rate of one poem every 3 days — not bad for a guy with a family and a full-time teaching job.
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861.1864.They say that ‘Time assuages’ –

They say that “Time assuages” –
Time never did assuage –
An actual suffering strengthens
As Sinews do, with Age –

Time is a Test of Trouble –
But not a Remedy –
If such it prove, it prove too
There was no Malady –
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My prose interpretation of F861, ‘They say that “Time assuages”’:

Stanza 1.

They say that “Time assuages” –
Time never did assuage –
An actual suffering strengthens
As Sinews do, with Age –

S1.

They say that “Time heals all wounds”, but time never did that. Overcoming a challenge strengthens us, and we do better the second time around.

Stanza 2.

Time is a Test of Trouble –
But not a Remedy –
If such it prove, it prove too
There was no Malady –

S2.

Time doesn’t heal wounds, but it does test us with adversities. Often it turns out that our troubles were not troubles at all.
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My prose interpretation of F861, ‘They say that “Time assuages”’:

Stanza 1.

They say that “Time assuages” –
Time never did assuage –
An actual suffering strengthens
As Sinews do, with Age –

S1.

They say that “Time heals all wounds”, but time never did that. Overcoming a challenge strengthens us, and we do better the second time around.

Stanza 2.

Time is a Test of Trouble –
But not a Remedy –
If such it prove, it prove too
There was no Malady –

S2.

Time doesn’t heal wounds, but it does test us with adversities. Often it turns out that our troubles were not troubles at all.
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860.1864.No Notice gave She, but a Change—
ED copied this poem into Fascicle 38 “about early 1864” (Franklin 1998}

No Notice gave She, but a Change—
No Message, but a Sigh—
For Whom, the Time did not suffice
That She should specify.

She was not warm, though Summer shone              L5
Nor scrupulous of cold
Though Rime by Rime, the steady Frost
Upon Her Bosom piled—

Of shrinking ways—she did not fright
Though all the Village looked—                                    L10
But held Her gravity aloft—
And met the gaze—direct—

And when adjusted like a Seed
In careful fitted Ground
Unto the Everlasting Spring                                           L15
And hindered but a Mound

Her Warm return, if so she chose—
And We—imploring drew—
Removed our invitation by
As Some She never knew—                                           L20
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A biographic interpretation of ‘No Notice gave She, but a Change—‘, F860:

Stanza 1.

No Notice gave She, but a Change—
No Message, but a Sigh—
For Whom, the Time did not suffice
That She should specify.

S1.

I gave no indication of why I changed, but change I did. I wrote no poems explaining why, but when I changed, I sighed. For whom I sighed, I don’t have the time to tell you.

Stanza 2.

She was not warm, though Summer shone                           Line 5
Nor scrupulous of cold
Though Rime by Rime, the steady Frost
Upon Her Bosom piled—

S2.

Though it was summer, I was not warm nor aware of being cold, even though layer after layer of hoarfrost piled deeper on my bosom.

Stanza 3.

Of shrinking ways—she did not fright
Though all the Village looked—                                                 L10
But held Her gravity aloft—
And met the gaze—direct—

S3.

“I wasn’t afraid of withdrawing into my father’s house, though all Amherst thought me strange. When  people came to my front door, I met their gaze with my gaze — direct!”

Stanza 4.

And when adjusted like a Seed
In careful fitted Ground
Unto the Everlasting Spring                                           L15
And hindered but a Mound

S4.

And when I intentionally withdrew into my house, I wanted to die. I wanted my soul to fly straight into God’s Heaven, but, unfortunately, my soul’s way was blocked by a mound.

Stanza 5.

Her Warm return, if so she chose—
And {Us}—imploring drew—
Removed our invitation by
As  Some she never knew—                                                       L20

S5.

If I had wanted to return to a warm relationship with Amherst friends, I could have, but I didn’t. I stopped inviting visitors and, if they knocked at the front door, I acted as if I had never known them.
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Alternate Words or Phrase

ED suggested seven alternative words or phrases. I like all her originals except for one: In Line 18, I prefer her alternate word “Us” because “Some” is vague. I used “Us” in my biographic interpretation (above).
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Adam DeGraff’s Questions about Line 16, Stanza 4, on ‘The Prowling Bee’ blog:

On December 14, 2025 on TPB, Adam commented on ‘No Notice gave She, but a Change—’ and in his comment he asked two astonishing questions. Here is Stanza 4:

Stanza 4

“And when adjusted like a Seed
In careful fitted Ground
Unto the Everlasting Spring                Line 15
And hindered but a Mound”              

Adam’s questions are about Line 16: “And hindered but a Mound”:

[1] Could mound be a slant allusion to pregnancy?

[2] Has the narrator, the dead living woman, somehow hindered a pregnancy, or had her pregnancy hindered?

There is a third possibility:

[3] Has the “dead living woman” experienced a miscarriage?

Adam, I think correctly, identifies the “dead” woman as Emily Dickinson, so [take a deep breath], Adam is asking if Emily Dickinson was ever pregnant.  Adam is not the first to ask this question.
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‘The Marriage of Emily Dickinson’  Shurr, W. H., 1983

In 1983, William H. Shurr published a controversial book, ‘The Marriage of Emily Dickinson’. His book must be anathema to academicians in their English Department Ivory Towers because it has been cited only six times over the last 43 years.

In the last subsection of the last chapter (pp, 171-193; Shurr saved the best for last), Shurr asks:

“Was Emily Dickinson ever pregnant? The question may offend for its too close inquiry into a private life, its too close linking of biography with poems. It cannot, however, be ruled out of literary analysis, as if there were a priori limitations to the subjects an author might be expected to treat, whether as real phenomena or as groundwork for a trope. The obligation of the reader is to remain open, attentive to whatever topics these poems bring forward. Is there still another event remaining to be considered, naturally linked to the marriage narrative we have been following [in the previous pages]?”

“In a chronological reading of Dickinson’s poems there is an important crux in the developing narrative. Early poems state resistance to, refusal of, sexual intercourse.”

“A private poem (J213, F134; ‘about late 1860’) did not find its way into the fascicles”:

“Did the Harebell loose her girdle
To the lover Bee
Would the Bee the Harebell hallow
Much as formerly?”

“Did the “Paradise”—persuaded—
Yield her moat of pearl—
Would the Eden be an Eden,
Or the Earl—an Earl?”

“[The Harebell] resists intercourse on the traditional grounds that the lover would lose his respect for her afterward, and for himself as well. The poem is dated by handwriting at “about [late] 1860”, the year of Wadsworth’s first visit.” (Shurr 1983)

Wadsworth’s visit to ‘Homestead’ occurred in summer 1860, and ED wrote this poem “about late 1860” (Franklin 1998).
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Almost all publications of ‘Did the Harebell loose her girdle’, including the publication in The Prowling Bee blog, ignore ED’s underlining of four words: Line 3, “hallow”; Line 5, “persuaded”; Line 7, “be”; and Line 8, the second “Earl”. These omissions deny the reader important information. ED intended those words to be emphasized, and I have used italics and bold font for these words in my interpretation of this poem. …………………………………………………………………………………………

My interpretation of ‘Did the Harebell loose her girdle’ [F134]:

Stanza 1.

Did the Harebell loose her girdle
To the lover Bee
Would the Bee the Harebell hallow
Much as formerly?

S1.

If the Harebell consented to sexual intercourse with lover Bee, would Bee still respect her in the morning?

Stanza 2.

“Did the “Paradise”—persuaded—
Yield her moat of pearl—
Would the Eden be an Eden,
Or the Earl—an Earl?”

S2.

If my vagina [paradise] were persuaded [or “seduced”] to yield its hymen [moat] to my lover, would our romantic love still exist, would my lover’s reputation be ruined?

No wonder ED did not put this poem into a fascicle!

ED’s “Earl” was a conservative Presbyterian minister from Philadelphia, Charles Wadsworth, who, a month or two before ED wrote this poem, visited her at Homestead at her invitation. For an explication of their evening’s activities, see F856, ‘I play at riches’:

‎
https://ed-larryb.com/2026/08/856-1864-i-play-at-riches-to-appease/

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References:

(Shurr 1983)  Franklin 1998

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Susan Kornfeld, the founder of ‘The Prowling Bee’, wrote a delightful explication of ‘Did the Harebell loose her girdle’ [F134]:

https://bloggingdickinson.blogspot.com/2011/11/f133-1860-213.html

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859.1864.Who Court obtain within Himself

Who Court obtain within Himself
Sees every Man a King—
And Poverty of Monarchy
Is an interior thing—

No Man depose
Whom Fate Ordain—
And Who can add a Crown
To Him who doth continual
Conspire against His Own
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An interpretation of F859, ‘Who Court obtain within Himself’:

Stanza 1.

Who Court obtain within Himself
Sees every Man a King—
And Poverty of Monarchy
Is an interior thing—

S1.

A democratic person sees all men as equal, everyone a king, and lack of magnanimity toward all is an inner impoverishment.

Stanza 2.

No Man depose
Whom Fate Ordain—
And Who can add a Crown
To Him who doth continual
Conspire against His Own

S2.

No one can be dethroned because everyone has infinite intrinsic value, and who can place a crown on anyone who continually denies his value as no more or less than that of everyone.
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Has ED been reading Walt Whitman? Or the Declaration of Independence, US Constitution and Bill of Rights?

Wish our current president saw things this way.
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857.1864.She rose to His Requirement – drop

She rose to His Requirement – dropt
The Playthings of Her Life
To take the honorable Work
Of Woman, and of Wife –

If ought She missed in Her new Day,
Of Amplitude, or Awe –
Or first Prospective – or the Gold
In using, wear away,

It lay unmentioned – as the Sea
Develope Pearl, and Weed,
But only to Himself – be known
The Fathoms they abide –
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Franklin (1998) dates this poem as “about early 1864”.

In early 1864, ED was 33. She imagines what her life would be if she had married:

Here’s my full biographic interpretation of F857:

Stanza 1.

She rose to His Requirement – dropt
The Playthings of Her Life
To take the honorable Work
Of Woman, and of Wife –

S1.

She” married and began filling her husband’s requirements. She “. . . dropt / The Playthings of Her Life / To take the honorable Work / Of Woman, and of Wife –”.

Stanza 2.

If ought She missed in Her new Day,
Of Amplitude, or Awe –
Or first Prospective – or the Gold
In using, wear away,

S2

If she happened to miss the amplitude and awe of her bygone poem days, time slowly wore away her longing, which . . . [Stanza 2 & 3 enjambed]

Stanza 3

It lay unmentioned – as the Sea
Develope Pearl, and Weed,
But only to Himself – be known
The Fathoms they abide –

S3.

lay unmentioned, fathoms below the surface of sea. It was as if her genius were coated with pearls and weeds, and only she knew how deep her poems were.
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In my comment above I wrote “only God would know what she was capable of leaving”, and, later, I wrote “only she knew how deep her poems were”. Sometimes an atheist believes God and ED are one and the same.
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The last stanza of the previous poem, F856, posed a question:

{‘Tis} fitter {I will} be—{by} Want—
Enlightening so well—
I know not which, Desire, or Grant —
Be {chiefest} beautiful—

I interpret this as:

“I’ll be a better poet as a result of sacrificing an ordinary life, but I don’t know which, desire for wealth and love or achieving poetic immortality will be the most beautiful.”

[Words in {curly brackets} are ED’s alternatives that I prefer over the usual published version.]

I think F857 answers that question with its last stanza:

“It lay unmentioned – as the Sea
Develope Pearl, and Weed,
But only to Himself – be known
The Fathoms they abide –”

For ED, “The Playthings of Her Life” are her poems. Note the capitalization of every word: Poems are not “Playthings” for her or for us. I think F857 is unveiled sarcasm of what wifehood would mean for Emily Dickinson: the end of mystical beauty in her life and the opportunity for immortality in her poems. “No Thanks!” she shouts.

If ED were to put away “The Playthings of Her Life”, her dreams would be like pearls and weeds buried under so many fathoms of water that only God would know what she was capable of leaving to us, her readers.
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The spelling “develope” was widely used during the 1800s and earlier. Google AI
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Speaking of “leaving to us, her readers”, I just found this footnote in Millicent Todd Bigham’s 1945 ‘Ancestor’s Brocades’:

“[Six] editions of ED’s first book of poetry were issued on the following dates [by Harper & Brothers Publishers]:

First, Nov. 12, 1890;
Second, Dec. 16, 1890;
Third, Dec. 27, 1890;
Fourth, Jan. 29, 1891;
Fifth, Feb. 17, 1891;
Sixth, Mar. 11, 1891.

Although the number of copies in each edition was supposed to be 500, only 480 were issued of the first ·and 400 of the second.”

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