All Poems

812.1864.Love reckons by itself—alone—

Love reckons by itself—alone
“As large as I”—relate the Sun
To One who never felt it blaze—
Itself is all the like it has—

EDLex defines “reckon” as “calculate” or “be defined, described”.

My interpretation of Fr812:

“Love” judges a person by comparing them to “itself—alone”, for example, “As large as I”. Furthermore, to describe “the Sun / To” [some]one “who never felt it blaze”, Love would compare the blazing Sun to blazing Love.

When reading this poem, it’s helpful to put a period after the “I” in Line 2 so that the quatrain consists of two complete sentences.

‘Love reckons by itself—alone—’, Fr812, tries to describe something indescribable, Love, but Love is not comparable to anything. It can’t be measured against anything. It “reckons by itself.” To reckon means to describe (EDLex, Def 2). So Love defines itself. much like “beauty” does: Love is Love (Fr797).

Line 3 introduces two riddles: Why is “One” capitalized and what is the antecedent of “it”? The “Sun” in Line 2 “blaze[s]” and is a logical antecedent of “it”, but “Love” in Line 1 also blazes and is also a logical antecedent . Perhaps ED intended both?

The more difficult riddle is why is “One” capitalized in Line 3. “One” functions here as a personal pronoun, and ED usually honors only God and Charles Wadsworth with capitals. Can we rule out God, leaving Wadsworth the only alternative?

These musings generate two more riddles: In Line 4, what are the antecedents of “Itself” and “it”? To me, the answer for both could be “One” in Line 3, which leaves me with a take-home conclusion: If “One” is the antecedent, Line 3 ED implies “Wadsworth never felt the blaze of Love”.

That conclusion is the opposite of universal, but why else is “One” capitalized?

On the other hand, “Itself” and “it” in Line 4 could just as well refer to “Love” in Line 1. In that case, Line 4 restates and reinforces Line 1.

Thank you Emily for your ambiguity.

 

How well I knew Her not
Whom not to know has been
A Bounty in prospective, now
Next Door to mine the Pain.

My biographical interpretation of Fr813:

I did not know your sister Elizabeth, but not knowing her meant I had that “Bounty” to anticipate. But now, I feel your pain because I too know how it feels to lose a sister. I was rash and jealous ten years ago, and, though I have tried, the unreserved love of that sister feels lost forever.

My biographical interpretation of Fr813:

I did not know your sister Elizabeth, but not knowing her meant I had that “Bounty” to anticipate. But now, I feel your pain because I too know how it feels to lose a sister. I was rash and jealous ten years ago, and, though I have tried, the unreserved love of that sister feels lost forever.

ED’s modus opperandi is to verbally filter events and experiences through her own historical lens, rather than give unfiltered love, at least not verbally as ED does.

Miller (2024) tells us ED sent this poem to Maria Whitney, about February 11, 1864. Austin visited Whitney in Northampton on February 11 before she sailed for California on the 13^th to look after the six children of her sister, Elizabeth Whitney Putnam, who died June 1863 in San Francisco.

I think the personal level of Fr813 runs deep, especially enjambed Lines 3 & 4: “now / Next Door to mine the Pain”. In her own way, ED empathizes with Maria’s loss of a sister because she has also lost a sister. In fact, ED’s “dead sister” lives “Next Door”, which daily “mine[s] the Pain”.

In March 1853 Susan and Austin became engaged after a tryst at the Revere Hotel in Boston. For obvious reasons, Sue had to cool her relationship with Emily, and on April 1, 1854, ED responded sharply to Sue (L172): “You can go or stay”.

In late 1858, perhaps as a birthday greeting on Sue’s birthday, 19 December, ED tried to mend bridges with ‘One Sister have I’ (Fr5, 1858), but the rift never healed.

“One Sister have I in our house,
And one, a hedge away.
There’s only one recorded,
But both belong to me.

One came the road that I came —
And wore my last year’s gown —
The other, as a bird her nest,
Builded our hearts among.

She did not sing as we did —
It was a different tune —
Herself to her a music
As Bumble bee of June.

Today is far from Childhood —
But up and down the hills
I held her hand the tighter —
Which shortened all the miles —

And still her hum
The years among,
Deceives the Butterfly;
Still in her Eye
The Violets lie
Mouldered this many May.

I spilt the dew —
But took the morn —
I chose this single star
From out the wide night’s numbers —
Sue – forevermore!

Those last two stanzas are among the most poignant ED ever wrote. She “spilt the dew” and has been ruing it for 10 years (1854-1864).

Miller, C and Mitchell, D. 2024. The Letters of Emily Dickinson. Harvard University Press. Kindle Edition.

 

For those who rue the biographical basis for this poem, every poem must start with some seed in a poet’s brain. Biography is only one of many species of seed, but every seed had a specific parent somewhere in a poet’s past, something the poet read, saw, heard, felt, experienced, or imagined. Not only is the poet responsible for universalizing a poem, the reader too must be creative.

As my manifesto on right sight of each poem in this blog, ‘ED-LarryB’, states, I choose to focus on biographical interpretations because my days of worrying about Promotion and Tenure are long gone, and because so few people are willing to choose that focus.

And I’m a history nut.

814.1864.Soto! Explore thyself!

 

Soto! Explore thyself!
Therein thyself shalt find
The “Undiscovered Continent”—
No Settler, had the Mind.

 

My interpretation of Fr814:

 

Austin! Know thyself! The thing you are looking for is in yourself: the meaning of your life. No man, new arrived, knows the undiscovered meccas of his mind.

 

Emily and Austin were close siblings, apparently even in matters sexual. On the evening of March 23, 1853, Susan Gilbert, Austin’s future wife, returning from a visit with a relative in Manchester, NH, spent the night with Austin at the Revere Hotel in Boston. Susan returned to Amherst on March 24 and soon told ED about her night with Austin. On March 27, ED wrote Austin a letter full of suggestive banter, including the sentence, “Hope you have enjoyed the Sabbath, and sanctuary privileges – it isn’t all young men that have the preached word –”. Susan and Austin married on July 1, 1856.

Apparently, their marriage soon faced irreconcilable goals: Sue sought social standing and eschewed parenthood, Austin disdained soirees and wanted children. Emotional separation followed, but Austin endured.

I suspect ED composed this 1864 poem as a response to Austin’s complaints about his marriage in a letter to ED, hoping for a sympathetic sister’s shoulder. Instead, ED replied with this stoical quatrain of Emersonian advice, “Soto! Explore thyself!” (Fr814).

ED composed this poem while she was in Boston receiving eye treatments for failing eyesight (February-November 1864). While there, she lived with her cousins, Frances and Louise Norcross.

Most of the poems composed during this stay are short, probably because ED’s ophthalmologist ordered her to avoid writing and reading so her eyes could heal. Perhaps she dictated poems to her cousins and wanted to limit requests for their time.

815.1864.To this World she returned

To this World she returned
But with a tinge of that
A Compound manner
As a Sod
Espoused a Violet —
That chiefer to the Skies
Than to Himself allied
Dwelt hesitating, half of Dust
And half of Day the Bride.

My interpretation of Fr815 (Variant A):

To this world she returned, but with a tinge of a dual nature, as if a shovel of sod sported a violet that gave more allegiance to the skies than to the sod in which it hesitantly grew, half Earth’s “Dust” and half Heaven’s “Bride”.

How ED’s poems repeat themselves! Poem after poem describes the formative experience of her life, a spiritual romance that she believed would end with an eternal marriage in Heaven to Wadsworth, as she believed he had promised.

At its surface level, F815 is about Gertrude Vanderbilt’s near-death experience. Line 1, “To this World she returned”, implies that “she” had died and later “returned” from Heaven.

At a deeper level, this poem is about ED herself. She was the one who had died and gone to Heaven. While there, she and Wadsworth had met and married, as he had promised. After the marriage, ED returned to “this World”, now half Earth’s “Dust” and half Heaven’s “Bride”.

 

ED had never met Gertrude Vanderbilt, but Sue informed her of her friend’s near-death experience in a letter. At that time, September 1864, ED was in Boston for eye treatment. Apparently, ED took the hint and composed the get-well poem as a favor to Sue.

I wonder whether Mrs. Vanderbilt had any inkling of ED’s intent, any vague idea this poem had anything to do with her being shot by an irate rejected suitor of her maid or her recovery from said shot.

‘To this World she returned’ is one weird get-well poem

265.1861.It can’t be “Summer”!

It can’t be “Summer”!
That – got through!
It’s early – yet – for “Spring”!
There’s that long town of White – to cross –
Before the Blackbirds sing!
It can’t be “Dying”!
It’s too Rouge –
The Dead shall go in White –
So Sunset shuts my question down
With Cuffs of Chrysolite!

In biblical times and ancient history, “chrysolite” referred to various yellowish and greenish stones, a versatile term for expensive and prized gems. Olivine (Chrysolite) is considered a hard mineral, ranking between 6.5 and 7 on the Mohs hardness scale, which means it is harder than glass and can scratch it.

Nice to see a fun poem amid the pain and introspection. ED manages to sneak in “Summer”, “Spring”, and “Dying” with caps and quotes, usually signals of metaphors, but they aren’t obvious here.

“So Sunset shuts my question down” begs a question mark somewhere, but it’s only implied.

ED poses a riddle: What season is it?

One by one she tells us the season is not summer, spring, fall, or winter, in that order. Lines 1-3 imply the weather is warm and the sunset gorgeous. So, what’s the answer to ED’s riddle?

She got us! It’s Indian Summer, of course.

These are the days when Birds come back—
A very few—a Bird or two—
To take a backward look.

These are the days when skies resume
The old—old sophistries of June—
A blue and gold mistake.

Oh fraud that cannot cheat the Bee—
Almost thy plausibility
Induces my belief.

Till ranks of seeds their witness bear—
And softly thro’ the altered air
Hurries a timid leaf.

Oh sacrament of summer days,
Oh Last Communion in the Haze—
Permit a child to join.

Thy sacred emblems to partake—
Thy consecrated bread to take
And thine immortal wine!

Apparently, ED never took communion at church, as a child because of Christian custom or as an adult because of agnostic honesty. But both children and agnostics can joyously partake in the Sacrament of Indian-Summer, its bread and wine the golden hues and crisp cool air.

As if the Sea should part
And show a further Sea —
And that — a further — and the Three
But a presumption be —

Of Periods of Seas —
Unvisited of Shores —
Themselves the Verge of Seas to be —
Eternity — is Those —

Hmmm. In addition to her poetry, ED had the mindset of a scientist. Before she wrote poetry, she collected plant species, accurately identified them, and mounted them on herbarium sheets as professionally as any botanist of her time. More importantly, she questioned dogma and demanded evidence of untested hypotheses like resurrection and heaven. And most importantly, she was a skeptic but kept her mind open to new evidence.

In 1863, when she composed this poem, there were two wars raging, the American Civil War and a Religion/Science War in England and America. Lyell (1830) and Darwin (1859), among others, had challenged Christianity’s dogma of Creation, including how and when it happened. As one might suspect, ED kept a close eye on both wars, avidly reading Bowles’ highly regarded newspaper, ‘The Springfield Republican’, along with ‘The Hampshire and Franklin Express’, and ‘The Amherst Record’. In addition, the Dickinson family subscribed to ‘Harper’s New Monthly Magazine’, ‘Scribner’s Monthly’, and ‘The Atlantic Monthly’ (Capps 1966).

In the poem’s last line, she tries to merge Science and Religion.

An interpretation of ‘As if the Sea should part’ (F720) by a scientist:

Stanza 1 – “To me [ED] the sea seems permanent, but science opened willing eyes, including mine, to possibilities of sea after sea after sea in Earth’s history, but that would be a presumption [hypothesis]”

Stanza 2 – “Those periods of seas – / Unvisited by shores – / Themselves the Verge of Seas to be – / Eternity – is Those –”.

• Charles Lyell, 1830, Principles of Geology,;
• Charles Darwin, 1859, On the Origin of Species
• Capps, J. L., 1966, ‘Emily Dickinson’s Reading’, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 143 pp.

PS. Hooray! Another ED poem without mention of Charles Wadsworth.

In the July and August 1860 issues of The Atlantic Monthly, Harvard’s Asa Gray, the leading botanist in the United States, published an 11,000-word positive review of Darwin’s ‘Origin of Species’. Darwin reprinted Gray’s essay as a pamphlet in England.

In the October 1860 issue of The Atlantic, Gray published a , 12,000-word essay countering negative reviews of Darwin’s book, including Louis Agassiz’s. 1859. Essay on Classification (London: Longman). 381 pp.

The Atlantic Monthly was “required reading” in the Dickinson household.

• Juliana Chow. 2014. “Because I see—New Englandly—”: Seeing Species in the Nineteenth-Century and Emily Dickinson’s Regional Specificity. ESQ: A Journal of the American Renaissance, 60(3): 413-449.

• Asa Gray. 1860. “Darwin on the Origin of Species” and “Darwin and His Reviewers”. The Atlantic Monthly. Vol. 6 Nos. 33, 34, 36.