The Wind begun to knead the Grass –
As Women do a Dough –
He flung a Hand full at the Plain –
A Hand full at the Sky –
The Leaves unhooked
themselves from Trees –
And started all abroad –
The Dust did scoop itself like Hands –
And throw away the Road –
The Wagons quickened on the Street –
The Thunders gossiped low –
The Lightning showed a Yellow Head –
And then a livid Toe –
The Birds put up the Bars to Nests –
The Cattle flung to Barns –
Then came one drop of Giant Rain –
And then, as if the Hands
That held the Dams – had parted hold –
The Waters Wrecked the Sky –
But overlooked my Father’s House –
Just Quartering a Tree –
ED may be revisiting Hurricane Expedition, which crossed Massachusetts on November 3, 1861. Its western side, the most destructive, passed over Amherst. She immortalized that storm in an earlier poem, F224 (1861), which shares a tone of awe with this poem, Fr796 (1864).
An awful Tempest mashed the air –
The clouds were gaunt and few –
A Black – as of a spectre’s cloak
Hid Heaven and Earth from view.
The creatures chuckled on the Roofs –
And whistled in the air –
And shook their fists –
And gnashed their teeth –
And swung their frenzied hair –
The morning lit – the Birds arose –
The Monster’s faded eyes
Turned slowly to his native coast –
And peace – was Paradise!
ED must have liked ‘The Wind begun to knead the Grass’. Over a span of 19 years, 1864-1883, she composed five variants, each with alternate words and phrases. Recipients were Elizabeth Holland (Variant A, 1964), Sue Dickinson (Variant B, 1866), Retained for her record (Variant C, 1876), T.W. Higginson (Variant D, 1876), Thomas Niles (Variant E, 1883).
Franklin (1998) provides a 10-row, 6-column table of 60 combinations of variations in his 3-volume ‘Variorum’:
| Year |
1864 |
1866 |
1876 |
1876 |
1883 |
| Line |
Holland |
Susan |
Retained |
Higginson |
Niles |
| 1 |
knead |
knead |
rock |
rock |
rock |
| 2 |
As |
As |
With |
With |
With |
| 2 |
Women |
Women |
threatening |
threatening |
threatening |
| 2 |
do |
do |
Tunes |
tunes |
Tunes |
| 2 |
a Dough |
a Dough |
and low |
and low |
and low |
| 3 |
flung |
flung |
threw |
flung |
threw |
| 3 |
Hand full |
Hand full |
Menace |
Menace |
Menace |
| 3 |
Plain |
Plain |
Eanh |
Earth |
Earth |
| 4 |
A Hand full |
A Hand full |
A Menace |
A Menace |
Another |
| 9 |
Street |
Streets |
Streets |
Streets |
streets |
| 10 |
Thunders |
Thunder |
Thunder |
Thunder |
Thunder |
| 10 |
gossiped low |
gossiped |
hurried |
hurried |
hurried slow |
| 10 |
low |
low |
slow |
slow |
slow |
| 11 |
Head |
Head |
Beak |
Beak |
Beak |
| 12 |
Toe |
Toe |
Claw |
Claw |
Claw |
| 14 |
flung |
flung |
fled |
fled |
clung |
| 15 |
Then |
Then |
There |
Then |
Then |
Stanza structure varies along with words: Variant A (1864), Variant B (1865), and Variant E (1883), one stanza; Variants C and D (1873) five quatrain stanzas.
My guess is that ED’s last variant, Variant E, gets closest to her original intentions:
The Wind begun to rock the Grass
With threatening Tunes and low
He threw a Menace at the Earth –
Another, at the Sky –
The Leaves unhooked themselves from Trees
And started all abroad
The Dust did scoop itself like Hands
And throw away the Road-
The Wagons quickened on the streets
The Thunder hurried slow –
The Lightning showed a yellow Beak
And then a livid Claw –
The Birds put up the Bars to Nests
The Cattle clung to Barns
Then came one Drop of Giant Rain
And then as if the Hands
That held the Dams, had parted hold,
The Waters wrecked the Sky,
But overlooked My Father’s House
Just quartering a Tree –
On first, second, and third read, ‘The Wind begun to rock the Grass’ seems to describe a sudden serious thunderstorm, possibly the opening onslaught of the 1861 “Expedition Hurricane” (so named because it interfered with a Union naval expedition to capture Port Royale, North Carolina.). In any case, assuming an ED poem has only a surface-level usually proves perilous.
On the other hand, as Adam DeGraff warned in his April 29, 2024 comment on ‘Me from Myself – to banish’ (F709) in The Prowling Bee, “It’s one thing to make the poems personal, but it’s another thing to bend them out of shape to do it.” Balancing Adam’s caveat against ED’s sage advice, “Much Madness is divinest Sense” (F620, 1863), I venture out the proverbial (and divinest?) limb, beginning with my reasons:
Why would ED compose two surface-level descriptions of a memorable storm? Her first, ‘An awful Tempest mashed the air’, printed above, succeeded admirably. And if the current poem, F796, were simply a description of a storm, why did she compose five variants of it over 19 years and send them to her surrogate mother, Elizabeth Holland (1864); her trusted reader/commentor, Susan Dickinson (1865); her faithful if clueless mentor and editor of The Atlantic Monthly, T. W. Higginson (1876); and a prominent Boston publisher who solicited ED’s poems for a book, Thomas Niles (1883)? She sent Niles at least six poems, including this one, but eventually turned him down.
My hypothesis is that ‘The Wind begun to rock the Grass’ is a unified metaphor for ED’s lifechanging personal experience that began in 1847 with her public refusal to accept Christ as her savior, despite the demands of the head-mistress at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary:
“The Wind begun to rock the Grass
With threatening Tunes and low
He threw a Menace at the Earth –
Another, at the Sky -”
In 1855, after eight years of personal doubt that included urges from her friends and family to accept Jesus, ED heard a charismatic minister in Philadelphia deliver a sermon that captured her head and her heart. She felt as if
“The Leaves unhooked themselves from Trees
And started all abroad
The Dust did scoop itself like Hands
And throw away the Road-
The Wagons quickened on the streets
The Thunder hurried slow –
The Lightning showed a yellow Beak
And then a livid Claw -”
After she returned to Amherst from Philadelphia, ED tried to resist:
“The Birds put up the Bars to Nests
The Cattle clung to Barns”
Then she allowed herself one note to Reverend Charles Wadsworth, perhaps complimenting his sermon and seeking his advice about helping her mother, who was rapidly becoming an invalid. His pastoral response struck a chord. She sent a second note,
“Then came one Drop of Giant Rain
And then as if the Hands
That held the Dams, had parted hold,
The Waters wrecked the Sky”
His pastorally appropriate replies and her responses continued, becoming more EDishly quirky. Finally, he sent her the one surviving letter we have from their correspondence:
“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 –”
That final “Yours” was underlined. How did ED interpret the underline? And why didn’t Wadsworth sign the letter with his name?
ED’s correspondence with friends confirms that sometime before 1860, ED invited Wadsworth to take the twelve-mile train trip from Northampton, MA, to her home the next time he visited his best friend, James D, Clark, who lived there. During summer 1860, he did visit, but ED had to minimize her family’s knowledge of her burgeoning relationship with Wadsworth:
“But overlooked my Father’s House –
Just Quartering a Tree –”
That capitalized “Quartered Tree” was ED.
During the following five years, 1861-1865, ED composed 937 poems, a maniacal rate of one poem every two days for five straight years and more than half her lifetime total of 1789 poems.
I rest my case.
