All Poems

870.1864. None can experience stint

None can experience stint
Who Bounty- have not known –
The fact of Famine – could not be
Except for Fact of Corn –

Want – is a meagre Art
Acquired by Reverse –
The Poverty that was not Wealth –
Cannot be Indigence
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My interpretation, with ED’s alternative phrases in {curly brackets}:

Stanza 1.

None can experience stint
Who Bounty- have not known –
The fact of Famine – could not be      {Nor fact of Famine could exist -}
Except for Fact of Corn –

S1.

Stanza 1 is two couplets, each saying you can’t know poverty unless you’ve been rich. Poverty and wealth are relative to your awareness of others’ worth.

 

Stanza 2.

Want – is a meagre Art
Acquired by Reverse
The Poverty that was not Wealth –      {It is that Poverty was Wealth -}
Cannot be Indigence –                                {Enables Indigence -}

S2.

Stanza 2 also is two couplets, each saying poverty and wealth are relative to your awareness of others’ worth, but ED gives us alternatives for Lines 7-8:

S2A.

Being poor without knowing it cannot be indigence.

S2B.

Being poor after being wealthy enables indigence.

Seems to me that S2B isn’t universally true.

869.1864.What I see not, I better see –

What I see not, I better see—
Through Faith—my Hazel Eye
Has periods of shutting—
But, No lid has Memory—

For frequent, all my sense obscured
I equally behold
As someone held a light unto
The Features so beloved—-

And I arise—and in my Dream—
Do Thee distinguished Grace—
Till jealous Daylight interrupt—
And mar thy perfectness—
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My interpretation, ED’s alternate words in {curly brackets}; [square brackets] are mine:

Stanza 1.

 

What {When} I see not, I better see –
Through Faith -My Hazel Eye
Has periods of shutting –
But, No lid has Memory-

S1.

What I can’t see with my hazel eye, I see better through faith because my hazel eye has periods of shutting, but my faith eye has no lid blocking memories.

 

Stanza 2.

For frequent {often}, all my sense obscured
I equally behold
As some one held a light unto {opon}
The Features so beloved –

S2.

For frequently, when my physical senses fail, I see you equally well, with all the features I so belove, as if someone held a light on them.

 

Stanza 3

And I arise – and in my Dream –
Do Thee distinguished Grace –
Till jealous Daylight interrupt—
And mar thy perfectness—

S3.

I awake and recall my dream, which you [Thee] distinguished with your grace, till jealous daylight interrupts and mars your [thy] perfectness.
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I think “Thee” [Line 10] is Charles Wadsworth, who shares capitalized pronouns with God in ED’s poems. Context [Line 8] rules out God as “Thee”. However, note that ED uses lowercase “thy” in Line 12.
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ED’s manuscript shows that she did not break Stanza 2, an octet, into two quartets (Franklin 1998), but the first bona fide editor of this poem (Johnson 1955) took that liberty. Subsequent publications, including Adam DeGraff’s blog,  ‘The Prowling Bee’ , and this blog, ‘ED-LarryB’, have followed Johnson’s lead.
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This poem, F869, 1864, ‘What I see not, I better see –’, exhibits a change in ED’s religious attitude from agnosticism to a belief of her own liking:

In F866, 1864, ‘This Dust, and its Feature—’, she described “This Dust”, “This Mind”, and “This World” as insignificant in a “second Future”. These statements are not agnostic. Rather, they serve as bones for ED’s emerging religion, which, unlike Judaism or Christianity, is “too concluded . . for its absorbed attention’s remotest scrutiny—” of physical reality: “This Dust”, “This Mind”, and “This World”.
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868.1864. Fairer through Fading – as the Day

Fairer through Fading — as the Day
Into the Darkness dips away —
Half Her Complexion of the Sun —
Hindering — Haunting — Perishing —

Rallies Her Glow, like a dying Friend —
Teasing with glittering Amend —
Only to aggravate the Dark
Through an expiring — perfect — look —
………………………………………………………………….

My interpretation:

Stanza 1.

Fairer through Fading — as the Day
Into the Darkness dips away —
Half Her Complexion of the Sun —
Hindering — Haunting — Perishing —

S1.

The fading sky grows fairer as day dips into darkness. Half her color is the complexion of the Sun, which hinders her death and haunts us as she perishes.

 

Stanza 2.

Rallies Her Glow, like a dying Friend —
Teasing with glittering Amend —
Only to aggravate the Dark
Through an expiring — perfect — look —

S2.

Like a dying friend, she rallies her glow, teasing us with glittering gilt, if only to aggravate death with one last perfect complexion as she dies.
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At times, I’ve noticed sunset give one perfect last complexion as she drops into darkness, and, at times, I’ve noticed sunrise give one perfect first complexion as she rises from the dark. Both moments reaffirm for me that life is worth living. How about you?

867.1864.I felt a Cleaving in my Mind –

I felt a Cleaving in my Mind –
As if my Brain had split –
I tried to match it – Seam by Seam –
But could not make them fit.

The thought behind, I strove to join
Unto the thought before –
But Sequence raveled out of Sound
Like Balls – upon a Floor.
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My interpretation:

Where was I? I lost my train of thought and can’t remember what I was going to say. Must not have been important.

866.1864.This Dust, and its Feature—

This Dust, and its Feature—
Accredited—Today—
Will in a second Future—
Cease to identify—

This Mind, and its measure—
A too minute Area
For its enlarged inspection’s
Comparison—appear—

This World, and its species
A too concluded show
For its absorbed Attention’s
Remotest scrutiny—
………………………………………………………………………..

My interpretation, with ED’s alternate words {in curly brackets}:

Stanza 1

This Dust, and its Feature—
Accredited—Today—
Will in a second Future {Being}—
Cease to identify—

S1.

In afterlife, this body, with all its features, identifiable today, will cease to be recognizable.

Stanza 2.

This Mind, and its measure—
A too minute Area
For its enlarged inspection’s
Comparison—appear—

S2

In afterlife, this mind, with all its poetry, will in afterlife appear tiny compared to its enlarged area.

Stanza 3.

This World, and its species {Nations; Fashions; symbols; standards}
A too concluded show
For its absorbed Attention’s
Remotest scrutiny—

S3.

In afterlife, this world, and all its species, will be a too concluded performance for absorbed attention or remotest scrutiny.
……………………………………………………………………….

If ED really believed these three stanzas in 1864, then she had abandoned agnosticism for a religion, albeit a religion “too concluded . . for its absorbed attention’s remotest scrutiny—”.
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Simple, no?  Well, here’s the invited explication on ‘The Prowling Bee’:

We are living in the era of the rise of what are known as the “large language models,” or LLMs. In this context, one might think of Dickinson’s poems, and this poem in particular, as a miniature language model. Though known as one of the foundational lyricists of the American tradition, Dickinson was also a technician; her hymnlike verses can be analyzed as spiritual machines.

In 2017, a group of eight technical researchers published a seminal paper in the field of deep learning titled “Attention Is All You Need.” In the paper, they introduced the transformer, a piece of technical architecture that made the modern incarnation of artificial intelligence possible. The etymology of the word “attention,” which appears in line 11 of Fr866, is worth considering here: from the Latin tendere, it means to reach for, to stretch or extend. Language itself is a tool for such extension; the M-dash, in the
Dickinsonian context, a kind of reaching for, or stretching toward, a phrase.

Latinate words are notably spatial, constructed as they often are of directional affixes and roots. As with “Attention,” the word “Accredited,” in line two of the poem, from the Latin credere, also implies a kind of reaching or extension, in this case of credit outward (ac-). “This Dust, and its Feature—” writes Dickinson in the first of the poem’s three stanzas,

Accredited—Today—
Will in a second Future—
Cease to identify—

The “Dust” in this case might be dust on a piece of furniture, or dust motes floating in the sunlight, or possibly even the dust – composed of sloughed off skin cells or grime – layered on a woman’s skin. One thinks of the expression “dust to dust.” “Dust” in this instance implies mortality, the ephemeral flesh; that which is “Accredited” – as in extended credence, a kind of credit – in the moment, but which will, in due time, “cease to identify,” to exist. What was once a “Future” inexorably transforms into a present; what was expansively alive will become dead. The credit – of life, love, time – will no longer be extended.

In the second stanza of the poem, Dickinson takes us from “This Dust” to “This Mind” – from the material flesh to the seat of cognition and awareness:

This Mind, and its measure—
A too minute Area
For its enlarged inspection’s
Comparison—appear

Here, once again, the poem becomes spatial – literally an “area,” and a measurable one at that. This area is “too minute,” too small to accommodate the “enlarged inspection’s/ Comparison.” As with “Attention” and “Accredited,” the word “inspection” is Latinate, from the root specere, which means to look, a looking into or inside (the prefix in-). Whereas “This Dust, and its Feature” were accredited, extended outward into the material body and into time, “This Mind, and its measure” try to extend inward; but, alas, its “Area” is “too minute,” not big enough. The divine mystery – of consciousness and its desire to in-spect, or look into, itself – cannot find adequate accommodation in the “measure” of the “Mind.” To return to the analogy with LLMs introduced at the beginning of this commentary, the “measure” of the material mind doesn’t scale, its processing power is inadequate to the task of full spiritual self-awareness.

In the third and final stanza of the poem, Dickinson pans out from the interior inspections of the Mind to the expansive vista of “This World” and “its species.” Here, one might imagine a kind of pastoral scene, of animals and plants – also material, a permutation of this “Dust” – grazing and gamboling along the countryside. Who or what made “This World,” full as it is of material, kinetic life? As with so many of Dickinson’s poems, a sense of divine mystery pervades. The poem functions as both a prayer and paean – a Platonic love poem addressed to a Creator. This Creator, unnamed here, is the locus of a remote, “absorbed Attention” that wishes to “scrutinize,” to inspect “This World.” But alas, “This World” is “too concluded,” too disappointingly finite.

Dickinson’s poetics are preternaturally algorithmic. One might describe her poems as linguistic equations, studded as they are by the quantitative dash. But there is a tragedy inherent in Dickinson’s intentionally composed poems – they seem to promise a summation, a kind of balance or totality, and yet there is always an unsettling remainder, an inability to tally the metaphysical reality. The flesh, including the mind and its cognition, is simply not equipped to make sense of the material context in which it finds itself, no matter how strenuously it extends itself outward or attends. Attention in this case – even that of a writer as sensitive and attuned to the subtleties of language as Dickinson – is simply not enough, or possibly too much.

-Katy Lederer

 

 

Adam, In your explication above, you ask:

“Could “mound” be a slant allusion to pregnancy? Has the narrator, the dead living woman, somehow hindered a pregnancy, or had her pregnancy hindered?”

Emily Dickinson herself answered your question in the two variants of F295: Variant A is a prayer to Christ, and Variant B is a prayer to God the Father:

295A.1862. Savior! I’ve no one else to tell –

Savior! I’ve no one else to tell –
And so I trouble thee.
I am the one forgot thee so –
Dost thou remember me?
Nor, for myself, I came so far –
That were the little load –
I brought thee the imperial Heart
I had not strength to hold –
The Heart I carried in my own –
Till mine too heavy grew –
Yet – strangest – heavier since it went –
Is it too large for you?

I think F295A is ED’s confession that her pregnancy [mound] miscarried, and she’s asking Christ to accept her baby into Heaven, even if she is not accepted.

295B.1862. Father – I bring thee – not myself –

Father – I bring thee – not myself –
That were the little load
I bring thee the departed Heart
I had not strength to hold

The Heart I cherished in my own
Till mine – too heavy grew –
Yet – strangest – heavier – since it went –
Is it too large for you?

I think Variant B is also a prayer, this one to God the Father, to accept her dead baby into Heaven.

1314C.1874.Because that you are going

Because that you are going
And never coming back
And I, however absolute
May overlook your Track –

Because that Death is final,
However first it be
This instant be suspended
Above Mortality.

Significance that each has lived
The other to detect
Discovery not God himself
Could now annihilate

 Eternity, Presumption
The instant I perceive
That you, who were Existence
Yourself forgot to live

The “Life that is” will then have been
A Thing I never knew
As Paradise fictitious
Until the Realm of you –

The “Life that is to be,” to me,
A Residence too plain
Unless in my Redeemer’s Face
I recognize your own.

Of Immortality who doubts
He may exchange with me
Curtailed by your obscuring Face
Of Everything but He –

 Of Heaven and Hell I also yield
The Right to reprehend
To whoso would commute this Face
For his less priceless Friend.

If “God is Love” as he admits
We think that he must be
Because he is a “jealous God”
He tells us certainly

If “All is possible with” him
As he besides concedes
He will refund us finally
Our confiscated Gods –
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Dickinson created three variants of this poem. I interpret the third, Variant C (above), which she sent to Higginson in January 1874.

My biographical interpretation of F1314C, with ED’s words in italics and my edits in [brackets]. [CW] is Charles Wadsworth:

Stanza 1.

Because that you are going
And never coming back
And I, however absolute
May overlook your Track –

S1.

Because you [CW] are going [to San Francisco] and never coming back, and I, however absolute [as to why], may overlook your [reasons] – . . . [Stanza 1 and 2 are enjambed.]

 

Stanza 2

Because that Death is final,
However first it be
This instant be suspended
Above Mortality.

S2.

Because that death is final, however [true] it be, [may] this [parting] instant [moment] be suspended above mortality [last forever].

 

Stanza 3

Significance that each has lived
The other to detect
Discovery not God himself
Could now annihilate

S3.

[The] significance [is] that each [of us] has lived, the other to detect, [a] discovery not God himself could now annihilate.

 

Stanza 4

Eternity, Presumption
The instant I perceive
That you, who were Existence
Yourself forgot to live

S4.

[Whether our finding each other will last for an] Eternity [is a] Presumption. The instant I perceive that you, yourself, who were existence [to me] forgot to live [during that moment of parting, then . . . ] [Stanza 4-6 are enjambed.]

Stanza 5

The “Life that is” will then have been
A Thing I never knew
As Paradise fictitious
Until the Realm of you –

S5

The “Life that is” will then have been a thing I never knew, as fictitious as paradise, until [I entered] the realm of you. [Stanza 4-6 are enjambed.]

Stanza 6

The “Life that is to be,” to me,
A Residence too plain
Unless in my Redeemer’s Face
I recognize your own.

S6.

[And Heaven,] the “Life that is to be,” [will be] to me, a residence too plain unless in my Redeemer’s face [Christ’s face] I recognize your own.

 

Stanza 7

Of Immortality who doubts
He may exchange with me
Curtailed by your obscuring Face
Of Everything but He –

S7.

Of Immortality, who doubts He [CW] may [gladly] exchange with me, curtailed by your [Christ’s] obscuring face of everything but He –[CW]

 

 Stanza 8

Of Heaven and Hell I also yield
The Right to reprehend
To whoso would commute this Face
For his less priceless Friend.

S8.

Of Heaven and Hell, I also yield the right to reprehend to whoso would commute this face [CW’s] for his less priceless Friend [ED].

 

Stanza 9

If “God is Love” as he admits
We think that he must be
Because he is a “jealous God”
He tells us certainly

S9.

If “God is Love” as he [CW] admits, we [ED] think that he [New Testament God] must be because he [Old Testament God] is a “jealous God”, He [CW] tells us certainly.

 

Stanza 10

If “All is possible with” him
As he besides concedes
He will refund us finally
Our confiscated Gods –

S10.

If “All is possible with” him [God], as he [CW] besides concedes, He [God] will refund us finally our confiscated Gods – [CW returned to Philadelphia in 1869 but apparently had not contacted ED by 1874.]
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Note 1: The last word of Stanza 7 in Variant C, “He”, was not capitalized in Variants A & B. Apparently, ED changed lowercase “he” to capitalized “He” in Variant C to indicate she reveres CW as much as or more than God.

Note 2: In Stanza 9, ED has apparently demoted both “New Testament God” and “Old Testament God” to a lowercase “he”, which may indicate that she reveres CW more than she reveres God.
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In 1879, ED [Gethsemane] composed a disguised poem, F1485, ‘Spurn the temerity’, asking Wadsworth [Calvary] how he was after 19 years of silence (1860-1879):

Spurn the temerity –
Rashness of Calvary –
Gay were Gethsemane
Knew we of thee –

Apparently, ED sent the poem to Wadsworth who took her poem as an invitation to visit because he arrived unannounced at her front door in 1880. No doubt, after the 20-year hiatus, the maturer twosome spent an afternoon strolling down memory lane.

In an 1886 letter, JL1040, written to Charles Clark one month before her death, ED described Wadsworth’s visit in endearing terms:

“. . . . . The last time he came in Life [summer 1880], I was with my Lilies and Heliotropes, said my Sister to me, “the Gentleman with the deep voice wants to see you, Emily,” hearing him ask of the Servant. “Where did you come from,” I said, for he spoke like an Apparition.

“I stepped from my Pulpit [an invited sermon in Northampton, MA, 12 miles from Amherst] to the Train” was [his] simple reply, and when I asked “how long”, “Twenty Years” said he with inscrutable roguery – but the loved Voice has ceased . . . “.
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