ED-LarryB

Four Trees — upon a solitary Acre —
Without Design
Or Order, or Apparent Action —
Maintain —

The Sun — upon a Morning meets them —
The Wind —
No nearer Neighbor—have they —
But God —

The Acre gives them — Place —
They — Him — Attention of Passer by —
Of Shadow, or of Squirrel, haply —
Or Boy —

What Deed is Theirs unto the General Nature —
What Plan
They severally — retard — or further —
Unknown —

Once each decade for 40 years (1976-2016), I censused a small population (~200) of Table Mountain Pines growing on a few xeric acres of the western shoulder of a basalt monadnock in western North Carolina, Looking Glass Rock. During the first census in 1976, I established an X-Y coordinate map of each tree/sapling, gave it an ID number, e.g., 2-17-0 (photo above), and photographed its location on the exposed basalt. I measured each individual’s height, diameter, and soil depth, although most were growing in cracks of the rock, and noted its apparent health: poor, average, robust. During the next four censuses, 1986, 1996, 2006, and 2016, I remeasured each survivor, added new seedlings, and noted deaths. Over time, I came to think of each tree as a friend, tough and fragile as you and I. As you might imagine, ED’s poem, “Four Trees”, instantly awakened memories (Barden 1977, 1988, 2000, 2020).

Barden.1977.Self-Maintaining Populations of Pinus Pungens Lam. in the Southern Appalachian Mountains. Castanea 42: 316-323.
——.1998.Drought and Survival in a Self-perpetuating Pinus pungens Population: Equilibrium or Nonequilibrium?. The American Midland Naturalist 119: 253-257.
——.2000.Population Maintenance of Pinus pungens Lam. (Table Mountain Pine) After a Century
Without Fire. Natural Areas Journal 20:227-231.
—— and Costa. 2020. Four Decades of Table Mountain Pine Demography on Looking Glass Rock. Castanea 85(1): 23–32.

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No surprise, I think “Him” in Stanza 3 refers to “Acre”, not “God” (atheist speaking). ED constantly amazes me by her apparent flip-flopping between atheism and deism, but does she ever really flip-flop? Sherwood (1968) suggests ED’s opinion of God may shift wildly from poem-to-poem, but she was never an atheist:

“The Emily Dickinson revealed in her works is complex and inconsistent, often contradictory, moving from ecstasy to desperation, from a fervent faith to a deep suspicion and skepticism, from humility and submissiveness to defiance and scorn. She is blasphemous as often as devout, and in her poetry God is accused of petty vindictiveness and cold indifference as often as He is celebrated for benevolence or admired for His majesty.” (Sherwood, W.R., Circumference and Circumstance. 1968. p 3.)”

…………………………………

This 1863 poem asks: Do these Four Trees have a God-given purpose, or are they simply Darwinian descendants of an unknown primordial entity (a self-replicating molecule) whose origin will eventually be understood, or not, by science)?:

“What Deed is Theirs unto the General Nature —
What Plan
They severally — retard — or further —
Unknown —”

That ED had read, or read about, Darwin’s new book, ‘On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life’. (Published 24 November 1859) can be answered with near certainty. She, Austin, and Edward eagerly read each issue of The Atlantic Monthly cover-to-cover. The July, August, and October 1860 issues contained a serialized, 11,000-word review of Darwin’s book by America’s leading botanist, Harvard’s Asa Gray. Teen-age ED had created a professional-quality set of herbarium specimens that would make any botanist proud, and the 29-year-old ED would have devoured Gray’s essay.
………………………………………..

I prefer ED’s alternate phrase in Line 15:

What Plan
They severally — promote — or hinder —
Unknown —”

777.1864.Life, and Death, and Giants—

 No alternate words.

 Life, and Death, and Giants—
Such as These—are still—
Minor—Apparatus—
Hopper of the Mill—
Beetle at the Candle—
Or a Fife’s Fame—
Maintain—by Accident
that they proclaim—

Could ED be riffing on Romans 8:38-9?:

“For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Gatta 2009).

By 1864 ED was well aware of Darwin’s theory of evolution (‘Origin of Species’, 1859). However, when she says “Minor—Apparatus—” are maintained by accident “that they proclaim”, she may be repeating claims by “they” (creationists?) that Darwin believed species, including humans, evolved simply by accident.

ED’s closing pronoun “they” (Line 8) may grammatically refer to “Hopper, Beetle, and Fife”, but it could easily also refer to scientists. No modern scientist would attribute the proximal causes of natural selection to “accident”; distal causes are another matter.

Perhaps some exuberant scientists of ED’s day proclaimed species exist by pure accident, but natural selection is no accident. It is true that genetic mutations are random, but survival of those mutations isn’t random, nor are today’s species simply “accidents”, as Lines 7-8 suggest.

Rather, eons of winnowing, both biotic and abiotic, extinguished far more species than exist on Earth today. It is no accident that “warm-blooded” mammals and birds replaced “cold-blooded” reptiles that dominated before a massive meteorite struck Earth 63 million years ago, creating a global climate too cold for too long for most large reptile species to persist.

Was that meteorite an accident? Yes, but species survived by no accident, rather by possessing inherited traits enabling their survival. Their ancestors had survived gauntlets that genetically prepared their offspring to inherit the devastated Earth. Of course, ED had no knowledge of scientific advances during the 150+ years since her death, just as we possess no knowledge of advances of the next 150 years. What we do know is that in 2175 AD there will still be new evolution questions to answer.

PS. ED knew her Latin well (F2, “Sic transit gloria mundi”), probably to the depth of fourth-declension-noun plurals such as “apparatus”. Google AI, for whatever it’s worth, tells me the plural of “apparatus” is spelled identically, but the third “a” is pronounced long, as in “curator”. ED did not share that obscure Latin grammar with us 2025 readers, probably assuming our modern educational apparatus would be equal to hers. Anywho, it really helps this nerdy reader enjoy ‘Life, and Death, and Giants —’ more when plural “apparatus” is pronounced with a long third ” a”.

Della Gatta, Carla. 2009. Performing for God and “Maintain”ing In His Absence.
Pennsylvania Liteary Journal 1(1): 52-62

Drama’s Vitallest Expression
is the Common Day
That arise and set about Us—
Other Tragedy

Perish in the Recitation—
This—the best enact
When the Audience is scattered
And the Boxes shut—

“Hamlet” to Himself were Hamlet—
Had not Shakespeare wrote—
Though the “Romeo” left no Record
Of his Juliet,

It were infinite enacted
In the Human Heart—
Only Theatre recorded
Owner cannot shut—

For me, Stanzas 1-2 translate as a single enjambed eight-line stanza (octave or octastich):

“Life’s most Dependable Event
Is the Common Day.
Defined by sunrise and sunset,
Everything else vanishes,
Like actors on a stage.
The Common Day enacts its best scenes
When we aren’t watching,
Our box seats empty.”

Stanza 3:

ED may have known or not known that Shakespeare based his stage play, ‘Hamlet’, on Saxo Grammaticus’s (c. 1150 – c. 1220) ‘Gesta Danorum’, Books 3 and 4, where a legendary Scandinavian prince, Amleth, feigned madness and murdered his uncle. As with most legendary heroes, there may have been one or more real human “legend-seeds”. ED’s point is that that each actual human “legend-seed” was someone who, during their lives, knew he/she existed, even though we have no physical evidence of their existence. To quote René Descartes, “Cogito, ergo sum”, “I think, therefore I am”.

Stanza 4:

“If that legend-seed’s exact life story
Were recorded in his/her Heart,
Only a theatrical script could tell the tale.
The seed itself could not shut down its own legend.”
……………………..

Neither EDLex nor OED recognizes “vitallest” as an English word, but EDLex does define “vitalless”: “Dead; lifeless; limp; impotent; powerless; very weak; unable to provide energy; not able to recover; [fig.] ineffective; not motivating.” Nevertheless, ED’s invented comparative communicates the opposite of “lifeless” to me. She used the word “vitallest” only once in all her 1789 known poems.

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We have an actual letter from Wadsworth to ED, expressing concern over her health, so their “relationship” was not “purported”. What is purported is the exact nature of that relationship. We have circumstantial evidence in poem after poem that “Master” was, in ED’s mind, a romantic interest, sexual or not, that lasted several years. What ED was in Wadsworth’s mind was probably a completely different story, which fits perfectly as an example of ED’s point in this poem, don’t you think?

We also have lots of circumstantial evidence that Wadsworth was “Master”, and, more importantly, in all her poems and letters or elsewhere, we have no actual evidence to prove that Wadsworth was not “Master”. That cannot be said for any other candidate.

I know, absence of actual proof is not proof of the contrary, but if it quacks like a duck ….

You taught me Waiting with Myself—
Appointment strictly kept—
You taught me fortitude of Fate—
This—also—I have learnt—

The Heaven you know—to understand
That you be not ashamed
Of Me—in Christ’s bright Audience
Upon the further Hand—

Adam DeGraff, blogmeister of ‘The Prowling Bee’, wrote a stunning explication of this poem, F774. For a real treat, visit this poem at TPB: (https://bloggingdickinson.blogspot.com/2025/02/you-taught-me-waiting-with-myself.html).

Adam’s layer by layer excavation defies imitation. For example, Adam suspects “you” is Sue, and Lines 9-11 confirm this:

“. . . . to understand
That you be not ashamed
Of Me—  . . . .”

Why Sue would be ashamed of ED, at least in ED’s opinion, requires a little biographic history:

During their late teens and early 20s, ED and Sue shared an unusually close friendship, at least by 2025 standards. That it included romantic love, at least on ED’s part, is clear from her letters to Sue. Whether Sue felt romance is unclear, but many well informed modern fans of ED’s poetry think the relationship was lesbian, possibly including physical intimacy.

However, Sue was an orphan and had to find financial support. She majored in mathematics at Utica Female Academy and secured a job teaching math in Baltimore during the 1851-1852 academic year. During that time Emily experienced extreme loneliness and horrible separation anxiety, which was exacerbated by Sue’s infrequent responses to ED’s daily letters.

Sue disliked teaching and didn’t renew her contract after she returned to Amherst. Predictably, she visited the Dickinson ‘Homestead’ frequently, and, also predictably, this led to her courtship and marriage with ED’s older brother, Austin, a recent graduate of Harvard Law School. As a wedding present to the couple, Austin’s father and employer, Edward Dickinson, built a stylish two-storied mansion, ‘Evergreen’, next door to ‘Homestead.

There, Sue loved to host soirees for Amherst’s leading lights and distinguished visitors. At first Sue invited ED, but for unstated reasons soon stopped. My guess is that ED hated chit-chat and was prone to conversations as obscure as her poetry. These uninvitations became banishment, either mutual or unilateral, about the time ED composed this poem. This physical alienation continued until the 1883 death of Sue’s youngest child, 6-year-old Gilbert (Gib), who died of typhoid fever after wading with a friend in a town pond contained sewage. That banishment is what ED refers to in Lines 9-10.

Fortunately for us, during those two decades, ED and Sue communicated frequently by mailed letters or notes carried across the 100-yard meadow between the houses. Their correspondence consisted not only of poems by ED and editorial comments by Sue, but also included friend-to-friend thoughts and feelings of both women.

Variant A. Sent to Sue; signed Emily; Lines 1-10 (first leaf) missing.
(ED’s alternative words in parentheses)

Nor Myself to Him, by accent
Forfeit probity.
Weariness of Him, were quainter
Than Monotony
Knew a particle, of Space’s
Vast society –
Neither if He visit other –
Do He dwell or nay
Know I – just (But) instinct esteem Him
Immortality

Variant B

Conscious am I in my Chamber –
Of a shapeless friend –
He doth not attest by Posture –
Nor confirm – by Word –

Neither Place – need I present Him –
Fitter Courtesy
Hospitable intuition
Of His Company –

Presence – is His furthest license –
Neither He to Me
Nor Myself to Him – by Accent –
Forfeit Probity

Weariness of Him, were quainter
Than Monotony
Knew a Particle – of
Space’s Vast Society –

Neither if He visit Other –
Do He dwell – or Nay – know I-
But Instinct esteem Him (Report Him)
Immortality –

ED’s alternative words in parentheses. I prefer “Spiceless Sepulchre” in Line 8 because it more directly implies death/tomb than “Ceaseless Rosemary”:

Essential Oils – are wrung –
The Attar from the Rose
Be (Is) not expressed by Suns – alone –
It is the gift of Screws –

The General Rose – decay –
But (While) this – in Lady’s Drawer Make Summer –
When the Lady lie
In Ceaseless Rosemary (Spiceless Sepulchre) –

A two-sentence prose interpretation:

Great poems, like attar from the rose, are not composed by inspiration alone; they are the gift of pain and toil.

Ordinary poems die young, but great poems shed warm light when their poet lies in eternal sleep.

‘Essential Oils’ is probably about ED’s favorite poet, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who died in 1861, two years before ED copies this poem into Fascicle 34.