ED-LarryB

An interpretation (ED’s alternate words in parentheses) [LarryB’s comments in brackets]:

I think To Live – may be a Bliss (Life)
To those who dare (allowed) to try –
[But it’s] Beyond my limit – to conceive –
[Or] My lip – to testify –

I think the [pre-Wadsworth] Heart I former wore
Could widen – till to me
The Other [My pre-Wadsworth Heart], like the little Bank
Appear – unto the Sea –

I think the Days – could every one
In Ordination stand –
And Majesty – be easier –
Than an inferior kind –

No numb alarm – lest Difference come –
No Goblin – on the Bloom –
No start (click) in Apprehension’s Ear,
No Bankruptcy- (Sepulchre, Wilderness) no Doom –

But Certainties of Sun (Noon) –
Midsummer (Meridian) – in the Mind –
A steadfast South – upon the Soul –
Her Polar time (Night) – behind –

The Vision – pondered long –
So plausible (tangible, positive) becomes
That I esteem the fiction – real (true) –
The Real (Truth) – fictitious seems –

How bountiful the Dream –
What Plenty – it would be
Had all my Life but been (been one) Mistake (bleak?)
Just rectified (qualified) – in Thee

Fifteen alternate words in one short poem suggests ED struggled with F757.

David Preest [2014, p.217, F757] quotes Judith Farr, with whose prose interpretation I agree. (Parentheses by Farr) [Brackets by LarryB]:

“[W]e take the ‘Thee’ [Line 28] to be that beloved master [Charles Wadsworth] whom Emily could not marry. She would then be saying: ‘I think to live with you would be a bliss if we dared to try it. (‘allowed’ is a significant [alternative] word for ‘who dare’ in Line 2). Each day would be counted as a special day like a Saint’s day, and it would be easier to feel like a king than a commoner. I would never start apprehensively through hearing some bad news, but my life would be ‘Certainties of Sun.’

“I have imagined this life so often that it seems more real than the reality of your absence. How bountiful would be that dream, if it came true and all my past life were some mistake, now put right by you coming to live with me.”

ED’s dream sounds like a serious case of would’a-could’a-should’a-been.

A second, more compact interpretation, stanza by stanza:

For daring few who risk it all, life may be a bliss,
But I couldn’t imagine or describe such strength.

Since I met you, my kitten’s heart grows fierce
Now that kitten seems a lion to those who see.

I think my days could rank timid to brave
And courage easier than cowardice.

No frozen fear would father doubt, no hex halt our way
No sudden sound apprehend, no bankrupt doom block us

Only Certainties of Sun, Midsummer in the Mind –
A steady south wind blow our way, leaving frozen night behind

My long-longed heaven feels so close
My fiction seems so true, my truth so false.

How bountiful my dream, what plenty it would be
If my whole life had been mistake, just rectified by you.

ED’s three alternate words (Line 11) in parentheses

Bereavement in their death to feel
Whom We have never seen –
A Vital Kinsmanship import
Our Soul and theirs – between

For Stranger – Strangers do not mourn –
There be Immortal friends
Whom Death see first – ’tis news of this
That paralyze Ourselves –

Who – vital only to Our Thought –
Such Presence bear away
In dying – ’tis as if Our souls (World – • selves – • Sun -)
Absconded – suddenly –

• EDLex defines “import” (Line 3) as “communicate”.
• “Who” (Line 9) refers to “friends” (Line 6).
• ED’s “souls” (Line 11) sounds better than her alternates.

The poem’s final stanza convinces me that David Preest, Jane Eberwein, and Adam DeGraph (TPB) got close to ED’s intention:

“Jane Donahue Eberwein suggests that this may be another poem referring to the death of Elizabeth Barrett Browning [1806-1861], like poems [F600, F627, & F637]. When Emily hears of Mrs Browning’s death, she is not mourning for a stranger, but for someone she had a soul ‘kinsmanship’ with when she read her poems. Mrs Browning’s ‘vitality’ may only have been present to Emily’s ‘Thought,’ but, when she heard that Mrs Browning had become immortal through death, she was paralysed, for such a ‘Presence’ had left this world that it was almost as though Emily’s own soul had fled.” [Preest 2014,]

• David Preest. 2014. ‘Emily Dickinson: Notes on All Her Poems’, p. 217 of 672 pp.

754.1863.Let Us play Yesterday

Before leaping into my interpretation of this poem, here is Preest’s (2014) comment:

“In her second letter to Thomas Higginson (L261), written in April 1862, Emily had said, ‘For several years, my Lexicon – was my only companion.’

“Like poem 299 [F418] this poem describes how the arrival of Sue awoke Emily to a new life and to riches she had not known before. Emily says to Sue in effect:

“Let’s imagine the time before your arrival when ‘You _ and Eternity’ were not part of my life. I did feel a hunger and thirst for something different, and tried to appease them by studying language and numbers. But in my dreams I would see the colours of morning, the reds of sexuality. I was still imprisoned in my egg, but you came and broke (= troubled) the ellipse of my shell, and I, a fledgling Bird, fell out from it. (Lines 1–16)

“I forgot my manacles, as the newly freed always do. Liberty, my last thought at night and my first at waking, would never be as common as it was to me then. (Lines 17–24)

“And now? I cannot return to my previous Bonds, any more than the Lark can ‘resume the Shell’ once it has known the easier freedom of the sky. Now that I have tasted the freedom of your love, my prison would ‘sorer grate’ if I was doomed anew to it. I can only pray to the God of everything not to take my liberty from me. (Lines 25–36)”.  (Preest 2014)

ED and Sue attended Amherst Academy together during academic year 1846–1847, when they were 15/16 years old. This poem seems to tell their story from ED’s viewpoint. Below (left) are ED’s stanzas and (right) my interpretation

Let Us play Yesterday . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Let us play as we did Yesterday
I – the Girl at School – . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .When I was just a girl at school
You – and Eternity – the untold Tale – . . You – and Love – / The untold Tale

Easing my famine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .You eased my famine for love
At my Lexicon – . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .I majored in English
Logarithm – had I – for Drink – . . . . . . . . .Math – had I – for Drink
‘Twas a dry Wine – . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .’Twas a dry Wine –

Somewhat different–must be– . . Something different must have happened
Dreams tint the Sleep – . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Dreams filled my Sleep,
Cunning Reds of Morning . . . . . . . . . . . . .Cunning Reds of Morning
Make the Blind – leap – . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .I made the Blind leap into love

Still at the Egg–life – . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .I was still in the egg stage
Chafing the Shell – . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .But chafing at my shell
When you troubled the Ellipse–. . . . . . . . When you opened my Ellipse
And the Bird fell –. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I fell in love with you –

Manacles be dim – they say –. . . . . .. . My memory of loneliness grew dim,
To the new Free – . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .I felt newly free
Liberty – commoner – . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .This new liberty could
Never could – to me –. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Never feel Common to me.

‘Twas my last gratitude. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . It was my last prayer of thanks
When I slept – at night – . . . . . . . . . . . . . .When I went to sleep at night
‘Twas the first Miracle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .It was my morning Miracle
Let in – with Light –. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Flooding me with Light –

Can the Lark resume the Shell – . . . . . . . Can a lover resume loneliness
Easier – for the Sky –. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . That would be easier for the sky
Wouldn’t Bonds hurt more. . . . . . . . . . . . Wouldn’t loss of love hurt more
Than Yesterday? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Than not knowing it at all?

Wouldn’t Dungeons sorer grate . . . . . . . Wouldn’t Prison grate more
On the Man – free – . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .On a prisoner set free
Just long enough to taste – . . ..  Just long enough to taste the wine of love
Then – doomed new – . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Then doomed to eternal loneliness

God of the Manacle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . God of the unloved
As of the Free – . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . And of the Loved
Take not my Liberty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Take not my Love
Away from Me – . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Away from Me

PS. ED’s handwritten manuscript format for Stanza 1 is a quatrain:

Let Us play Yesterday
I – the Girl at School –
You – and Eternity – the
untold Tale –

but ED’s capitalization indicates a tercet, which her editors have published (above left column). Did ED intend a quatrain?:

Let Us play Yesterday
I – the Girl at School –
You – and Eternity –
The untold Tale –

 

For me, Stanza 1 is the prelude to the “Untold Tale”, and Stanzas 2-9 are the “Untold Tale // Easing my famine”.

753.1863. Grief is a Mouse – An interpretation

My Heart is Grief –
He chooses Ribs of my Breast
For His shy House –
And baffles quest –

My Heart is a Thief, easily startled
He listens carefully for report
From that Vast Dark
That stole His Reason to exist

My Heart is a Juggler, performing clever tricks
To hide His Bruises, One, say, or Many
My Heart feeds on Pain
Allow Him His luxury

My Heart is Tongueless – before He’ll tell –
Burn Him in the Public square –
His Ashes will tell, possibly
If they refuse – You’ll never know –
Since a Rack couldn’t coax a syllable – now

Loss of love by death or separation grieved ED from girlhood. At 13, death of her 15-year-old friend and cousin, Sophia Holland, drove ED into deep depression relieved only by a month of rest and distraction in Boston with her Aunt Lavinia (L11, 28 March 1846). However, her greatest test by grief was in May 1862 when the male love of her life, Rev. Charles Wadsworth, relocated from Arch Street Presbyterian in Philadelphia to a new church, Calvary Presbyterian, in San Francisco.

ED suspected or knew that Wadsworth’s wife was unaware of their correspondence before he visited her in March 1860 in Amherst. For ED, their “friendship” demanded absolute secrecy (Stanza 4) because she feared consequences for them both if Wadsworth’s wife and congregation got wind of it. In addition, Whicher (1938) speculates: “There is . . . . much to lead us to surmise that [Wadsworth] paid Emily a second visit [in 1861]. . . . . . Her poems, . . . . though not to be taken literally, repeatedly emphasize a momentous interview on ”a day at summer’s full”. One protective measure ED took to bypass the gossipy Amherst postmistress was to mail all private letters by-way-of trusted friends in nearby towns for forwarding in cover envelopes (Habegger 2002).

 

PS. Time heals all wounds: “For Emily no passion ever died” (Judith Farr).

• In May 1862, Wadsworth moved to San Francisco.
• In late 1863, ED copied ‘Grief is a Mouse’ into Fascicle 36.
• In July 1869, Wadsworth moved back to Philadelphia.
• In fall 1876, “we have the first evidence of renewed correspondence with Wadsworth” (Habegger 2002, p. 676)
• In 1876: “[T]he most erotic poem composed by Dickinson between 1870 and 1878 [F1405] has been assigned to 1876 [by Franklin].” (Habegger 2002, p. 677):

(F1405, 1876)

“Long Years apart – can make no
Breach a second cannot fill –
Who says the Absence of a Witch
Invalidates his spell?

“The embers of a Thousand Years
Uncovered by the Hand
That fondled them when they were Fire
Will stir and understand”

• In 1879, ED composed a quatrain/invitation (F1485, 1879) that asked Wadsworth to correspond with or visit her in Amherst:

(F1485, 1879)

“Spurn the temerity —
Rashness of Calvary —
Gay were Gethsemane
Knew we of Thee —”

• In summer 1880, without sending an RSVP, Wadsworth showed up at ED’s front door for a Sunday afternoon visit.

For information about ED’s use of codewords for Wadsworth (Calvary) and herself (Gethsemane), see TPB comments:

• F676, 1863, ‘You know that Portrait in the Moon”, comment on February 20, 2024
• F714, 1863, ‘No Man can compass a Despair’, comment on May 12, 2024
• F749, 1863, ‘Where Thou art – that – is Home’, comment on October 22, 2024

Wadsworth returned to Philadelphia in 1869 and preached there until his death in 1882. Before his death, ED’s surviving letters have only one comment about him. Writing the Hollands after their trip to the Philadelphia Centennial [in 1876], Dickinson offered to send them the minister’s Thanksgiving message, ‘God’s Culture’: “The Sermon you failed to hear, I can lend you”. (L695, about January 1877)

“Again and again, the slender evidence as to the identity of the man Dickinson loved points to Wadsworth. Every other known candidate of either sex can be ruled out; he never is. Yet he is never confirmed. The probable explanation is that the love was on her side only, it was a question of feeling and imagination more than action, she covered her tracks well, and the intensely private Wadsworth was equally careful.” (Habegger, 2002)

• Habegger, Alfred. 2002. My Wars Are Laid Away in Books: The Life of Emily Dickinson, Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
• Whicher, George. 1938. ‘This was a Poet: A Critical Biography of Emily Dickinson’, Amherst College; Special edition 1992 by Amherst College with a new Introduction by Richard Sewall, Professor of English Emeritus, Yale University

752.1863.Ah, Teneriffe – Receding Mountain –

David Preest (2014) is franker than usual in his sexual interpretation of Line 7, Variant A, F752, which ED signed and sent to Sue:

“The peak of Teneriffe, in geography a dormant volcano on the largest Canary island, in the poem stands for Sue herself. Just as the mountain of Teneriffe is heedless of the purple sunset displays of nature that take place before her day by day and indeed retreats from them, so Sue is heedless of Emily’s adoration which blazes a hundred yards away unnoticed. Sue is still and unmoved, made of steel, covered in unmeltable ice, with granite thighs that do not open in welcome, not even aware that she and Emily are parted. All Emily can do is to go on kneeling in adoration, and wait for Sue to notice her once more.

“In the [Variant B] version the sexual overtones of [Line 7] are toned down to ‘Eye of Granite – and Ear of Steel.’

“‘Teneriffe’ is a four-syllable word.”

[Get Preest’s closing joke?]

No wonder Sue wrote Lines 6-9 in her 1891 elegy for ED, ‘Minstrel of the Passing Days’ (TPB Comment on F752, July 3, 2024):

“Of all the gaudy shameless tints
That fire the passions of the prince
Strangling vines clasping their Cleopatras
Closer than Antony’s embrace”
_______________________________________________
David Preest, 2014. Emily Dickinson Poems Commentary, pp. 224-225.

For a free copy of Preest’s ED Commentary, go to
https://studylib.net/download/8773657
Click “Not a Robot”, and download PDF.