ED-LarryB

The Veins of other Flowers
The Scarlet Flowers are
Till Nature leisure has for Terms
As “Branch,” and “Jugular.”

We pass, and she abides.
We conjugate Her Skill
While She creates and federates
Without a syllable.

Do you know your birds? Do you know the muscles, bones, and organs of the cat we dissected in Biology lab? What is that wildflower called? When we learn these names, we say we “know” something about nature. ED asserts in these eight lines, we know nothing about nature, about physical reality. If we spoke a different language, those English names would be meaningless, but birds, bones, and wildflowers would be the same, as they were long before humans invented languages.

Our faux knowledge of nature is a symptom of a mindset disease we call anthropocentrism. It’s a disease that explains why we all pump too many fossil CO2 molecules that will gradually reduce quality of life of our grandchildren and much more so their descendants for a thousand generations. With whatever plant and animal species we leave extant when our dark curtains fall, Nature will “create and federate / Without a syllable”.

ED was a prescient poet.

The Definition of Beauty is
That Definition is none—
Of Heaven, easing Analysis,
Since Heaven and He are one.

I read Line 2 as a repetition of Line 1 after a brief pause and Lines 2-3 as enjambed, one continuous sentence with no or, at most, a miniscule pause between “none” and “Of”:

“The Definition of Beauty is . . . ., That Definition is none Of Heaven, easing Analysis, since Heaven and He are one.”

ED tells us the gender of Beauty is male; that and the capitalized “He” immediately identify Beauty as Wadsworth. No need to guess about philosophical interpretations, ED eased our Analysis.

 

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.

795.1864.Truth — is as old as God —

Two variants: Variant A (1864) is a single eight-line stanza and Variant B (1865) is two quatrains, with an alternate word, “Himself”, in Line 6.

I prefer eight-line Variant A and her original phrase in Line 6, “That he”, because of its clarity of meaning:

Truth — is as old as God —
His Twin identity
And will endure as long as He
A Co-Eternity —
And perish on the Day
That he (Himself) is borne away
From Mansion of the Universe
A lifeless Deity.

EDLex defines “Truth” as:

1. Reality; facts; actual state of things.
2. Being; exact accordance with that which is, or has been, or shall be.
3. Wisdom; verity; orthodoxy; real doctrine; sound philosophy; veracious principles; true religious belief.
4. Veracity; purity from falsehood.
5. Fact; principle; essence, as distinguished from an imitation.
6. Sincerity; practice of speaking truth; habitual disposition to speak correct principles.
7. Constancy.
8. Correct opinion.

OED Definitions of “Truth” stretch 38 pages and 8800 words.

“Truth” is an early Old English word and most of the OED definitions are now obsolete. Here are two OED definitions that are not obsolete:

1. Def II.5.c. Understanding of nature or reality; the totality of what is known to be true; knowledge.
2. Def II.6.a. Religious sense: spiritual reality as the subject of revelation or object of faith

Objective “truth” changes with new discoveries in science. In the religious sense, we like to think “truth” doesn’t change, but it does. For example, the Old Testament focuses on God as vengeful; the New Testament on God as loving and forgiving. They can’t both be true.

Clearly, there is no such thing as immutable “Truth”, either in the objective or religious sense. Our problem is deciding whether ED meant “Truth” in a mutable or immutable sense.

My take on this poem is that ED intended the latter, immutable sense, which seems wishful thinking.

An interpretation in one prose paragraph:

God is Truth and Truth is God; their identities are twins. Truth will endure as long as God endures, a co-eternity, and perish on the day that Death carries Wadsworth [lowercase “h” in “he” in Variant A and uppercase “H” in “Himself” in Variant B] away, a lifeless deity, from mansions of the universe [Earth?]

794.1864.From Us She wandered now a Year

ED composed two variants of Fr794, Variant A in 1864 and Variant B in 1865. Variant A had eight lines in a single stanza. Variant B (1865) split the poem into two quatrains and used alternate words in Lines 5 and 8. I much prefer ED’s original Variant A:

From Us She wandered now a Year,
Her tarrying, unknown,
If Wilderness prevent her feet
Or that Ethereal Zone
No Man has seen and lived
We ignorant must be—
We only know what time of Year
We felt the Mystery.

“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function” (F. Scott Fitzgerald. February, 1936. ‘The Crack-Up’. Esquire magazine).

“Dickinson contrasts two possibilities for the deceased: the “Wilderness”, an earthly, physical state, and the “Ethereal Zone”, a supernatural or spiritual realm.” (Google AI).

EDLex defines “Wilderness” as “Emptiness; bleakness; desolation; hollowness”. It defines “Ethereal” as: “Heavenly; celestial; seraphic; of spirit; existing beyond mortality”.

An interpretation of Fr794, in a prose paragraph:

She died a year ago, but we don’t know where she’s lingering. We can’t know whether she’s stumbling in some wilderness or living in Heaven, which no mortal has seen or experienced. We only know that we felt mystified after she died.

PS. The word “Wilderness” brings to mind Luke 4: 1-2:

1. And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness,
2. Being forty days tempted of the devil. And in those days he did eat nothing: and when they were ended, he afterward hungered.

792.1863.So the Eyes accost—and sunder

Two alternate words in parentheses, both of which I prefer

So the Eyes accost—and sunder
In an Audience—
Stamped—occasionally (in instances)—forever—
So may (can) Countenance

Entertain—without addressing
Countenance of One
In a Neighboring Horizon—
Gone—as soon as known—

With apologies to Oscar Hammerstein (South Pacific, 1949):

“Some enchanted evening
You may see a stranger,
You may see a stranger
Across a crowded room
And somehow you know,
You know even then
That somewhere you’ll see her
Again and again.”

Maybe Hammerstein read ED’s poem, ya think?

Hammerstein is inimitable, but Adam DeGraff parses the poem well at The Prowling Bee:

“This encounter is, perhaps, just an anonymous passing-by on the street. Have you had that encounter with someone, a momentary connection, that feels somehow eternal?”

ED outdoes her typical obscurity in ‘Entertain—without addressing’. It helped to use the Emily Dickinson Lexington (EDL) for clues to her meaning, but when that failed, Oxford English Dictionary (OED) saved the day:

Stanza 1
Accost: meet
Sunder: separate
Audience: group of observers
Stamped: (OED) marked
Countenance: Other; Face

Stanza 2

 Entertain: Receive, welcome
Address: Speak to
Neighboring: Adjacent
Horizon: line that terminates the view when extended on the surface of the earth

ED enjambs Line 4 Stanza 1 and Line 5 Stanza 2. The poem’s first editors, Bianci and Hampson (1929, ‘Further Poems’), published the two-quatrain poem as a single eight-line stanza, which makes sense to me.

An enjambed interpretation of ‘So the Eyes accost—and sunder’:

So the Eyes meet — and separate
In a Group of onlookers —
Eyes marked empathic — in instances — forever —.
“So” — “One” Face may

Welcome — without speaking to —
Another Face — Someone empathic —
In a “Neighboring” Universe —
Gone — as soon as known —

For ED, I think that empathic someone was Reverend Charles Wadsworth, who has “Gone” so “soon” to San Francisco, a “Neighboring” but unseen Universe from hers.

791.1863.My Worthiness is all my Doubt —

ED’s alternate words & “Opon” for “Upon” in parentheses

My Worthiness is all my Doubt —
His Merit — all my fear —
Contrasting which, my quality
Do lowlier — appear —

Lest I should insufficient prove (be)
For His beloved Need —
The Chiefest Apprehension
Upon (Opon) my thronging (crowded; happy) Mind —

Tis true — that Deity to stoop
Inherently incline —
For nothing higher than Itself
Itself can rest (lift -; base -) upon —

So I — the undivine abode
Of His Elect Content —
Conform my Soul — as ’twere a Church,
Unto Her Sacrament —

 

Why would ED’s editors suddenly start correcting her delightful misspelling, “Opon” (Line 8), when they have given it a pass in all poems before this one? Given the arbitrary whims of editors, it’s no wonder ED refused to publish her poems.

Stanza 1

I think “His” refers to Reverend Charles Wadsworth: ED’s “fear[s]” that her mental “quality” “Do lowlier – appear” than “His”. ED even admits that her mind could actually “be” “lesser” than Wadsworth’s (“be” is ED’s alternate last word of Line 5). But elsewhere ED claims her mind is equal to any man’s (F301 and F445):

F301, ‘One Year ago—jots what?’, Lines 17-24:

“You said it hurt you—most—
Mine—was an Acorn’s Breast—
And could not know how fondness grew
In Shaggier Vest—
Perhaps—I couldn’t—
But, had you looked in—
A Giant—eye to eye with you, had been—
No Acorn—then—”

F445, ‘They shut me up in Prose —’:

“They shut me up in Prose —
As when a little Girl
They put me in the Closet —
Because they liked me “still” —

“Still! Could themself have peeped —
And seen my Brain – go round –
They night as wise have lodged a Bird
For Treason – in the Pound –

“Himself has but to will
And easy as a Star
Abolish his Captivity —
And laugh — No more have I —”

I think the reason ED uses the word “appear” in F791 is that she knows she a genius equal to or superior to any male. In this regard, it may be worth noting that Lines 1 and 2 are parallel construction:

“My Worthiness is all my Doubt —
His Merit [is]— all my fear —”.

Stanza 2

OED defines “lest” as “A negative particle of intention or purpose, introducing a clause expressing something to be prevented or guarded against”. For me, Stanza 2 translates

“[T]hat I should not insufficient prove
For His beloved Need — [is]
The Chiefest Apprehension
Upon my thronging Mind —”

In ED’s poems, her recurring image of God in Heaven is not one who “Need[s]” anything, least of all from a backwoods poet whose opinion of God in Heaven varies widely from day to day. I think the capitalize masculine pronoun “His” in Line 6 refers Wadsworth. I also think ED considered Wadsworth her “God” on Earth. In all her poems, he alone shared capitalized referring pronouns with God in Heaven.

Stanza 3

Tis true — that Deity to stoop
Inherently incline —
For nothing higher than Itself
Itself can rest upon —

God in Heaven, especially the one described in ED’s poems, doesn’t need anything “Itself can rest upon”, but God on Earth, Wadsworth, is mortal and does.

Once again, both Johnson (1955) and Franklin (1998) interpret the last word in Stanza 3 as “Upon”. This time, a careful look at ED’s manuscript shows that both are obviously wrong, the manuscript “O” is clearly just that. Are they “taking care of Emily” again? She wouldn’t want it or need it.

Stanza 4

So I — the undivine abode
Of His Elect Content —
Conform my Soul — as ’twere a Church,
Unto Her Sacrament —

ED thought of Wadsworth as God on Earth, who had “Elect[ed]” her as an “undivine abode / Of His Elect Content”, whatever that “Content” was. Being Wadsworth’s “Elect[ed]” “abode” meant it was her responsibility to “Conform my Soul — / as ’twere a Church // Unto Her Sacrament”.

ED Lex defines “Sacrament” as a “Sacred symbol; outward sign; visible token; indication of inward spiritual grace”. ED’s God on Earth has entrusted her with his “Elect Content” and her “outward sign” was that she wore only white as a substitute for a wedding ring and an “indication of inward spiritual grace”.

Wadsworth wrote down and saved his sermons, and some of them were published during his lifetime. Occasionally, ED acquired one of these through a friend who knew she was interested. ED read them and sometimes used their concepts and even words in her poems (Barbot 1941; Sewall 1974; Huffer 2002). After Wadsworth died, James D. Clark, a mutual friend of ED and Wadsworth paid to publish a book of those sermons and sent ED a copy (Habegger 2001).

On August 22, 1882, six months after Wadsworth’s death, ED wrote James D. Clark, thanking him for the book of sermons. Her letter (JL994) reveals her innermost feelings about Wadsworth:

“Dear friend,

“Please excuse the trespass of gratitude – My Sister thinks you will accept a few words in recognition of your great kindness [sending a book of Wadsworth’s sermons, which Clark had privately published].

“In an intimacy of many years with the beloved Clergyman, I have never before spoken with one who knew him, and his Life was so shy and his tastes so unknown, that grief for him seems almost unshared.

“He was my Shepherd from “Little Girl”hood and I cannot conjecture a world without him, so noble was he always – so fathomless – so gentle.

“I saw him two years since for the last time, though how unsuspected!

“He rang one Summer Evening to my glad surprise – “Why did you not tell me you were coming, so I could have it to hope for,” I said – “Because I did not know it myself, I stepped from my Pulpit to the Train,” was his quiet reply. He once remarked in talking “I am liable at any time to die,” but I thought it no omen. He spoke on a previous visit of calling upon you, or perhaps remaining a brief time at your Home in Northampton –

“I hope you may tell me all you feel able of that last interview, for he spoke with warmth of you as his friend, and please believe that your kindness is cherished.

“The Sermons will be a sorrowful Treasure. I trust your health is stronger for the Summer Days, and with tender thanks, ask your kind excuse.

E. Dickinson.”

Mary Elizabeth Barbot. 1941. Emily Dickinson Parallels. The New England Quarterly , 14(4): 689-696.
Sewall, Richard Benson, 1974, The Life of Emily Dickinson.
Habegger, Alfred, 2001, My Wars are Laid Away in Books.
Huffer, Mary Lee Stephenson, 2002, Emily Dickinson’s Experiential Poetics PhD Dissertation