I am ashamed—I hide—

I am ashamed—I hide—
What right have I—to be a Bride—
So late a Dowerless Girl—
Nowhere to hide my dazzled Face—
No one to teach me that new Grace—
Nor introduce—my Soul—

Me to adorn—How—tell—
Trinket—to make Me beautiful—
Fabrics of Cashmere—
Never a Gown of Dun—more—
Raiment instead—of Pompadour—
For Me—My soul—to wear—

Fingers—to frame my Round Hair
Oval—as Feudal Ladies wore—
Far Fashions—Fair—
Skill to hold my Brow like an Earl—
Plead—like a Whippoorwill—
Prove—like a Pearl—

Then, for Character—

Fashion My Spirit quaint—white—
Quick—like a Liquor—
Gay—like Light—
Bring Me my best Pride—
No more ashamed—
No more to hide—
Meek—let it be—too proud—for Pride—
Baptized—this Day—a Bride—

    -F704, J473, fascicle 33, 1863 


One helpful way to read a poem is by shutting out sense, as much as possible, and just paying attention to rhythm and sound as you read it out loud. If you emphasize the iambic beat as you read, and keep it going in your head like a metronome, and listen to the way Dickinson plays off of the beat, the way she weaves words around it, you get a good foundation for the poem. Try giving voice to this one, making every dash a rest in the beat. Dickinson on percussion is like Buddy Rich. This one is a stellar example of Dickinson's musicality. In my opinion it is as good a composition of sound and sense as I have yet encountered.

In this poem, for starters, notice the emphatic beat on the hard D sound throughout. The poem begins and ends with it. How she works that D into the iambic meter is part of what makes the poem so satisfying to say. 

Rhyme is also turned up in this poem, even further than normal. Look at this wild run of triplet rhymes: “of Cashmere/ of Dun more/ Pompadour/ soul—to wear/ my Round Hair/ Ladies wore/ Fashions—Fair/ like an Earl/ Whippoorwill/ like a Pearl/ Character/ a Liquor." That’s just fun.

Amidst all of this sound, meaning sneaks in. The sense of the words, and the subsequent extrasensory sense of the words, begins to speak through this string of sounds. Through form comes content. That “D” sound comprises a feeling.  Before it has an assigned meaning the central word here, “bride”, has a sound. Dickinson makes the feeling of the word heard.

Whole words can give you a feeling. You can’t say the word pompadour, for instance, without feeling a little pompadour yourself, just as you can't say "whippoorwill" without intoning the song of the bird.

There was also, behind this poem, I suspect, a melody. I imagine this one was written to a tune going through Dickinson’s head, or maybe even while she was playing the piano. She reportedly played beautifully.

I tried playing a lilting Em/ G pattern on the guitar as I sang this poem, with a turn around at the end of each stanza, where I flipped the chords to G/ Em. It’s remarkable how much fun it is to sing. It sounds like a wedding jig.

***

It is a bit difficult to speak of ascribed meaning as it plays out in this poem because there are multiple ways of reading it. The first and foremost reading of this poem, for me, is as an innocent expression of the intense complex of feelings of a bride on her first night of being married; the crazy mix of fear, sadness, joy, excitement, embarrassment, self-admiration, happiness, inebriation and then finally, resolve.

One thing notable about a poem such as this one is how absolutely personal it is, and yet, at the same time, how universal. This poem could be spoken by ANY bride in love. Likewise the reader is transformed into a bride as he or she reads the poem out loud, and perhaps into a husband as well. It could hardly be a more intimate poem, nor a more public one.

Read this way, this is among Dickinson’s happiest poems. There is only the barest hint of sadness, and only a modicum of fear. Mostly there is deep character. That’s what this poem seems to be about, in the end. The poet chooses, by the close of the poem, to have too much pride to have pride, and covers up in bridal white. But, astonishingly, before she does, she let’s us see, in the intimate revelations of this poem, behind the bridal veil. We are, in this way, like the groom.

I swoon when I read this poem. It is so romantic. And yet, sometimes when I read it, it is the antithesis of romance. It is about autonomy. This is simultaneously a marriage poem and a poem about independence. This is yet another way this poem is both public and private. It reminds me of a line from the great Bill Callahan song "Pigeons": "When you get married, you marry the whole world."

***

There is much more to say about this poem. Each line could engender discussion. Just the idea of being too proud to be proud is thought-provoking enough to make this poem a keeper. Another line I find worth noting is "Prove—like a Pearl—", which could stand by itself as an epigram. It sums up Dickinson's entire oeuvre. Enclosed in her oyster shell of a life, Dickinson certainly did prove like a Pearl. 

-/)dam Wade l)eGraff

-

"As you wish."

My Portion is Defeat – today –

My Portion is Defeat – today –
A paler luck than Victory –
Less Paeans – fewer Bells –
The Drums dont follow Me –
with tunes –
Defeat – a +somewhat slower –
means –
More +Arduous than Balls –

Tis populous with Bone
and stain –
And Men too straight to
+ stoop again –
And Piles of solid Moan –
And Chips of Blank – in
Boyish Eyes –
And + scraps of Prayer –
And Death’s surprise,
Stamped visible – in stone –

There’s +somewhat prouder,
Over there –
The Trumpets tell it to
the Air –
How different Victory
To Him who has it – and
the One
Who to have had it,
would have been
Contenteder – to die –

+something dumber + difficult –

+bend +shreds + something

    -F704, J639, Fascicle 33, 1863

This poem takes a surprising turn. Nearly every poem in the last few fascicles seems to be dealing with the aftermath of a lover’s absence, full of an anguished passion which is wrung out in metaphor after metaphor. So when this one starts out by claiming “My Portion is Defeat – today –”, you think it is one more poem bemoaning the absence of He who brings the fire, He who is full of grace, He with eyes like heaven. And perhaps it is.

In the next line the pivotal word “Victory” leads us to see war as the metaphor for whatever defeat is in question for the poet. This defeat feels, to the poet, as brutal and terrible as war: pure hell. Is this an exaggeration? Perhaps, but it makes its point. 

This is problematic. On one hand it elevates the emotional impact of whatever defeat the poet is feeling. On the other hand doesn't it belittle the fate of the soldiers by comparing it to a personal defeat?

But something strange happens. The problem works itself out. In the course of this poem, as Dickinson goes on to describe the horrors of war, like the “solid pile of moan” and “chips of blank in boyish eyes”, it swerves to become more about the poor soldiers than the poet. It’s as if the poet, who is admitting that she is so miserable she’d rather be dead, is now, because of her plight, able to truly sympathize with the soldiers. The poem starts out in self-pity, but as the metaphor gets extended there is a transition until finally the metaphor itself begins to become the subject. The poet moves from pitying herself to pitying the civil war soldiers who are dying en masse as this poem is being written, including some of Emily's own friends.

It reminds me in this way of Sylvia Plath’s poem “Daddy”, in which Plath is ostensibly expressing anger about her German father, but does this by comparing her father with a Nazi soldier. Plath's poem was controversial, as some saw it as sensational and opportunistic  (The gall of comparing your own privileged life to the horrors of the holocaust!) I can understand this, but I would argue that you can justify Plath’s move as a way of shedding light on domestic abuse, and, conversely, the parental abuse hinted at in poem sheds light on Nazi mentality too.

This poem has a bit of that same problem. In Dickinson’s poem though I feel as if she channels her suffering into empathy. Note that the poem never returns to its initial focus on “me.” In the end the pronoun “me” has been turned into “one.” It has been depersonalized. The soldier and the poet, through the alchemy of the poem, have become “one”.

Let's go through the poem.

First stanza: My portion is defeat today. I didn’t get as lucky as the victor did. For me there are less songs of triumph (paeans), less ringing of bells, and no marching drums at all. To be defeated is more difficult than death by bullets (balls).

Second stanza: Defeat is populated with the bones of soldiers and the stain of blood, with dead bodies so stiff they can no longer stoop, with piles of men moaning in pure agony, with dead boys who now have blank chips for eyes. (“chips” -what a word choice.) The dead boys are holding scraps of prayer, perhaps bible pages. (This is as biting a line about faith as Dickinson has yet written.) And then there is that final haunting image; the way the faces of the dead still show the surprise of death, as if the soldiers were statues carved in stone.

Third stanza: Those over there on the victorious side are “somewhat” prouder than the defeated are. Dickinson provides “something” as an alternative word for “somewhat” here, but I think “somewhat” is much stronger, because it implies that there is still SOME pride in defeat. There is still a minor victory. This is a subtle turning point in the poem and sets up the next lines. "Over there –/ The Trumpets tell it to the Air – " The trumpets of the winners tell their victory to the air. The trumpets are not being heard by anything but “air” though, implying that the victory is as empty as air. Still, empty as it may be, victory is still better, because it doesn’t make you wish you were dead. The defeated soldier would rather have died in battle than lost a cause he was willing to give his life for. And here we are reminded of the stakes for the poet too. She would rather be dead than to have lived without gaining the thing she would have given her entire being for.

This poem, which is, at the onset, about the poet, turns out to be one of the great anti-war poems through sheer force of Dickinson’s imagery.

There is also a unique and effective rhyme scheme and rhythmic structure. Read the poem and listen to it as if there were marching drums underlining it, with a pause in the beat of the snare at every dash. 

-/)dam Wade l)eGraff

To my small Hearth His fire came—

To my small Hearth His fire came—
And all my House aglow
Did fan and rock, with sudden light—
'Twas Sunrise—'twas the Sky—

Impanelled from no Summer brief—
With limit of Decay—
'Twas Noon—without the News of Night—
Nay, Nature, it was Day—

   -F703, J638, Fascicle 33, 1863


We start small here with a “small hearth.” A hearth is a fireplace, which stands here, I think, for the heart, or the life force, of the poet. Once again, as in several of Dickinson’s poems from this time period, the pronoun “His” is ambiguous. It could refer to God or to a lover. To Dickinson I believe it referred to a lover, though to the reader it might stand for any kind of inflamed love.

From “Him” the fire comes, and then the whole house (the whole being) is aglow, suddenly. This sudden fire isn’t the violent kind. Rather it is glowing, and it gently rocks. The verb pair “fan and rock” is an intriguing one. When you think of fire and fan together you might first think of fanning a fire, but here it is the fire that is fanning, so it must mean the fire fans out as it spreads. Rock is something that you gently do to a baby in a cradle to help put it to sleep. So how does a fire “rock”? When a fire is in your hearth the light of the flames seems to sway on the walls, and that’s what I imagine Dickinson is talking about here. “His” fire spreads and gently sways as it enlarges to quickly become the sunrise filling the entire sky.  The effect of this is that the fire that Dickinson felt so intensely has now spread through time and space to light a fire in the reader’s hearth too. Don’t you feel a warm glow from these lines? Don’t the words fan your spirit like a sunrise?

Candlewood Lake CT - 2/19/24

Oddly Dickinson switches to legalese in the next stanza. “Impanelled from no Summer brief—” In a legal context "impanelled" refers to the process of selecting a jury for a trial. It involves choosing jurors who will serve as impartial judges of the facts presented in the case. If we interpret "brief" in a legal sense, it could refer to a written legal argument, typically outlining the legal argument involved in a case. Putting these together, "Impanelled from no Summer brief" might imply that whatever experience is being described hasn't been brought about through the typical legal proceedings or arguments of “summer”. It suggests that the experience of this “fire” is not bound by the usual legal frameworks or seasonal circumstances. The phenomenon being described transcends conventional boundaries. Dickinson’s father and brother were both lawyers, so this type of language would come natural to her.

But “brief” has a double meaning here of having a short duration, as is made clear in the next line, “with no limit of decay.” Summer is brief, the poet is saying, but not the love from Him, which transcends the temporary and is not limited by decay. There is something eternal about this fire/sunrise/summer/noon/day.

The last couplet “'Twas Noon—without the News of Night—/ Nay, Nature, it was Day—” simply means it stays noon, that the “nature” of this love is like an eternal day. The sound play in these last two lines is fabulous, created largely from the run of six “N” sounds, and by the assonance too, the “ooo” sound of Noon and news, and the way nay elongates into Nature. But there are other little things too, like the way “Twas” echoes the earlier use of that word, twice, in the first stanza, and the way it is echoed in the half-rhyme of the word “News” later in the same line. Then there is the strong rhyme of Day with Nay and Decay, which makes the final point feel emphatic. The poetry, if it is to echo and reinforce its subject, must be made so lyrically beautiful that it stays alive forever, capturing in its sound a fiery sunrise brightening to become an endless summer noon. 

- /)dam Wade l)eGraff


My first time through a poem I will sometimes grab a guitar and find a chord pattern and rhythm that seems to fit the poem's tone and then drape Dickinson’s words over the chord structure. It’s such a pleasure to hear Emily Dickinson’s words sung. Along these lines I found a beautiful version of this poem online in which a composer named Juan Ramos has written a sweet melody. The video is great because it just gives you the notes of music scrolling along with the words, and the singing is left up to you. It’s like poetry karaoke.

Except the Heaven had come so near —

Except the Heaven had come so near —
So seemed to choose My Door —
The Distance would not haunt me so —
I had not hoped — before —

But just to hear the Grace depart —
I never thought to see —
Afflicts me with a Double loss —
'Tis lost — and lost to me —


     -Fr702, J472, Fascicle 33, 1863


Sometimes a cry of the heart is best put into simple terms. This is just such a poem. It mourns a double loss. It seems to also hint at regret, the suggestion that it might have been better, perhaps, to never have gotten that glimpse of “heaven” in the first place.

We can be pretty sure that by “heaven” Dickinson is referring to her love life here. Just a few poems earlier, the first poem in fascicle 33, Dickinson makes this clear when she writes that she “sigh(s) for lack of Heaven – but not The Heaven God bestow –”. This is a good example of what is gained by reading these poems in context. It’s fine if you read the “heaven” in this as a Christian heaven, or any other kind; a religious feeling and a romantic feeling can seem one in the same. Both kinds of heaven, the romantic and the spiritual, point us toward a relationship in which the singular self is transcended. But this poem, I believe, is written for, or about, an absent lover, one which the poet holds to be “grace” itself.

Even though this is a fairly straight forward cri de coeur, there is still, perhaps, a wrinkle in it. The clue is in that word “Double”. Note that the word is capitalized. Double is not the kind of word that normally gets capitalized. Our attention is drawn to it. Sometimes the smallest detail, such as a capital letter, can unlock a deeper meaning in a Dickinson poem. The word double is often a rhyme for some kind of trouble. Think of Macbeth: “Double Double toil and trouble.” Or “doublethink” in George Orwell’s “1984”. Doubleness is a sign of a divided mind. In this poem there has been a splitting of the self in two.

What does Emily mean by this “Double loss”? It’s a kind of riddle. “Tis lost — and lost to me.” The reader has to suss out the difference between what is meant by lost and what is meant by lost to me. I’d love to hear your take on this riddle. To me the first loss is an absence, but the second one signals a division of self. It’s as if the self has been taken away with the loss of the lover. “Lost to me” might be a way of saying that the poet feels lost to herself.

It’s the loss of the personal relationship, that unique chemistry in which a me and a thee becomes a we, a whole greater than the parts, that this poem is grieving. That’s what makes the loss doubly painful. It’s not just a loss of a person, it’s a loss of an us. Thus, the significance of the self is lost too.

-/)dam Wade I)eGraff

The Child's faith is new—

The Child's faith is new—
Whole—like His Principle—
Wide—like the Sunrise
On fresh Eyes—
Never had a Doubt—
Laughs—at a Scruple—
Believes all sham
But Paradise—

Credits the World—
Deems His Dominion
Broadest of Sovereignties—
And Caesar—mean—
In the Comparison—
Baseless Emperor—
Ruler of Nought—
Yet swaying all—

Grown bye and bye
To hold mistaken
His pretty estimates
Of Prickly Things
He gains the skill
Sorrowful—as certain—
Men—to anticipate
Instead of Kings—

   -Fr 701, J637, Fascicle 33, 1863

This poem calls into question the idea of a childlike faith. 

The first stanza might be paraphrased like this: The child’s faith is new. The child has absolute belief, and, just as absolutely, bases his principles off of this faith. This faith is widely held and is blinding like sunlight on freshly opened eyes. (You might have to squint when facing it!) This child has no doubt at all. He laughs at any uncertainty or hesitation. He believes only in the promised paradise. Everything else is a sham.

Second stanza: The child credits the world for all that is false. He considers God's dominion the largest of all kingdoms. Caesar is small in comparison to this greater kingdom. Thus far into the poem a general reader might see this poem as a celebration of a child's faith, but after the first five lines the second stanza switches gears in a tricky way. The last lines of the stanza “Baseless Emperor—/ Ruler of Nought—/ Yet swaying all—” complicates the poem because it functions as a sliding modifier. (This sliding modifier thing that Dickinson does is very confusing to the unpracticed reader, but I believe it is essential to understanding certain poems.) If you read the above lines as modifying the lines before them, then the baseless emperor is what the child thinks of Caesar;  powerful (“swaying all”), but ruling nothing real (baseless). But these lines may also syntactically modify the last stanza. Read this way, the baseless emperor is the child of faith. He rules nothing that is real, even if his faith might sway others. By conflating the two Emperors this way (Caesar and the child of faith) we see them as essentially the same. They are both baseless. Caesar might ultimately be an empty emperor, but so is the one who thinks his “faith” represents an even bigger kingdom.*

In the last stanza of this poem the child of faith “grows up”. He has grown, gradually over time, ("bye and bye"), to see that his absolute conviction about paradise was really just an estimate, and not an accurate one. It was pretty to believe so, but it doesn't resemble the hard truth, which is much more prickly than pretty. (I'm reminded of Hemingway's line here, "Isn't it pretty to think so?”)

Eventually the child "gains the skill/ Sorrowful—as certain— " to see more clearly. Learning to be skeptical and to doubt is presented to us as a skill. By going through sorrow the child “gains the skill” and a new kind of certainty; that man is flawed, and is not divinely right like a king is meant to be. We learn to accept reality for what it is.

There is a doubleness to the phrase "bye and bye" in this poem. The child learns by and by, but also learns "goodbye after goodbye". Loss is part of the deal.   

Experience leads us to a more humble kind of faith. I think this is what is meant here by "sorrowful—as certain—". Love doesn't point us toward future glory, and isn't based on comparison, but is a belief in the embrace of another in the here and now. One can have a kind of faith which is accepting of the whole person, as they are, flaws and all, rather than a faith which has more to do with self-regard and trying to be "good" for some future judge. 

- /)dam Wade l)eGraff

* To reiterate, the sliding modifier means it can be seen as two poems. The first one, seeming to praise the child of faith, ends after the second stanza. The second poem, criticizing the child of faith, begins in the second stanza with the line "Baseless emperor." It's worth taking a moment and reading it both ways, to get a feel for how Dickinson pulls this off. Compare the two below.

1. 

The Child's faith is new—
Whole—like His Principle—
Wide—like the Sunrise
On fresh Eyes—
Never had a Doubt—
Laughs—at a Scruple—
Believes all sham
But Paradise—

Credits the World—
Deems His Dominion
Broadest of Sovereignties—
And Caesar—mean—
In the Comparison—
Baseless Emperor—
Ruler of Nought—
Yet swaying all—

2.

Baseless Emperor—
Ruler of Nought—
Yet swaying all—

Grown bye and bye
To hold mistaken
His pretty estimates
Of Prickly Things
He gains the skill
Sorrowful—as certain—
Men—to anticipate
Instead of Kings—

The Way I read a Letter’s – this –

The Way I read a Letter’s – this –
‘Tis first – I lock the Door –
And push it with my fingers – next –
For transport it be sure –

And then I go the furthest off
To counteract a knock –
Then draw my little Letter forth
And slowly pick the lock –         (+slily, softly)

Then – glancing narrow, at the Wall –
And narrow at the floor
For firm Conviction of a Mouse
Not exorcised before –

Peruse how infinite I am
To no one that You – know –
And sigh for lack of Heaven – but not
The Heaven God bestow –

   -Fr700, J636, Fascicle 33, 1863


Imagine reading this poem the way Emily tells us in the poem that she reads a letter. First you take it into your bedroom and lock the door. Then you push on the door just to make sure it’s locked (because you know how sometimes you lock the door but it’s not all the way closed like you thought, so it’s still possible for someone to barge in?) The idea here is that you will need the most private space to get the full transport from the poem. Also, make sure you go as far away from the door as you can get, just to counteract any knock, should you receive one. Even one decibel less can make a difference! Then after you have locked yourself away, take the poem, and slowly unlock IT, with an emphasis on slooowly. Slowly (slily and softly) unlock the poem. But wait, before you read it, look along the floor to make sure not even a mouse can interrupt you. All clear? Okay, NOW you can read the poem with full transport.

What does the poem say?

It says how infinite you are.

Girl Reading Letter by Johannes Vermeer 

 
I think this gets at something essential about Dickinson’s poetry. It’s only in the small private space that the largess of the soul can be discovered, not in “public, like a frog”.

There is something curiouser and curiouser happening in this poem, like what happens to Alice in Wonderland. There is a reducing down in size, an effect Dickinson accomplishes here with word choice. The word “narrow” is used twice and there’s the word “little”. A mouse is mentioned. But it is, paradoxically, in that small, locked away space that the vastness of infinite self is discovered. The contrast helps you feel the effect of this sudden opening at the beginning of the last stanza. That infinity seems so much larger after locking away and narrowing down.

Peruse how infinite I am
To no one that You – know –
And sigh for lack of Heaven – but not
The Heaven God bestow –

Look at what Dickinson does in the last stanza. First that singular line, “Peruse how infinite I am”. Though the narrative of the poem is about looking over a letter from a lover, there is a doubleness here, because you are ALSO perusing a poem. You are perusing the lasting words of the poet, who becomes, herein, the infinite “I am”. This has a resonance with the biblical “I am”, except the end of this poem let’s you know that the biblical is not exactly what we are talking about here. “Peruse how infinite I am” If, in a thousand years, you had JUST this one line surviving from this poem, in the way that we only have one line fragments of certain Sappho poems, then “Peruse how infinite I am” would still resonate in the aura of the eternal.

But the sentence doesn’t stop at the line break. The line enjambs and carries over into the next one. “Peruse how infinite I am/ To no one that You – know–”. The reader is infinite TO the one who writes her the letter, but, lest you, like the little mouse, try to pry and see who it is from, save your questions. It is no one YOU know. The way Dickinson sets off the “know” in dashes makes that word hover importantly there, makes knowing itself hover there. It’s not someone YOU know, it is private. Love is, by necessity, between two people, and therefore private. But also, on the meta mystical level, when one is infinite, and, in turn, is seen by one who is infinite, how can there be any knowing? It is beyond the knowable.

Though it’s hard to imagine Emily was thinking about future biographers here, it's funny the way a line like this seems to be purposely teasing us readers who would love to know who that letter is from. This is not the right question it seems to be telling us. Emily Dickinson tells us HOW she reads, but not WHO the letter is from, since the letter writer is, like the poet, infinite and unknowable.

The last two lines of this poem continue the theme we saw in the previous fascicle, the idea of earthly love -and the momentarily infinite gaze between lovers- versus a heavenly love, which lacks the only thing we can truly know in this moment.

She keeps driving that point home, poem after poem.

- /)dam Wade l)eGraff
 

The power to be true to You,

The power to be true to You,
Until upon my face
The Judgment push his Picture —
Presumptuous of Your Place —

Of This — Could Man deprive Me —
Himself — the Heaven excel —
Whose invitation — Yours reduced
Until it showed too small —


       -F699, J464, Fascicle 32, 1863

This is the last poem of fascicle 32. “Fascicle" is the name that Emily Dickinson's early editor, Mabel Loomis Todd, gave to the homemade manuscript books into which Dickinson copied her poems. Dickinson constructed the fascicles by writing poems onto sheets of standard stationery already folded in two to create two leaves (four pages). She then stacked several such sheets on top of each other, made two holes in the left margin through the stack, and threaded string through the holes and tied the sheets together. 

Ah, I would love to hold one of Emily's fascicles in hand.

It is fascinating to look at how each fascicle hangs together, how the poems within each one appear to be in conversation with one another. Fascicle 32 is a prime example.

For instance, the poem that begins and the poem that ends this fascicle are both thematically about death and judgment. In fact the word or idea of “Judgment” appears in at least 7 of the 21 poems in fascicle 32. This gives some credence to the idea that Dickinson wasn’t just collecting her poems randomly in these fascicles, but making unified discrete collections of poems.

Several of the poems in the fascicle form a kind of polemic about renouncing an unknowable, and possibly non-existent, heavenly love for an earthly love here and now.

There are a few poems that don't fit this theme, at least not in an obvious way. For instance, stitched into this narrative there is another narrative about sewing and patchwork. Seeing as how these fascicles are stitched together, and that sewing may be seen as a metaphor for poetry, you might say that the fascicle itself forms a kind of patchwork of sorts.

Some of the poems, when re-read within the context of the entire fascicle, change tone, and therefore meaning. The 13th poem in this fascicle, for example, the one about the holy trinity ("The Jehovahs") being the only ones that are able to detect sorrow, and, further, not blab about it, reads as sincere on its own, but appears closer to sarcasm to me, or maybe defeat, when read in the context of the rest of the fascicle. 

In a similar manner, the line “We perish, though we reign” from F693 is ironic if you read the poem in context. Though I still WANT to read it as, instead, transcendent. 

The 20th and penultimate poem in the fascicle, the one before this one, says, "I live with him here in the eternal now, be Judgment what it may." (Judgment be damned! Haha.) The 4th time the word "Judgment" is invoked in this fascicle.

This poem, the fifth one to use the word "Judgment" and the final poem of the fascicle, says something like, no man has the power to shake my fidelity to my love. Only Judgment (death) can reduce it. "The Judgment push his Picture — Presumptuous of Your Place —" Note the small "h" used here for "his", a very small detail that speaks volumes.

21 poems in fascicle 32, all hovering around heaven’s absence of presence and earth’s presence of absence.

Although it feels reductive to read these poems as directed toward Charles Wadsworth, it’s hard not to see them in this light when reading them as a whole. (And Larry B's commentary throughout the posts on this fascicle are persuasive here). It certainly seems as if there is an argument being made for an earthly present love to a man who seems to be more worried about Judgment in heaven. Moreover, these arguments use biblical language, the language that Wadsworth, a Presbyterian Minister, was steeped in, against itself. 

On one hand I don't want to get too caught up in this biographical take. If too much is made of it, then it takes away from the poems' ability, as Susan Kornfeld beautifully puts it, to bloom within the reader. But, on the other hand, it’s a juicy story! It’s a very similar narrative in that way to the stellar second season of the TV series “Fleabag”, in which Fleabag and a priest fall in love. If you haven't watched that show, I recommend watching it, and then come back and read these poems again. 

But maybe you don't have to choose between the biographical and the personal. The poems can be both. They make an endlessly fascinating and psychologically intricate love story when read biographically, but they also have the ability to take the reader into Emily's side of that story, an argument for the reader's sake too, to be enraptured in the the present, heartbreak and all. 

-/)dam Wade l)eGraff

I live with Him — I see His face —

I live with Him — I see His face —
I go no more away
For Visitor — or Sundown —
Death's single privacy

The Only One — forestalling Mine —
And that — by Right that He
Presents a Claim invisible —
No wedlock — granted Me —

I live with Him — I hear His Voice —
I stand alive — Today —
To witness to the Certainty
Of Immortality —

Taught Me — by Time — the lower Way —
Conviction — Every day —
That Life like This — is stopless —
Be Judgment — what it may —


  -F698, J463, Fascicle 32, 1863


I read one analysis of this poem that takes the “Him” here as a representative of death, like the “He” in the poem, “Because I could not stop for death/ He kindly stopped for me.” This seems like a stretch. David Preest writes that “this poem shows Dickinson’s complete dependence on her lover.” This seems more likely, though I wouldn’t use the word “dependence”. For a general reader, knowing nothing of Dickinson’s life, the capitalized Him would point toward the usual designation for Christ. All of these are possible. It is safe to presume the “Him” in this poem is the same as the “Master” of the previous poem. Dickinson’s blurring of the lines between God and lover is part of the mystique of her poetry.

As intrigued and fascinated as I am by all of this, I want to read the poem outside of this biographical/religious realm and show the ways in which these poems may be relevant to the reader, i.e. myself. 

The first thing I find noteworthy in this poem is the idea that the poet is done with visitors AND sundown. To be done with visitors is extreme, but sundown too? No more night time? Is this because He shines so brightly that there is no more darkness? Or is it because the poet can no longer sleep in her agitated state?

It would seem the only thing that could forestall the poet’s seeing "Him" is death. The syntax gets tricky here. “Death's single privacy/ The Only One — forestalling Mine —” What does “mine” refer to? Is it referring back to death? That’s what I thought at first, but it doesn’t make sense that death would forestall death, unless the second death is symbolic. Does “mine” refer back to “privacy”? This makes more sense. Death’s single privacy is the only thing that could get in the way of the poet’s (double) privacy with Him.

And what does the “And that…” beginning the next stanza refer back to? The forestalling? The privacy? Death? I think it is likely the privacy, which helps make sense of the "invisible claim" that “He” has on the poet. This is followed up by “No wedlock granted me”. It seems because there was no earthly marriage for the poet, then “He” has a claim. This might lead us to believe that Christ is the Groom. Though, to return to biography for a moment, there is one narrative that says Dickinson made a pact to marry Charles Wadsworth in heaven. I learned this idea from faithful Prowling Bee reader Larry B. See his comment on F686 for more on this. This reading certainly dovetails with the poem, although it is harder to reconcile with a non-biographical personal reading.

Non-biographically, I can make sense of the Christ reading, or, alternatively, the idea of an earthly love that shows you a taste of immortal love. These both fit well for the third stanza here.

I grew up with the hymn “In the Garden” and the lyrics “He walks with me and He talks with me”, so that’s what I hear in the first line of the stanza. “I live with Him — I hear His Voice —”. That hymn was written in 1912, so Dickinson wouldn’t have been thinking of it, but given the fact that Dickinson writes in standard hymn meter, it is hard not to hear some resonance. Also the idea of being a “witness” is Christian parlance too. But again, Dickinson often uses religious language to speak of earthly love, so who knows?

The part that does resonate with me though is when the poet says, “I stand alive — Today —/To witness to the Certainty/ Of Immortality”. This focus on immortality, which is felt in the NOW, or “— Today —”, is where I, as a reader, find myself included. Here is a poet, one I deeply admire, who stood witness “— Today —” to the CERTAINTY of immortality. 

This brings us to the idea of what exactly Dickinson means by immortality. I would posit that you could make a life study out of this question. Dickinson’s poems and letters are overflowing with the idea. The following quotes are all taken from her letters, and give us a feel for the range.

"No heart that break but further went than immortality."

"Emerson's intimacy with his "Bee" only immortalized him."

"The 'infinite beauty' of which you speak comes too near to seek."

"Show me eternity, and 

I will show you Memory-
Be you - While I am Emily -
Be next - what you have ever been -
Infinity."

"There is no first, or last, in Forever- It is Centre, there, all the time."

"The risks of immortality are perhaps its charm."

"A letter always seemed to me like Immortality, for is it not the Mind alone, without corporeal friend?"

"Dear friend, can you walk, were the last words that I wrote her. Dear friend, I can fly- her immortal reply."

"An hour for books those enthralling friends the immortalities."

"The immortality of flowers must enrich our own."

"Amazing human heart-
a syllable can make
to quake like jostled tree-
what Infinite - for thee!"

Each of these quotes are worthy of contemplation and give us a new spin on the idea of immortality. And there are dozens more like this in the poems. In another letter Dickinson says of another writer (though it might as well be herself), "It may be she came to show you Immortality." This echoes the "I stand alive today to witness to the certainty of immortality" that we find in this poem. It may be Dickinson came to show us immortality.

The last stanza also resonates with me. Since the higher way, “immortality”, is timeless, we can only learn it the lower way, since we are creatures of time.

The Certainty of Immortality is...
"Taught Me — by Time — the lower Way —
Conviction — Every day —
That Life like This — is stopless —
Be Judgment — what it may —”

When you start reading Dickinson as a witness to immortality, then the biographical details are secondary (even if they are endlessly fascinating). What I find meaningful is that there is a certainty of Immortality that was taught to Emily by Time (by Time!), and that therefore it can be taught to us too; that life like “This” is stopless. Be judgment what it may. I take that "This" to include all that can be found in the above quotes, something tied into to the heart, to heart break, to flowers, bees, memory, books, something that is risky, something that is there all the time, and so on. Or to quote my favorite Dickinson lines about eternity, also from a letter, “The Life we have is very great. The Life that we shall see Surpasses it, we know, because It is Infinity, But when all Space has been beheld And all Dominion shown The smallest Human Heart's extent Reduces it to none.”

-/)dam Wade l)eGraff

My daughters Sofia and Lucia in front of

Banksy's mural in Queens, moments 

before it was defaced.