Image: Emily Dickinson – Amherst College – Daguerrotype of the poet at age 17, circa 1847 – likely the only authentic, extant likeness of the poet
Emily Dickinson’s “On this wondrous sea”
In the first movement of Dickinson’s “On this wondrous sea,” the speaker addresses God as the metaphorical pilot of a metaphorical seafaring vessel; in the second movement, the speaker allows that “pilot” to speak as He answers her supplicating question.
Introduction and Text of “On this wondrous sea”
Emily Dickinson’s fourth poem in Thomas H. Johnson’s The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson may be thought of as the beginning of her true style and content. The first three poems feature two Valentine messages ( “Awake ye muses nine, sing me a strain divine” and “Sic transit gloria mundi“) and an invitation (“There is another sky”) to her brother, Austin, to come and experience the new world she is creating with her poetry.
In contrast to the first three entries in Dickinson’s complete poems, “On this wondrous sea” sets out on a journey of poetry creation that will involve her belovèd Creator, whom she will beseech and at times even argue with in her zeal to substantiate truth and beauty in her other “sky.”
In a very real sense, the Dickinson speaker is performing a set of little dramas that resemble that of the speaker of the Shakespeare sonnets. The Shakespeare sonneteer was interested only in preserving truth, beauty, and love in his creations for future generations.
In the course of those sonnets, especially the section known as “The Muse Sonnets,” the Shakespeare writer expresses his desire repeatedly to present only truth, beauty, and love in his works, in contrast to the slathering on of tinsel and meaningless blather sent out by non-serious artist wannabes, known as poetasters.
The Dickinson speaker demonstrates the same proclivities, and it also becomes evident that she shows a keen ability to observe the tiniest detail in her environment. Yet, even as she focuses on those details, her vision never lowers from her mystic sight.
It is in that focus that Dickinson differs dramatically from the Shakespearean sonneteer. While he reveals his devout awareness of the mystical in his life, he remains a mere observer compared to the active mysticism of the Dickinson speaker.
Emily Dickinson’s rare ability to communicate the ineffable has earned her a place in American letters that no other literary figure in the English language has been able to outpace.
On this wondrous sea
On this wondrous sea Sailing silently, Ho! Pilot, ho! Knowest thou the shore Where no breakers roar — Where the storm is o’er?
In the peaceful west Many the sails at rest — The anchors fast — Thither I pilot thee — Land Ho! Eternity! Ashore at last!
Commentary on “On this wondrous sea”
The whole physical world becomes an ocean on which the speaker finds herself tossed and wondering if she will ever be returned to the safety of land.
First Movement: The Sea as Metaphor
The speaker begins by creating a metaphor for the physical level of being, this wide world, in which she finds herself tempest tossed and uncertain of the way to safety. Calling this world a “wondrous sea,” she reports that she is quietly sailing upon this ocean of chaos, then suddenly she cries out: “Ho! Pilot, ho!”
And then she demands of the pilot to know if he knows where there is safety, where there are no trials and tribulations, where one can find rest from the many upheavals and battles that continually confront each inhabitant of this world. Upon first encountering, it may seem that the speaker is addressing some sea captain as she rides in some maritime vessel.
But it quickly becomes apparent that the speaker is addressing the Creator of the universe, and she wants to know if the Creator of this seemingly confusing Creation knows where she can go to come out of “the storm.” As the “sea” is a metaphor for the world, the “Pilot” is the metaphor for the Creator (or God), Who directs and leads His children through this confusing place.
As a pilot would steer a ship, God steers the ship of life, the ship of this world that only He has created. Thus the speaker appeals to God for an answer to her question, is there anywhere that can offer peace to the poor soul who must navigate the churning waters of this world?
Second Movement: Where Peace Reigns Supreme
In the second stanza, the speaker shifts from the supplicant to the Blessèd Creator, Who bestows on the questioner the answer to her question. The storm is over where peace reigns supreme. Metaphorically, the speaker chooses to locate the peaceful place in the “west,” likely to rime it with “rest.”
In that peaceful west, one can cease the constant struggle with the dualities of this world. One can feel secure with “anchors fast,” unlike the constant heaving and tossing back and forth that the rough sea causes. The sails can be lowered and remain in that position because the journey has reached its destination.
The piloting Creator then assures His traveling, storm-tossed child that, in fact, He is taking her there as she speaks. The words, “Thither I pilot thee,” must ring in the ears of this supplicant as a true balm of heaven, comforting her every nervous inclination; she knows that she is safe with this “Pilot,” Who knows where to take her and is piloting her there now.
Then suddenly, the coveted land is in sight and the land is “Eternity.” The speaker now knows she is being guided safely and surely through her life by the One, Who can take her “ashore” and keep her secure throughout eternity. Immortality is hers and peace will be her existence in this eternal resting place where the soul resides with its Divine Over-Soul Creator.
Winter kept me bound To the thought of warmer days. My tongue remained frozen, Figuring talk was later. Heat was all I sought, Waiting in rooms chilled with snow. We did not burn each other Or have the guts to move in a daze. If we listened to the song, We felt that nature would change us.
Love and knowledge may contradict Each other in the wait of uneven things But cold gives way to warm As winter gives way to spring And bodies of fire hang in the brain
Where turning feels right. Still, it is my summer mind I seek To keep in my heart its Fuel to keep the arms and legs Moving and the soul on fire.
Image: Original photo by Linda Sue Grimes, text added by Grok
A Prose Commentary on My Original Poem “My Summer Mind”
In my poem “My Summer Mind,” I have created a speaker who is musing upon the tension between dormancy and vitality, hesitation and movement, using the seasonal opposition of winter and summer as a governing metaphor for interior states of being. The poem is less concerned with external climate than with the mind’s fluctuating capacity for warmth, courage, and animation.
Where “Some Bones” dwelt in fragmentation and arrested spiritual development, this poem turns toward the possibility—though not the certainty—of renewal. Yet the tone remains guarded. My speaker does not claim arrival but instead reveals a consciousness caught in transition, aware of warmth as an aspiration rather than a constant possession.
The imagery moves between cold and heat, stillness and motion, silence and expression. My speaker situates herself in a liminal condition: waiting, anticipating, and attempting to summon a more vital state of mind. The poem’s underlying concern is not merely seasonal change but the discipline required to sustain inner fire once it has been glimpsed.
First Stanza: Winter as Suspension
In the opening stanza, my speaker situates herself in winter, a season that “kept [her] bound / To the thought of warmer days.” The emphasis here is not simply on cold but on deferral. The speaker is oriented toward the future, toward warmth that has not yet arrived.
The frozen tongue is especially significant. Speech is postponed, withheld under the assumption that expression belongs to a more favorable time—“Figuring talk was later.” This suggests a psychological habit of delay, a reluctance to engage fully with the present moment.
The stanza’s middle lines intensify the sense of enclosure. The rooms are interior, insulated, yet still pervaded by cold. My speaker implies that external shelter does not guarantee internal warmth.
The line “We did not burn each other / Or have the guts to move in a daze” introduces relational hesitation. Passion is avoided; risk is deferred. Even confusion—“a daze”—is rejected, suggesting that the speaker prefers stasis over the vulnerability of imperfect action.
The stanza closes with a tentative openness: “If we listened to the song, / We felt that nature would change us.” Here, my speaker gestures toward a passive hope that transformation might occur through attunement rather than effort. The “song” of nature becomes a kind of external agency, one that might effect change without requiring decisive internal movement.
Second Stanza: The Friction of Love and Knowledge
The second stanza complicates the earlier passivity by introducing an intellectual and emotional tension. My speaker acknowledges that human experience is rarely harmonious; feeling and understanding often pull in opposing directions.
The phrase “the wait of uneven things” reinforces the earlier motif of delay while adding a sense of imbalance. Time passes, but it does not resolve contradiction. Instead, it sustains it.
Yet my speaker reintroduces the natural cycle as a form of reassurance: “cold gives way to warm / As winter gives way to spring.” This transformation is not a dramatic revelation but a steady, almost inevitable progression. The movement from winter to spring serves as both metaphor and quiet argument: change is embedded in the structure of existence.
The line “And bodies of fire hang in the brain / Where turning feels right” marks a subtle but important shift inward. The warmth the speaker seeks is no longer purely external; it exists as potential within the mind itself. These “bodies of fire” suggest ideas, impulses, or passions suspended in a state of readiness.
The phrase “Where turning feels right” implies that transformation involves choice or orientation. The speaker begins to recognize that movement toward warmth is not entirely dependent on external seasons but on an internal willingness to turn.
Third Movement: Aspiration toward the Summer Mind
The closing lines crystallize the poem’s central desire: “Still, it is my summer mind I seek.” The phrasing is deliberate—my speaker does not claim to possess this state but actively seeks it.
The “summer mind” functions as a metaphor for sustained vitality: warmth, clarity, motion, and perhaps courage. It is not merely a seasonal mood but a disciplined condition the speaker wishes to “keep in [her] heart.”
The emphasis on “fuel” extends the metaphor into the realm of energy and maintenance. Warmth must be sustained; it requires ongoing attention. My speaker understands that vitality is not self-perpetuating but must be actively preserved.
The final lines—“to keep the arms and legs / Moving and the soul on fire”—bring the poem into the realm of embodied action. Unlike the earlier stasis of winter, the summer mind enables motion. Physical movement becomes a sign of inner animation, while the “soul on fire” suggests the divine union of energy and purpose.
An Afterthought
In “My Summer Mind,” I have attempted to articulate a transition from passivity to intentional vitality, though that transition remains incomplete. The poem does not celebrate arrival but instead dwells in the act of seeking—a condition that is, in itself, both necessary and unstable.
My speaker’s awareness of seasonal change serves as both comfort and challenge. While nature guarantees transformation, the maintenance of an inner “summer” requires more than passive observation. It demands orientation, effort, and a willingness to risk movement even before warmth is fully secured.
In contrast to the disintegration explored in “Some Bones,” this poem suggests the possibility of coherence, though it stops short of confirming it. The speaker recognizes that without cultivating this “summer mind,”she risks remaining in cycles of delay and hesitation.
Ultimately, the poem proposes that vitality is not merely given but chosen—and that the sustaining of inner fire is an ongoing, deliberate act.
Image: Emily Dickinson – Amherst College – Daguerrotype of the poet at age 17, circa 1847 – likely the only authentic, extant likeness of the poet
Emily Dickinson’s “Sic transit gloria mundi”
By Dickinsonian standards, “Sic transit gloria mundi” is quite long. Its tone and subject matter vary greatly from the Dickinson persona that will be on display in the majority of her poems.
Introduction and Text of “Sic transit gloria mundi”
Similar to poem #1 in Thomas H. Johnson’s The Complete Poem of Emily Dickinson, poem #3 “Sic transit gloria mundi,” stands as a rather lengthy poem by Dickinsonian standards, and it is also a Valentine, sent to William Howland, a law clerk in her father’s office.
This poem was published in the Springfield Republican on February 20, 1852. Two years earlier, she had sent a Valentine message, “Awake ye muses nine,” to her father’s law partner, Elbridge Bowdoin.
Sic transit gloria mundi
“Sic transit gloria mundi,” “How doth the busy bee,” “Dum vivimus vivamus,” I stay mine enemy! —
Oh “veni, vidi, vici!” Oh caput cap-a-pie! And oh “memento mori” When I am far from thee!
Hurrah for Peter Parley! Hurrah for Daniel Boone! Three cheers, sir, for the gentleman Who first observed the moon!
Peter, put up the sunshine; Pattie, arrange the stars; Tell Luna, tea is waiting, And call your brother Mars!
Put down the apple, Adam, And come away with me, So shalt thou have a pippin From off my father’s tree!
I climb the “Hill of Science,” I “view the landscape o’er;” Such transcendental prospect, I ne’er beheld before!
Unto the Legislature My country bids me go; I’ll take my india rubbers, In case the wind should blow!
During my education, It was announced to me That gravitation, stumbling Fell from an apple tree!
The earth upon an axis Was once supposed to turn, By way of a gymnastic In honor of the sun!
It was the brave Columbus, A sailing o’er the tide, Who notified the nations Of where I would reside!
Mortality is fatal— Gentility is fine, Rascality, heroic, Insolvency, sublime
Our Fathers being weary, Laid down on Bunker Hill; And tho’ full many a morning, Yet they are sleeping still,—
The trumpet, sir, shall wake them, In dreams I see them rise, Each with a solemn musket A marching to the skies!
A coward will remain, Sir, Until the fight is done; But an immortal hero Will take his hat, and run!
Good bye Sir, I am going; My country calleth me; Allow me, Sir, at parting, To wipe my weeping e’e.
In token of our friendship Accept this “Bonnie Doon,” And when the hand that plucked it Hath passed beyond the moon,
The memory of my ashes Will consolation be; Then farewell Tuscarora, And farewell, Sir, to thee!
Commentary on “Sic transit gloria mundi”
Emily Dickinson sent her poem “Sic transit gloria mundi” as a Valentine message to William Howland, who served as a law clerk in her father’s law office.
First Movement: A Fertile Mind on Display
“Sic transit gloria mundi,” “How doth the busy bee,” “Dum vivimus vivamus,” I stay mine enemy! —
Oh “veni, vidi, vici!” Oh caput cap-a-pie! And oh “memento mori” When I am far from thee!
Hurrah for Peter Parley! Hurrah for Daniel Boone! Three cheers, sir, for the gentleman Who first observed the moon!
Peter, put up the sunshine; Pattie, arrange the stars; Tell Luna, tea is waiting, And call your brother Mars!
The first stanza of the Valentine sounds like a jumble of unrelated thoughts as it begins with three allusive quotations: first, the Latin phrase, “Sic transit gloria mundi,” which translates into English as, “So passes away this world’s glory.”
The phrase is used in the ceremony of installing a Pope and likely originated with Thomas à Kempis’ “O quam cito transit gloria mundi” (Oh how soon passes away this world’s glory) from De Imitatione Christi (Translation to English The Imitation of Christ).
Second, the allusion to the Isaac Watts’ poem, “How doth the little busy bee,” whose second line finishes the question: “Improve each shining hour.”
And third, “Dum vivimus vivamus,” translation,”while we are alive, let’s live,” which is thought to serve as an epicurean motto and was employed as a motto by the Porcellian Club at Harvard.
The speaker then speaks for herself for the first time in the poem and declares she will stop her enemy, a claim that will leave her listeners a bit stunned.
But then the speaker offers a near repetition of the first stanza’s strategy with Latin phrases, along with one French phrase: First, “Oh ‘veni, vidi, vici!’,” which is the famous declaration made by Julius Caesar after he overcame Pharnaces of Pontus in the Battle of Zela.
Second, “Oh caput cap-a-pie!” with Latin “the head” and French “from head-to-toe.” And then the third, “And oh “memento mori,” Latin again for “remembering I must die,” which makes much sense clamped on to the following line, “When I am far from thee!”
Those first two stanzas of the Valentine demonstrate the varied education of the speaker; she has read and studied enough of Latin and perhaps French to be able to employ quotations from her reading. Likely the only purpose of those quotations is to show off as she flirts with the target of the Valentine.
The speaker then continues to demonstrate her book learning by alluding to a widely published author of the time period, who used the pseudonym, “Peter Parley.” Parley published a wide variety of informative tracts primarily for children in the subject areas of science, art, travel, biography, and natural history and geography.
The speaker gives a nod to the American explorer, Daniel Boone, who is most noted for having explored the state now known as Kentucky. The speaker finally offers “three cheer” for the man who first “observed the moon.”
This last seeming allusion, however, is ludicrous in its assertion; thus the speaker is making a joke which puts all of her earlier allusions in question.
Is she really just making fun of received knowledge? No doubt that is so. And her true purpose, of course, is simply to flirt with a law clerk in her father’s office, who likely possesses the ability to recognize many of those allusions and thus understand her little joke.
The final stanza in the first movement plays out in definite sarcastic hilarity, as she commands Peter to “put up the sunshine,” while Pattie must “arrange the stars,” while alerting “Luna” (the Latin term for “moon”) that tea is about to be served, and brother Mars, another heavenly body, should be called.
Thus the speaker has set the stage for a romp through her fertile mind that she hopes will impress a young man with her vast knowledge, all acquired through book learning, thus she can make fun of it, as if she were saying, look what I can do with bit and pieces of information that has passed before my very fecund imagination!
Second Movement: Continuing to Allude
Put down the apple, Adam, And come away with me, So shalt thou have a pippin From off my father’s tree!
I climb the “Hill of Science,” I “view the landscape o’er;” Such transcendental prospect, I ne’er beheld before!
Unto the Legislature My country bids me go; I’ll take my india rubbers, In case the wind should blow!
During my education, It was announced to me That gravitation, stumbling Fell from an apple tree!
In the second movement, the speaker continues her allusive jaunt, beginning with Genesis and Adam eating the metaphoric “apple.” She tells “Adam,” whom she likely is assigning identity with Mr. Howland, the law clerk, to forsake the “apple” that he is already eating and come with her to enjoy an apple from her father’s tree.
That “pippin” or dessert apple, which is sweeter than ordinary apples, refers to herself; thus, she is the offering from her father’s tree that she wishes to give to the target of the Valentine.
Next the speaker intimates that she has read Anna Lætitia Barbauld’s “The Hill of Science. A Vision,” and again offers a line from an Isaac Watt’s hymn, “There Is a Land of Pure Delight.”
The speaker then concocts the notion that she has been called to government service, but then immediately descends into a comment about the weather. Finally, she again makes a remark that her education has given her to believe that the man who discovered gravity, only did so because some crazy apple “stumbl[ed]” and “fell from an apple tree!”
It must have given her great delight to return again to the “apple” as she completed the second movement of her Valentine.
Third Movement: Astronomy and History
The earth upon an axis Was once supposed to turn, By way of a gymnastic In honor of the sun!
It was the brave Columbus, A sailing o’er the tide, Who notified the nations Of where I would reside!
Mortality is fatal— Gentility is fine, Rascality, heroic, Insolvency, sublime
Our Fathers being weary, Laid down on Bunker Hill; And tho’ full many a morning, Yet they are sleeping still,—
The trumpet, sir, shall wake them, In dreams I see them rise, Each with a solemn musket A marching to the skies!
The speaker now turns to astronomy to report the fact that the earth rotates, an activity that earlier, she opines, was considered to honor the sun. Of course, earthly gymnastics, she now knows, is simply a fact of a science. The sun, only in poetic terms, can be considered to feel honored by the rotating of the earth.
Moving on to some historical information, the speaker reports that Columbus, whom she finds to be brave, went sailing over the sea, and in doing so he let other nations know where the speaker “would reside.”
She then lists some definitions of terms: mortality=fatal, gentility=fine. But then she seems to go off track by stating that rascality is heroic, and insolvency is sublime. The two latter claims likely are allusions to the financial crisis known as the Panic of 1837, which resulted in a major recession that continued into the mid-1840s.
The speaker then continues with her nods to history, mentioning that their “Fathers” died on Bunker Hill and despite the fact morning still comes upon that hill, they remain sleeping there. But she envisions in a dream that a trumpet wakes those fathers, who rise and march heavenward with their muskets.
Fourth Movement: Bizarre Claim and Failed Valentine
A coward will remain, Sir, Until the fight is done; But an immortal hero Will take his hat, and run!
Good bye Sir, I am going; My country calleth me; Allow me, Sir, at parting, To wipe my weeping e’e.
In token of our friendship Accept this “Bonnie Doon,” And when the hand that plucked it Hath passed beyond the moon,
The memory of my ashes Will consolation be; Then farewell Tuscarora, And farewell, Sir, to thee!
In the final movement, the speaker’s opening stanza makes a bizarre claim that seems quite opposite of what tradition teaches. She asserts that it is the coward who stays and fights while those who grab their hats and run become the immortal heroes.
Likely, she is spoofing the notion that those who run away are more likely to remain above ground than those who remain in battle and continue to engage the enemy.
But before the reader can place much concentration on that thought, the speaker moves quickly on again to state that she must go and perform service to her country. She asks the target of her Valentine to permit her to shed a tear at leaving him behind. She then states that this Valentine is a “token of our friendship.” She asks him to accept this “Bonnie doon,” alluding to Robert Burns’ “The Banks O’ Doon,” which features a lament about being left by a sweetheart.
But the token of friendship, this “Bonnie Doon,” seems to become a flower as the speaker then asserts that once she is dead and her ashes have “passed beyond the moon,” the memory of those ashes will console the Valentine reader.
Then abruptly as she draws an end to her missive, by bidding farewell to “Tuscarora” and then to the target of the Valentine, calling him “Sir.”
Remembering the playful nature of the poem makes allusions such as Tuscarora, the American Indians, who originally resided in the North Carolina area and later were admitted into the New York federation of the Iroquois, a fertile field for varied interpretations.
Likely, she’s referring to the country and its earlier history, but also it is likely she is being ironic as she surely is when she is bidding farewell to the recipient of the Valentine.
Lifelong Bachelors
Both Valentine messages in the two poems “Awake ye muses nine” and “Sic transit gloria mundi” were serious although playful flirtations directed toward the young men to which she sent them.
The poet possibly hoped to engage each young man in courtship, but quite the contrary actually happened. Both men, Elbridge Bowdoin and William Howland, remained lifelong bachelors. And, of course, Emily never married either.
Image: Emily Dickinson – Amherst College – Daguerrotype of the poet at age 17, circa 1847 – likely the only authentic, extant likeness of the poet
Emily Dickinson’s “Awake ye muses nine, sing me a strain divine”
The first poem in Thomas H. Johnson’s The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson is a Valentine aimed at persuading a young man to marry and is quite atypical of the poet’s style in her canon of 1,775 poems.
Introduction with Text of “Awake ye muses nine, sing me a strain divine”
In The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited and returned to Dickinson’s idiosyncratic style by Thomas H. Johnson, the first poem sports a whopping 40 lines of 20 riming couplets. It is Dickinson’s longest published poem and departs in style greatly from the remaining 1,774 in the volume.
Emily Dickinson’s “Awake ye muses nine, sing me a strain divine” begins with a traditional invocation to the muses; however, instead of displaying in quatrains, as most of the poet’s poems do, it rests as a single lump chunk down the page.
The poet’s Germanic influenced capitalization of nouns and her many sprinklings of dashes are missing; yet, she does insert two dashes into the last three lines. Dickinson’s speaker addresses a young man, urging him to choose a young lady and propose marriage to her.
The central theme of this piece plays out in a similar manner to the Shakespeare “Marriage Sonnets,” in which the speaker is exhorting a young man to marry and produce beautiful offspring. However, the Dickinson poem remains a playful piece focusing on the Valentine season, while the Shakespeare “Marriage Sonnets” remain quite serious in their urgency.
Richard B. Sewall’s The Life of Emily Dickinson has asserted that the young gentleman addressed in this poem is Elbridge Bowdoin, a partner in the Dickinson father’s law firm.
The poet’s Valentine was sent in 1850 in a book that she was returning to Bowdoin. The poem seems to be quite flirtatious. Bowdoin, nevertheless, did not appear to take notice. It seems he snubbed the advice in the poem by remaining a life-long bachelor.
Awake ye muses nine, sing me a strain divine
Awake ye muses nine, sing me a strain divine, Unwind the solemn twine, and tie my Valentine!
Oh the Earth was made for lovers, for damsel, and hopeless swain, For sighing, and gentle whispering, and unity made of twain. All things do go a courting, in earth, or sea, or air, God hath made nothing single but thee in His world so fair! The bride, and then the bridegroom, the two, and then the one, Adam, and Eve, his consort, the moon, and then the sun; The life doth prove the precept, who obey shall happy be, Who will not serve the sovereign, be hanged on fatal tree. The high do seek the lowly, the great do seek the small, None cannot find who seeketh, on this terrestrial ball; The bee doth court the flower, the flower his suit receives, And they make merry wedding, whose guests are hundred leaves; The wind doth woo the branches, the branches they are won, And the father fond demandeth the maiden for his son. The storm doth walk the seashore humming a mournful tune, The wave with eye so pensive, looketh to see the moon, Their spirits meet together, they make their solemn vows, No more he singeth mournful, her sadness she doth lose. The worm doth woo the mortal, death claims a living bride, Night unto day is married, morn unto eventide; Earth is a merry damsel, and heaven a knight so true, And Earth is quite coquettish, and beseemeth in vain to sue. Now to the application, to the reading of the roll, To bringing thee to justice, and marshalling thy soul: Thou art a human solo, a being cold, and lone, Wilt have no kind companion, thou reap’st what thou hast sown. Hast never silent hours, and minutes all too long, And a deal of sad reflection, and wailing instead of song? There’s Sarah, and Eliza, and Emeline so fair, And Harriet, and Susan, and she with curling hair! Thine eyes are sadly blinded, but yet thou mayest see Six true, and comely maidens sitting upon the tree; Approach that tree with caution, then up it boldly climb, And seize the one thou lovest, nor care for space, or time! Then bear her to the greenwood, and build for her a bower, And give her what she asketh, jewel, or bird, or flower – And bring the fife, and trumpet, and beat upon the drum – And bid the world Goodmorrow, and go to glory home!
Commentary on “Awake ye muses nine, sing me a strain divine”
The first poem in Emily Dickinson’s Complete Poems is a Valentine aimed at persuading a young man to marry and is quite atypical of the poet’s style in her canon of 1,775 poems.
First Movement: Invocation to the Muses
Awake ye muses nine, sing me a strain divine, Unwind the solemn twine, and tie my Valentine!
Oh the Earth was made for lovers, for damsel, and hopeless swain, For sighing, and gentle whispering, and unity made of twain.
The ancient epics of Homer and Virgil begin with an invocation to the muse, wherein the speaker asks for guidance as he narrates his tales of adventure. In her Valentine poem, Emily Dickinson has playfully added an invocation to all nine muses to help her with her little drama aimed at the young man for the Valentine season.
Dickinson has her speaker command all nine muses to wake up and sing her a little ditty that she may relay to inflame her Valentine’s heart to do as she requests. She then begins by describing how things of the earth all come in pairs.
One part of the pair seeks and unites with the other: the damsel is courted by the “hopeless swain” and there is whispering and sighing as a “unity” brings the “twain” together.
Second Movement: Earth Creatures Pair Up
All things do go a courting, in earth, or sea, or air, God hath made nothing single but thee in His world so fair! The bride, and then the bridegroom, the two, and then the one, Adam, and Eve, his consort, the moon, and then the sun; The life doth prove the precept, who obey shall happy be, Who will not serve the sovereign, be hanged on fatal tree. The high do seek the lowly, the great do seek the small, None cannot find who seeketh, on this terrestrial ball; The bee doth court the flower, the flower his suit receives, And they make merry wedding, whose guests are hundred leaves; The wind doth woo the branches, the branches they are won, And the father fond demandeth the maiden for his son. The storm doth walk the seashore humming a mournful tune, The wave with eye so pensive, looketh to see the moon, Their spirits meet together, they make their solemn vows, No more he singeth mournful, her sadness she doth lose. The worm doth woo the mortal, death claims a living bride, Night unto day is married, morn unto eventide; Earth is a merry damsel, and heaven a knight so true, And Earth is quite coquettish, and beseemeth in vain to sue.
After alluding to a human pair, the speaker then narrates her observation that everything on this earth seems to be courting its mate, not only on dry land but also in the “sea, or air.” In the next twenty or so lines, she supplies an abundant sampling of things of the earth that pair up.
She exaggerates for comedic affect that God has made nothing in the world “single” except for the target of her discourse, who is the young man. The speaker then tells the young man that the bride and bridegroom pair up and become one. Adam and Eve represent the first pair, and then there is the heavenly united pair, the sun and the moon.
And those who follow the precept of coupling live happily, while those who avoid this natural act end up “hanged on fatal tree.” Again, she is exaggerating for the fun of it! The speaker then assures the young man that no one who looks will not find. After all, the earth as she has said, was “made for lovers.”
She then begins her catalogue of earth things that make up the two part of a unified whole: the bee and flower marry and are celebrated by a “hundred leaves.” In two masterful lines, the speaker creates a metaphorical and symbolic wedding of bee and flower: “The bee doth court the flower, the flower his suit receives, / And they make merry wedding, whose guests are hundred leaves.”
The speaker continues the catalogue of earth things that make up a unified pair: the wind and the boughs, the storm and the seashore, the wave and the moon, night and day.
She sprinkles in references to the human realm with such lines as, “the father fond demandeth the maiden for his son,” “The worm doth woo the mortal, death claims a living bride,” and “Earth is a merry damsel, and heaven a knight so true.”
With the line regarding the worm wooing the mortal, the speaker, similar to the Shakespearean speaker, is reminding her target that life on this planet does not last forever, and each human physical encasement is subject to death and decay. It is because of this plight that she is urging the young man not to allow his life to speed by without fulfilling his duty as part of a unified couple.
Third Movement: Thus It Follows That
Now to the application, to the reading of the roll, To bringing thee to justice, and marshalling thy soul: Thou art a human solo, a being cold, and lone, Wilt have no kind companion, thou reap’st what thou hast sown. Hast never silent hours, and minutes all too long, And a deal of sad reflection, and wailing instead of song?
Now, the speaker announces what has to happen because of her description of the way life goes “on this terrestrial ball.” The single man must be brought to justice. The speaker then remarks bluntly, “Thou art a human solo,” along with a melancholy description of unhappiness that being alone can bring. She rhetorically asks if he does not spend many hours and sad minutes of reflecting on this situation.
Of course, she is implying that she knows he does wallow in this sorrowful state, and thus she has the antidote for eliminating all the miserable melancholy. She will turn his melancholic “wailing” back into “song.” If only he will follow her sage advice, he will become the happy soul he wishes to be.
Fourth Movement: A Shakespearean Command
There’s Sarah, and Eliza, and Emeline so fair, And Harriet, and Susan, and she with curling hair! Thine eyes are sadly blinded, but yet thou mayest see Six true, and comely maidens sitting upon the tree; Approach that tree with caution, then up it boldly climb, And seize the one thou lovest, nor care for space, or time! Then bear her to the greenwood, and build for her a bower, And give her what she asketh, jewel, or bird, or flower — And bring the fife, and trumpet, and beat upon the drum — And bid the world Goodmorrow, and go to glory home!
The speaker now names six young damsels—Sarah, Eliza, Emeline, Harriet, and Susan; she refers to the sixth young damsel—herself—without naming her, only that she is “she with curling hair.”
The speaker opines that any one of these young ladies is fit to become a valuable partner for her solo, sad, single young man. The speaker commands the young bachelor to choose one and take her home to be his wife.
In order to make that demand, she creates a little drama by having the ladies situated up in a tree. She commands the young man to climb the tree boldly but with caution, paying no attention to “space, or time.”
The young man then is to select his love and run off to the forest and build her a “bower” and lavish upon her what she wishes, “jewel, or bird, or flower.” After a wedding of much music and dancing, he and his bride will flit away in glory as they head home.
Image: Emily Dickinson – Amherst College – Daguerrotype of the poet at age 17, circa 1847 – likely the only authentic, extant likeness of the poet
Emily Dickinson’s “Winter is good – his Hoar Delights”
For Emily Dickinson, the seasons offered ample opportunities for verse creation, and her love for all of the seasons is quite evident in her poems. However, her poetic dramas become especially deep and profound in her winter poems.
First Winter Poem: “Winter is good – his Hoar Delights”
Emily Dickinson creates speakers who are every bit as a tricky as Robert Frost’s tricky speakers. Her two-stanza, eight-line lyric announcing, “Winter is good” attests to the poet’s skill of seemingly praising while showing disdain in the same breath.
The rime scheme of “Winter is good – his Hoar Delights” enforces the slant rime predilection with the ABAB approximation in each stanza. All of the rimes are near or slant in the first stanza, while the second boasts a perfect rime in Rose/goes.
Winter is good – his Hoar Delights
Winter is good – his Hoar Delights Italic flavor yield – To Intellects inebriate With Summer, or the World –
Generic as a Quarry And hearty – as a Rose – Invited with Asperity But welcome when he goes.
Commentary on “Winter is good – his Hoar Delights”
Emily Dickinson loved all of the seasons, and she found them inspiringly colorful in their many differing attributes. These seasonal characteristics gave this observant poet much material for her creative little dramas.
First Stanza: Winter’s Buried Charms
Winter is good – his Hoar Delights Italic flavor yield – To Intellects inebriate With Summer, or the World –
The speaker claims rather blandly that “Winter is good” but quickly adds not so plainly that his frost is delightful. That winter’s frost would delight one, however, depends on the individual’s ability to achieve a level of drunkenness with “Summer” or “the World.”
For those who fancy summer and become “inebriat[ed]” with the warm season’s charms, winter takes some digging to unearth its buried charm. And the speaker knows that most folks will never bother to attempt to find anything charming about the season they least favor.
But those frozen frosts will “yield” their “Italic flavor” to those who are perceptive and desirous enough to pursue any “Delights” that may be held there. The warmth of the Italian climate renders the summer flavors a madness held in check by an other-worldliness provided by the northern climes.
The speaker’s knowledge of the climate of Italy need be only superficial to assist in making the implications this speaker makes. Becoming drunk with winter, therefore, is a very different sport from finding oneself inebriated with summer, which can be, especially with Dickinson, akin to spiritual intoxication.
Second Stanza: Repository of Fine Qualities
Generic as a Quarry And hearty – as a Rose – Invited with Asperity But welcome when he goes.
Nevertheless, the speaker, before her hard-hitting yet softly-applied critique, makes it clear that winter holds much to be honored; after all, the season is “Generic as a Quarry / And hearty – as a Rose.” It generates enough genuine qualities to be considered a repository like a stone quarry that can be mined for all types of valuable rocks, gems, and granite.
The season is “hearty” in the same manner that a lovely flower is “hearty.” The rose, although it can be a fickle and finicky plant to cultivate, provides a strength of beauty that rivals other blossoms. That the freezing season is replete with beauty and its motivating natural elements render it a fertile time for the fertile mind of the poet.
But despite the useful and luxuriant possibilities of winter, even the mind that is perceptive enough to appreciate its magnanimity has to be relieved when that frozen season leaves the premises or as the speaker so refreshingly puts it, he is “welcome when he goes.” The paradox of being “welcome” when “he goes” offers an apt conclusion to this tongue-in-cheek, left-handed praise of the coldest season.
The speaker leaves the reader assured that although she recognizes and even loves winter, she can well do without his more stark realities as she welcomes spring and welcomes saying good-bye to the winter months.
Full Image: Emily Dickinson – Amherst College – Daguerrotype of the poet at age 17, circa 1847 – likely the only authentic, extant likeness of the poet
Image: Created by Grok and ChatGPT from request by the poet. From a photo by Gerard Malanga.
The Poetaster
His poetastry sucked long before he wrote one line. His windbag approach to speech spews forth Rorschach gibberish, a kite loose in the wind.
He strings together bilge & blather in prosy, broken lines. Each syllable a sin against language, he sounds Like a broken record swimming in a thesaurus cesspool.
To him and his ilk, meaning is a four-letter word A limitation that blasts his own thing Cramps his style, like hippies against the Man.
Dead poets scald him in their perfection He’s not only jealous, he’s incredulous That anyone could really write a poem
His shyster ways are blistering ego trips Laid on the gullible who never have cared To understand or appreciate what poetry is
He’s the man behind the curtain At the end of yellow bricking Fanning his flame to fame.
A different version focusing on the same theme as this poem appears in my collection titled Turtle Woman & Other Poems.
Image: Original photo by Linda Sue Grimes, text added by Grok
A Prose Commentary on My Original Poem “The Poetaster”
In my poem “The Poetaster,” I have delivered a speaker, who delivers a blow with a pointed critique of a fraudulent artist—someone who takes on the guise of a poet without submitting to the discipline, humility, or responsibility that poetry demands.
The poem functions as both satire and indictment, using abrasive diction and exaggerated imagery to reveal the hollowness of pretension masquerading as creativity. In my humble artist opinion, human creativity is the most cherished possession held by the human heart and mind.
(Human creativity has resulted in some of humanity’s most important discoveries and inventions, making life on earth both comfortable, profitable, and inspirational. To degrade that human function with laughable, disgusting, idiotic fakery remains an abomination that corrodes the human spirit, as it mocks God and pretends to superiority it does not deserve.)
The term “poetaster” itself signals the speaker’s purpose: it is not merely a label for bad poetry but for imitation without substance. The speaker approaches the subject with sharpened disdain, defending the integrity of poetry against those who dilute it.
The language throughout is deliberately coarse—“windbag,” “bilge & blather,” “cesspool”—so that the revulsion is tangible. This discourse has no intention of remaining a polite literary critique; it is exposure. At the same time, the imagery is controlled, each metaphor reinforcing the disorder and emptiness that define the poetaster’s work.
First Stanza: Inherent Failure
The speaker opens by asserting that the poetaster’s failure precedes even the act of writing: “His poetry sucked long before he wrote one line.” The hyperbole suggests that the deficiency is fundamental, not merely technical.
The description “Rorschach gibberish, a kite loose in the wind” emphasizes randomness and lack of control. A Rorschach blot invites projection rather than meaning, while the loose kite suggests motion without direction. These images mark the poetaster as untethered, someone whose language drifts without intention.
Second Stanza: Abuse of Language
Here, the speaker focuses on the poetaster’s relationship to language. The phrases “bilge & blather” and “prosy, broken lines” highlight excess without purpose, the superficial adoption of form without discipline.
The simile “like a broken record swimming in a thesaurus cesspool” underscores repetition, artificiality, and overreliance on inflated diction. The poetaster does not shape language; he wallows in it. The speaker intends to convey that such writing actively degrades the medium it purports to serve.
Third Stanza: Rejection of Meaning
The third stanza identifies the poetaster’s central flaw: a willful rejection of meaning. “Meaning is a four-letter word” frames clarity and coherence as constraints.
(Scenario: One imagines the poor, teenage would-be poetaster sitting in high school English class, unable to ferret out the “meaning” of a line of verse, thus becoming convinced that meaning belongs to the elite, the teacherish class alone can understand “meaning.” Meaning shmeaning, the hell with that: words, words, words—that’s all I need for my poem.)
The comparison to “hippies against the Man” introduces cultural satire, suggesting reflexive rebellion without depth. The poetaster mistakes the absence of structure for freedom. The speaker implies that true poetry wrestles with meaning, whereas the poetaster abdicates it. Meaning—also one of the great necessities for living a decent life on this mud ball of a planet. To abdicate it is to abdicate life itself!
Fourth Stanza: Envy of the Canon
The speaker turns to the poetaster’s relation to literary tradition. “Dead poets scald him in their perfection” conveys both intimidation and resentment. The poetaster cannot reconcile himself to genuine mastery. Remember that teeny-bopper, would be poet sitting in the high school class, befuddled by the Greats!
His incredulity—“That anyone could really write a poem”—reveals insecurity. If real poetry exists, his own efforts are exposed as inadequate. Rather than aspiring to that standard, he dismisses it. Envy here becomes corrosive, curdling into denial rather than inspiring growth.
Fifth Stanza: Manipulation and Audience
The critique expands to include the poetaster’s audience. The “shyster ways” and “blistering ego trips” indicate a performative dimension: this performance is opportunism, not craft.
The poetaster relies on “the gullible who never have cared / To understand or appreciate what poetry is.” The speaker thus implicates the audience as complicit in perpetuating mediocrity. The poetaster survives not only through ego but through uncritical reception; he has become a sacred cow, impervious to criticism.
Sixth Stanza: Illusion of Grandeur
In the final stanza, the speaker employs imagery of spectacle and deception. “The man behind the curtain” evokes false authority, manipulating appearances to maintain influence. The reference to “yellow bricking” recalls a journey toward supposed revelation that leads instead to exposure—obvious allusion to The Wizard of Oz.
“Fanning his flame to fame” captures the poetaster’s self-promotional drive. The flame is ambition and vanity, maintained artificially rather than earned. The poem concludes without redemption: the poetaster remains what he is, sustained by ego and illusion.
An Afterthought
In “The Poetaster,” the speaker articulates a broader frustration with a cultural condition in which performance substitutes for substance and standards erode. The poem is intentionally harsh because the stakes are real: poetry, at its best, refines language, sharpens perception, deepens understanding, leading to spiritual rebirth for the human heard and mind.
When poetry is reduced to empty display, vitally essential human progress is lost.The speaker, therefore, does not merely condemn; she defends—aggressively—the possibility that poetry can and must still demand rigor, clarity, and truth.
He dances thick from the bottle Dazed as a pollenated bee in spring Losing brain cells like coins dropping Out of pockets full of holes. He trickles honey down the tree of life Consumed like a cinnamon cookie. College taught him nothing Schmoozing pig-like by the trough Meeting no scholars just other dudes From towns like his own, blinded By mud monkeys beating out tunes In gigs that roll like jelly off A ballroom floor deep in cloth That smears the night as he concocts Stories to throw into his folder—then He’s another year older.
Image: Original photo by Linda Sue Grimes, text added by Grok
A Prose Commentary on My Original Poem “Buzzed”
In my poem “Buzzed,” I present a speaker who observes, with a mixture of irony and quiet lament, the spectacle of a man dissolving himself into intoxication, social ritual, and intellectual stagnation.
The poem unfolds as a single, breathless unit on the page, mirroring the blurred continuity of the speaker’s subject—yet beneath this apparent formlessness, the poem separates itself into distinct movements, each tracing a stage in the erosion of vitality, intellect, and self-possession.
My speaker’s language deliberately oscillates between the sensuous and the grotesque, blending sweetness with decay, animation with depletion. The speaker maintains a controlled tone, allowing the imagery—rather than overt judgment—to carry the philosophical weight.
First Movement: Intoxication and the Illusion of Vitality
He dances thick from the bottle Dazed as a pollenated bee in spring Losing brain cells like coins dropping Out of pockets full of holes.
In these opening lines, the speaker presents a figure whose apparent liveliness is immediately compromised by its source. “He dances thick from the bottle” suggests not fluid grace but a dulled, heavy motion governed by intoxication. The body moves, but the mind lags behind.
The simile “Dazed as a pollenated bee in spring” initially invokes natural vitality; however, my speaker then distorts this expectation. The bee, ordinarily purposeful and generative, becomes disoriented—its instinctive industry replaced by confusion. What should signal life instead reveals imbalance.
The final two lines sharpen the critique. “Losing brain cells like coins dropping / Out of pockets full of holes” frames intellectual decline as both careless and continuous. The metaphor of currency emphasizes squandered value: the loss is incremental, unnoticed in the moment, yet cumulatively devastating. The subject does not guard what is precious; he leaks it.
Second Movement: Consumption, Sweetness, and Self-Reduction
He trickles honey down the tree of life Consumed like a cinnamon cookie.
Here, my speaker compresses the imagery into a brief but dense meditation on appetite and reversal. “He trickles honey down the tree of life” invokes a traditionally sacred symbol, yet the action is diminished—“trickles” suggests waste rather than nourishment, a careless spilling of sweetness.
The following line, “Consumed like a cinnamon cookie,” completes the inversion. The man shifts from agent to object; he is no longer the one who consumes but the one being consumed.
The image is intentionally domestic and trivial. A cookie is pleasant but disposable, easily devoured and forgotten. The speaker reduces the subject to something momentarily enjoyable but ultimately insignificant.
Third Movement: Failed Institutions and Social Degradation
College taught him nothing Schmoozing pig-like by the trough Meeting no scholars just other dudes From towns like his own, blinded By mud monkeys beating out tunes
With “College taught him nothing,” the speaker introduces a blunt evaluative statement, stripping away metaphor to expose a failure of development. This line functions as a hinge, moving the poem from private dissipation to social critique.
The imagery quickly reverts to the animalistic: “Schmoozing pig-like by the trough.” The trough suggests communal feeding without refinement, reducing social interaction to appetite and noise. The subject’s environment reinforces his stagnation.
“Meeting no scholars just other dudes / From towns like his own” emphasizes circularity—no expansion of thought, only repetition of the familiar. The phrase “blinded / By mud monkeys beating out tunes” introduces chaotic, degraded performance. “Mud” evokes both earthiness and filth, while “monkeys” suggests mimicry devoid of understanding. Music, rather than elevating, becomes mechanical rhythm—sound without substance.
Fourth Movement: Dissolution into Performance and Fabrication
In gigs that roll like jelly off A ballroom floor deep in cloth That smears the night as he concocts Stories to throw into his folder—
In this movement, the speaker allows the environment itself to become unstable. “Gigs that roll like jelly off / A ballroom floor” collapses what should be structured and elegant into something formless and viscous. The simile of jelly signals a lack of coherence; experience cannot hold its shape.
“A ballroom floor deep in cloth” introduces a suffocating softness, as though the very ground of social ritual is padded, unreal, incapable of supporting anything firm. The line “That smears the night” further dissolves clarity—time and perception blur into indistinction.
The act of “concoct[ing] / Stories to throw into his folder” marks a turn toward fabrication. Experience is no longer lived authentically but manufactured, then stored away. The “folder” suggests accumulation without reflection, a hollow archive of moments that fail to transform the self.
Fifth Movement: Time, Repetition, and the Quiet Erosion of Self
then He’s another year older.
The final lines arrive stripped of metaphor, almost austere in their simplicity. After the density and excess of the preceding imagery, this statement functions as a collapse into fact.
“Then / He’s another year older” offers no resolution, no gained wisdom—only the passage of time. The enjambment isolates “then,” emphasizing inevitability, as though all that precedes leads mechanically to this outcome.
Aging here is not maturation but accumulation without growth. The subject advances in years while remaining fixed in pattern. The poem closes not with revelation but with quiet depletion, underscoring my central concern: that a life filled with motion, indulgence, and noise may still amount to stasis when it lacks awareness and discipline.
In “Buzzed,” through my speaker, I am ultimately examining the subtle tragedy of self-dissolution through habit and environment. The speaker refrains from overt condemnation, instead presenting a sequence of images that reveal, with increasing clarity, the cost of living without intellectual intention or spiritual purpose.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnet 44 “Belovèd, thou hast brought me many flowers”
Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s final sonnet 44 “Belovèd, thou hast brought me many flowers” from the sequence assures her belovèd that she has finally accepted his gift of love.
Introduction and Text of Sonnet 44 “Belovèd, thou hast brought me many flowers”
Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s final sonnet from the Sonnets from the Portuguese sequence assures her belovèd that she has finally accepted his gift of love. Sonnet 44 “Belovèd, thou hast brought me many flowers” is the final poem, which completes this remarkable sequence of love poems.
This sonnet finds the speaker musing on the flowers that her belovèd has brought to her. The speaker quickly transforms the physical blossoms into metaphysical blooms that symbolize the lovers’ bond.
After all the handwringing of self-doubt that has plagued the speaker throughout this sequence, she must now find a way to assure both herself and her belovèd that her mind set has transformed itself from the dull negative to a shining positive. The speaker must show her fiancé that they are bound together with an exceptional love. She must also make it clear that she understands the strong ties they now possess.
The speaker’s metaphoric comparison of the love gifts of physical flowers and the symbolic flowers that she has created from her own heart soil will remain an eternal reminder to both herself and her belovèd as they travel the road of marriage together.
Sonnet 44 “Belovèd, thou hast brought me many flowers”
Belovèd, thou hast brought me many flowers Plucked in the garden, all the summer through And winter, and it seemed as if they grew In this close room, nor missed the sun and showers. So, in the like name of that love of ours, Take back these thoughts which here unfolded too, And which on warm and cold days I withdrew From my heart’s ground. Indeed, those beds and bowers Be overgrown with bitter weeds and rue, And wait thy weeding; yet here’s eglantine, Here’s ivy!—take them, as I used to do Thy flowers, and keep them where they shall not pine Instruct thine eyes to keep their colors true, And tell thy soul their roots are left in mine.
Commentary on Sonnet 44 “Belovèd, thou hast brought me many flowers”
The final sonnet in the sequence assures the speaker’s belovèd that she has finally accepted his gift of love, without any further doubts.
First Quatrain: A Gift of Flowers
Belovèd, thou hast brought me many flowers Plucked in the garden, all the summer through And winter, and it seemed as if they grew In this close room, nor missed the sun and showers.
The speaker muses about the flowers that her belovèd has given her during summer. To her it seems that the flowers have remained as vibrant indoors in her “close room” as they were outside in the “sun and showers.”
These miraculous flowers seem to have remained healthy and glowing even during winter. The speaker then insists that they “grew / In this close room” and that they did not miss “the sun and showers.”
Of course, the physical flowers are just the motivation for the musing, which transforms the physical blooms into flowers of a metaphysical sort—those that have impressed images upon her soul, beyond the image on the retina.
Second Quatrain: Sonnets as Flower-Thoughts
So, in the like name of that love of ours, Take back these thoughts which here unfolded too, And which on warm and cold days I withdrew From my heart’s ground. Indeed, those beds and bowers
Thus the speaker commands her belovèd to “take back these thoughts which here unfolded too.” She is referring to her sonnets, which are her flower-thoughts given to her belovèd to honor their love.
The speaker affirms that she has plucked her sonnet-flowers “from [her] heart’s ground.” And the creative speaker has composed her tributes on “warm and cold days.”
The weather in the speaker’s heart and soul was always equal to producing fine blossoms for her loved one. As the speaker basked in his love, the flower “beds and bowers” produced these poems with floral fragrance and hues.
First Tercet: Correcting Her Clumsiness
Be overgrown with bitter weeds and rue, And wait thy weeding; yet here’s eglantine, Here’s ivy!—take them, as I used to do
The speaker then inserts her usual self-deprecatory thoughts, admitting that her floral efforts are surely, “overgrown with bitter weeds and rue,” but she gladly submits them for him to “weed” as needed.
The speaker’s gifted and talented belovèd can correct her clumsiness. She names two of her poems “eglantine” and “ivy” and commands him to “take them,” as she used to take his gifts of flowers, and probably gifts of his own poems to her as well.
Second Tercet: In His Care
Thy flowers, and keep them where they shall not pine Instruct thine eyes to keep their colors true, And tell thy soul their roots are left in mine.
The speaker commands her belovèd to safeguard her pieces so “they shall not pine.” In his care, she will also not pine. And the poem will “instruct [his] eyes” to the true feelings she bears for him.
The speaker’s poems will henceforth remind him that she feels bound to him at the soul. Soul qualities have always been more important to this speaker than physical and mental qualities.
The “colors true” of this speaker’s sonnets will continue to pour forth her love for her belovèd and “tell [his] soul their roots are left in [hers].” Each sonnet will reinforce their love and celebrate the life they will make together.
Image: Elizabeth Barrett Browning – Engraving from original Painting by Chappel, 1872. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnet 43 “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways”
The sonnet “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways”—number 43 in Sonnets from the Portuguese—remains the most famous and widely read sonnet of the sequence. The speaker is offering a summary of all the ways she has come to love her soon to be husband.
Introduction and Text of Sonnet 43 “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways”
Sonnet 43 “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways” is the most widely anthologized sonnet from Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s sequence titled Sonnets from the Portuguese. It is likely the many high school or college graduates remember that line but may have remained unaware that it is only #43 from its accompanying sequence of 43 other sonnets.
The sonnet is a Petrarchan sonnet as are all of the other sonnets in the sequence. In the octave, the speaker is musing about how much she loves her belovèd suitor, and she asks the question, “How do I love thee?”
Then the speaker proceeds to answer the question, so the reader becomes aware that the speaker is not literally addressing her belovèd, but she is addressing the thought or perhaps even an image of that belovèd. In the sestet, the speaker counts three definite ways and one possible way that she will love him throughout eternity.
Sonnet 43 “H0w do I love thee? Let me count the ways”
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. I love thee to the level of everyday’s Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise. I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.
Commentary on Sonnet 43 “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways”
Sonnet 43 “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways” remains the most famous and widely read sonnet of the sequence.
First Quatrain: An Emphatic Rhetorical Question
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
The speaker asks an obvious rhetorical question that requires only her feeling to fill out; thus she continues, “Let me count the ways.” She loves him with all her soul, as that soul strives for an idealism that has to be left up to faith. The soul searches in all directions through “depth and breadth and height” for this idealism, which this speaker calls “the ends of Being and ideal Grace.”
Second Quatrain: Love and All Levels
I love thee to the level of everyday’s Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
The speaker has begun with the sublime, ethereal level of her love by invoking how she loves her belovèd on the spiritual level. The speaker then brings herself quickly back to the mundane activities of daily life by saying that another way she loves him is through even the smallest daily act whether that act is performed during the daylight hours or during the night, “by sun and candle-light.”
The speaker then asserts that her love for her belovèd is spontaneous and “freely” given; therefore, she loves him in the way humankind loves freedom and acts correctly in striving to secure and maintain that freedom. She then claims that her love is as pure as those who are humble when praised. In the octave, the speaker has signified four ways she loves her belovèd: spiritually, materially, “freely,” and “purely.”
First Tercet: All Encompassing Love
I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
The speaker loves him with the same ardor that used to grip her when she faced difficulties, but this “passion” is tempered by the fact that that love is also similar to the love that childhood provided her, an opposite kind of emotion from the one that caused her “old griefs.” This love includes the polar opposites of fear and love, with love tempering the fear in a balanced and useful way.
The speaker also loves her belovèd life mate with a kind of respect and admiration that she thought she had outgrown; this group of people could be a fairly large one, including friends, teachers, relatives, and even religious “saints,” the term she uses. But the key word is that she “seemed” to lose this love, but with her belovèd suitor, that love is returned to her.
Second Tercet: Love unto Eternity
With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.
The next way she loves her belovèd she asserts in a breathless, almost ecstatic pronouncement: “— I love thee with the breath, / Smiles, tears, of all my life! —.” Placed between dashes, these terms then signal an emphasis of expression.
This assertion captures the excitement and underscores the passion in the speaker’s claim, while it prepares the reader or listener, for the last breathtaking claim that, “if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.”
So in the sestet, the speaker again professes four ways in which she loves the belovèd: with a passion of meeting former challenges but tempered by a childlike faith, with a kind of love she thought she had lost, and with her whole being. But most importantly for this speaker, she has faith that she will love this belovèd soul mate eternally.
Some bones stand like corn stalks After late harvest. They bristle in the field. They remain unclean though they look Bleached and scrubbed.
Skeletons may hang in closets But not these bones—the ones That are losing themselves As they scream and pound sand.
Some bones cry for a thinner cloak But unlike some hearts They have never broken themselves Over the pain of this mud ball.
Some bones slash themselves in early spring And cleave to youth too late in summer. A young brain cannot pool its dreams To yield the pith of adult philosophy.
Some bones have no star to guide errant ways. They may stitch themselves by valves But sense no light in the chambers That wobble and bleed ugly passions.
Some bones keep wobbling, sputtering, Spitting in the face of any thought That might hold them to account Lingering in the mud of passing time.
A Prose Commentary on My Original Poem “Some Bones”
In my poem “Some Bones,” I have created a speaker who is musing on fragmentation, arrested development, and the failure of inner cohesion, using the recurring image of bones—stripped, exposed, and stubbornly animate—as a controlling metaphor for the human condition when it is cut off from spiritual integration.
Unlike the quiet endurance of stone, bone suggests a harsher, more restless existence: something once living that refuses, even in its partial ruin, to settle into peace. Such failure epitomizes the blocked condition of generations of unhappy, prideful, and dangerous individuals who have remained strangers to themselves.
The language remains constructively physical—bones, closets, sand, mud, valves—yet it continually gesticulates toward psychological and spiritual disarray. My speaker does not offer consolation; instead, she allows the imagery to confront the reader with a kind of unresolved agitation. Where wisdom might emerge, it does so jarringly, often obstructed by immaturity, illusion, or sheer refusal.
Underlying the poem is my own sense that without a guiding metaphysical orientation—whether one names it divine light, higher consciousness, or moral clarity—the human being risks becoming disjointed, reactive, and perpetually unfinished. Such an orientation of mind has been instilled in my mindset by my blessèd Guru Paramahansa Yogananda.
First Stanza: Residue after Harvest
In the opening stanza, my speaker presents bones as remnants, likened to corn stalks left standing after harvest. This simile is intentional: what remains is not fruitful but residual, something overlooked, perhaps even abandoned. The bones “bristle,” suggesting defensiveness, a kind of posturing that masks emptiness.
Though they appear “bleached and scrubbed,” they remain “unclean.” This contradiction establishes a central tension: outward purification does not equate to inner transformation.
The bones carry a stain that cannot be washed away by exposure or time alone. I wanted the speaker to imply that mere survival or endurance does not guarantee wisdom; one can persist and yet remain fundamentally unresolved.
Second Stanza: Refusal of Containment
Here, my speaker contrasts the familiar idiom of “skeletons in closets” with these bones, which refuse concealment. They are not hidden but actively “losing themselves / As they scream and pound sand.” The image is specifically chaotic and futile—pounding sand accomplishes nothing, yet it expresses frustration and desperation.
These bones are not passive relics but disintegrating agents, unable to maintain coherence. The phrase “losing themselves” suggests a failure of identity, a dissolution rather than a stable essence. The speaker is emphasizing a kind of existential noise: movement without direction, expression without meaning—a condition that will remind my readers of the influence of postmodernism on poetry.
Third Stanza: Avoidance of True Suffering
In this stanza, the bones “cry for a thinner cloak,” desiring relief or escape, yet my speaker contrasts them with hearts that have “broken themselves / Over the pain of this mud ball.” The implication is that these bones have avoided the kind of deep suffering that refines and transforms.
There is, in my view, a necessary breaking that accompanies genuine emotional or spiritual growth. These bones, however, remain intact in a superficial sense precisely because they have not undergone that process.
Their complaint is shallow; they seek comfort without having earned insight. The “mud ball” underscores the earth’s dirty imperfection, a condition that must be confronted rather than evaded.
Fourth Stanza: Temporal Dislocation and Immaturity
The fourth stanza examines the misalignment of time and development. The bones “slash themselves in early spring” and “cleave to youth too late in summer,” suggesting a disordered relationship to life’s natural phases. There is both premature self-harm and delayed attachment to youth.
The concluding line suggests frenetically what the imagery implies: maturity requires synthesis. Dreams alone, without discipline or time, cannot produce wisdom. I wanted the speaker to assert that intellectual and spiritual depth cannot be rushed or improvised; it must be cultivated through experience and reflection.
Fifth Stanza: Absence of Guiding Light
Here, my speaker turns sternly to the absence of direction. The image that “Some bones have no star to guide errant ways” invokes the ancient image of navigation by the heavens. Without such a reference point, these bones attempt a kind of self-repair—“stitch themselves by valves”—but the effort is mechanical and insufficient.
The “chambers” evoke both the heart and the mind, yet they “sense no light.” This lack is crucial: the structure exists, but illumination does not. The result is a system that “wobbles and bleed[s] ugly passions,” governed not by clarity but by disorder. The speaker is averring that without an orienting principle, human faculties become unstable, even grotesque.
Sixth Stanza: Defiance and Stagnation
In the final stanza, the bones persist in their agitation—“wobbling, sputtering”—but now their resistance is directed against accountability itself. They reject introspection or discipline.
The closing image, “Lingering in the mud of passing time,” echoes to the earlier “mud ball,” but now it emphasizes stagnation. Time moves, yet the bones do not progress; they remain mired, neither decaying fully nor transforming.
This eventuality is, perhaps, the most severe judgment in the poem: not suffering, not even failure, but refusal—the unwillingness to engage the very processes that might lead to growth.
An Afterthought
In “Some Bones,” I have attempted to portray a condition of partial existence—one in which the human being retains structure and motion but lacks integration, direction, and illumination. The bones are not dead, but neither are they fully alive in any meaningful sense.
Where my earlier musing on stone suggested endurance and the possibility of quiet wisdom, here I explore a more troubled state: persistence without purpose, animation without coherence.
The poem ultimately argues, though indirectly, that without a willingness to suffer, to mature, and to orient oneself toward a higher principle, one risks becoming like these bones—restless, exposed, and perpetually incomplete.
