Linda's Literary Home

Category: Emily Dickinson

  • Emily Dickinson’s “Going to Heaven!”

    Image: Emily Dickinson - Amherst College - Daguerrotype of the poet at age 17, circa 1847 - likely the only authentic, extant likeness of the poet
    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 “Going to Heaven!”

    The speaker of “Going to Heaven!” muses on the certainty of heaven with equal measures of astonishment and earthly attachment, moving through three stanzas of tender, searching honesty.

    Introduction and Text of “Going to Heaven!”

    The speaker in Emily Dickinson’s “Going to Heaven!” addresses an unnamed listener, confessing her astonishment at heaven’s inevitability while simultaneously expressing a glad reluctance to leave the Earth behind.

    On the literal level, the poem is a musing on what the speaker does and does not know about dying and what follows. She knows heaven is coming; she does not know when or how, and that gap between certainty and comprehension is the poem’s central drama. 

    On my literary website, Linda’s Literary Home, I have argued that the concept of immortality was one of Dickinson’s deepest preoccupations throughout her creative life, a question she returned to with unfailing curiosity and spiritual seriousness.

    The poem moves stanza by stanza from bewilderment, to communal longing, to a final and deeply personal grief held alongside gladness. The speaker never resolves the tension between loving the Earth and accepting heaven; she simply holds both, honestly and without apology. That honesty is what gives the poem its enduring emotional power.

    Going to Heaven!

    I don’t know when –
    Pray do not ask me how!
    Indeed I’m too astonished
    To think of answering you!
    Going to Heaven!
    How dim it sounds!
    And yet it will be done
    As sure as flocks go home at night
    Unto the Shepherd’s arm!

    Perhaps you’re going too!
    Who knows?
    If you should get there first
    Save just a little space for me
    Close to the two I lost –
    The smallest “Robe” will fit me
    And just a bit of “Crown” –
    For you know we do not mind our dress
    When we are going home –

    I’m glad I don’t believe it
    For it would stop my breath –
    And I’d like to look a little more
    At such a curious Earth!
    I’m glad they did believe it
    Whom I have never found
    Since the mighty Autumn afternoon
    I left them in the ground.

    Commentary on “Going to Heaven!”

    The speaker’s musing enacts a spiritual journey moving from bewilderment through communal longing to grief and gladness held together in the same breath. Each stanza adds a new layer to the speaker’s understanding of what heaven means and what it will cost her.

    First Stanza: What I Do Not Know

    I don’t know when –
    Pray do not ask me how!
    Indeed I’m too astonished
    To think of answering you!
    Going to Heaven!
    How dim it sounds!
    And yet it will be done
    As sure as flocks go home at night
    Unto the Shepherd’s arm!

    The speaker opens by announcing plainly that she cannot answer her listener’s questions about when or how she will go to heaven, not because she doubts it, but because the fact of it leaves her too astonished to speak. 

    The exclamation “Going to Heaven!” is less a cry of joy than a gasp of disbelief that such a thing should be true. The speaker is not refusing to answer; she is genuinely overwhelmed.

    She then makes a striking admission: heaven “sounds” dim to her, meaning the word itself feels thin and inadequate against the magnitude of what it names. This insight spring from a characteristically Dickinsonian observation—the language of religion, worn smooth by repetition, fails to convey the actual force of the reality it describes. The speaker senses the reality is immense; she simply cannot yet grasp it.

    Yet the stanza closes in warmth and confidence, comparing the soul’s going to heaven to flocks returning to the shepherd’s arm at nightfall. Paramahansa Yogananda teaches, in his “On Understanding Death and Loss,” that death is not a catastrophe but a natural passage of the soul into greater freedom and divine awareness. 

    The speaker’s shepherd simile expresses exactly that understanding: going home is the soul’s most natural motion, as inevitable and as gentle as a lamb finding its shepherd at dusk.

    Second Stanza: You, too, maybe!

    Perhaps you’re going too!
    Who knows?
    If you should get there first
    Save just a little space for me
    Close to the two I lost –
    The smallest “Robe” will fit me
    And just a bit of “Crown” –
    For you know we do not mind our dress
    When we are going home –

    The speaker now turns to her listener with sudden warmth, wondering aloud whether that person, too, may be going to heaven. “Who knows?” she asks—a phrase of genuine spiritual humility, acknowledging that she cannot determine the soul’s schedule, her own or anyone else’s. The tone shifts from private astonishment to something communal and tender.

    She then makes her most touching request: that a small space be saved for her near “the two I lost.” The term “two” points to specific, beloved persons already departed, whose identity the speaker keeps private but whose absence she carries openly. 

    The capitalized “Robe” and “Crown” gently deflate the grandeur traditionally associated with heavenly reward; the speaker asks for the smallest of each, expressing a humility that is as genuine as it is quietly playful.

    The stanza closes by returning to the phrase “going home,” linking it directly to the shepherd simile of the first stanza and reinforcing the poem’s central conviction that death is not exile but return. 

    Paramahansa Yogananda’s  teachings explain that the soul is a perfect reflection of God’s consciousness and that its passage beyond the physical plane is a homecoming to its Eternal Source. 

    The speaker’s easy dismissal of heavenly dress—“we do not mind our dress / When we are going home”—reflects that same priority: the reunion matters infinitely more than the clothing.

    Third Stanza: Glad for not Believing

    I’m glad I don’t believe it
    For it would stop my breath –
    And I’d like to look a little more
    At such a curious Earth!
    I’m glad they did believe it
    Whom I have never found
    Since the mighty Autumn afternoon
    I left them in the ground.

    The speaker now delivers the poem’s most surprising statement: she is glad she does not yet fully believe in her going to heaven, because that belief, fully realized, would stop her breath and take her from “such a curious Earth.” 

    She is not denying heaven; she is confessing that she still loves the Earth too much to be entirely ready to leave it. On my literary website Linda’s Literary Home, I have discussed Dickinson’s deep attentiveness to the natural world alongside her spiritual curiosity as a parallel devotion, neither canceling out the other.

    The speaker then turns her gladness in a new direction: she is glad that “they did believe it”—those she has not seen since a mighty autumn afternoon when she left them in the ground. 

    That single phrase, “left them in the ground,” is the poem’s most direct and devastating moment, stripping away all metaphor to name the plain fact of burial. Their belief in heaven was their comfort in dying, and she honors it with a gladness that is inseparable from grief.

    Paramahansa Yogananda teaches that souls who have departed dwell in expanded freedom and love, and that the bonds of deep spiritual friendship are not broken by death but simply suspended until reunion. 

    The speaker closes the poem holding two kinds of gladness at once —gladness to remain a little longer on the curious Earth, and gladness that those she loved and buried believed in the heaven toward which she, too, is inexorably going.

  • Emily Dickinson’s “The reticent volcano keeps”

    Image: Emily Dickinson - Amherst College - Daguerrotype of the poet at age 17, circa 1847 - likely the only authentic, extant likeness of the poet
    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 “The reticent volcano keeps”

    The speaker in Emily Dickinson’s “The reticent volcano keeps” is musing on the nature of silence and secrets, transforming metaphorically a volcano into a figure of thoughtful restraint. This idea creates a paradox that challenges the nature and purpose of human speech.

    Introduction and Text of “The reticent volcano keeps”

    The speaker in Emily Dickinson’s “The reticent volcano keeps” is exploring the tense relationship between divine knowledge and human awareness by delving into nature’s ability to keep secrets as opposed to humanity’s driving need to speak out and to be heard by others.

    The poem, thus, is ultimately a study in contrasts. The speaker concocts a parallel universe, in which the forces of nature adhere to perfect discretion as human beings often go off the rails by remaining loquacious and even indiscreet, as they engage loudly in mere gossip.

    The metaphorical volcano becomes the speaker’s prime example of nature’s superior restraint. Unlike explosive human beings, this volcanic force has mastered the art of keeping secrets and thus holds its ever awake strategy in blissful silence.

    The reticent volcano keeps

    The reticent volcano keeps
    His never slumbering plan —
    Confided are his projects pink
    To no precarious man.

    If nature will not tell the tale
    Jehovah told to her
    Can human nature not survive
    Without a listener?

    Admonished by her buckled lips
    Let every babbler be
    The only secret people keep
    Is Immortality.

    Commentary on “The reticent volcano keeps”

    Emily Dickinson’s “The reticent volcano keeps” creates a speaker who comments on the nature of silence and secrets. The speaker employs a metaphor of a volcano to compare the ideas of restraint to the chatty nature of humanity, whose only secret “Is Immortality.”

    First Stanza: The Volcano’s Secret

    The reticent volcano keeps
    His never slumbering plan —
    Confided are his projects pink
    To no precarious man.

    The speaker begins by metaphorically creating the image of a  volcano that keeps secrets.  There is almost a hint of personification of that geologic force, as it is described as “reticent” but capable of deliberately and consciously making the choice to keep its secrets.

    By calling the volcano “reticent,” the speaker gives it a personality with intention. Thus the volcano becomes human-like with the ability to make choices.  And its choice is to stay mum about its purpose for its activities.

    The image of the “never slumbering plan” heralds forth a disturbing tension. On its surface, the volcano seems to remain dormant, yet beneath that quiet surface rumbles a permanent, definite intention. 

    According to this fantasized scenario, the volcano is not experiencing a passive rest but instead is engaging in the restraint of wide-awake watching.  Thus the speaker is implying that actual power comes with restraint, not from revelation. 

    Stated another way:  the volcano’s power lies in what it does not say, or what it refuses to reveal about its hidden activities.  The volcano does not merely have a plan, but it also protects and preserves that plan from outside observation that would cause interference with its intentions.

    The speaker is therefore presenting the volcano as a model of perfect prudence, a power that is capable of destroying the landscape yet chooses to keep its secrets.  The speaker is implying that such choices are the result of self-control.  And that kind of self-control is to be admired.

    The speaker unveils minor details, labeling them “projects pink,” which suggest images of dawn, flowering blossoms, or a gently glowing fire.  Still, the volcano reveals these intimate secrets to no one, definitely not to unreliable human beings.

    The color “pink” brings an unexpected gentleness into the scenario of volcanic force.   The speaker seems to be suggesting that even the most dramatic natural forces contain delicate qualities hidden from view.

    The speaker portrays human beings as “precarious” because they remain basically unreliable and too fickle to be trusted with nature’s serious purposes. Human beings are deemed unworthy to be afforded information about nature’s activities.  

    So, the phrase “confided are” suggests that the volcano’s secrets exist in a state of trust. But such trust is not extended to humans, again because human beings have not proven themselves to be trustworthy.  

    The speaker has thus created a hierarchy of trustworthiness. The volcano is placed at the top of the spectrum and humanity at the bottom. The natural world, as opposed to the human world thus serves as the reliable retainer of divine secrets.

    Second Stanza: Divine Silence

    If nature will not tell the tale
    Jehovah told to her
    Can human nature not survive
    Without a listener?

    The speaker then broadens her view beyond the volcanic keeper of secrets to encompass all of nature in this conspiracy of silence. The speaker suggests that God Himself has shared secrets with the natural world.

    The phrase “the tale / Jehovah told to her” implies the intimate conversational relationship between Creator and creation. The speaker presents this scenario as a whispered confidence that remains eternally unbroken.

    By employing the name “Jehovah,” the speaker invokes one of the most sacred names for God. This raises the conversation beyond casual exchange to profound holiness and therefore deserving of absolute attention.

    In other words, the speaker is implying that nature serves as God’s confidante. Unlike the human being,  who is supposed to be God’s most valuable and honored creation but has fallen short, the natural world has proven itself worthy of divine trust and continues to honor that sacred responsibility.

    The term “tale” points to a narrative or story, most likely mythology. The speaker thus implies that God has shared His most profound stories of creation with nature, stories that remain hidden.

    The speaker presents this divine sharing as a test of loyalty. Nature has passed the test by maintaining perfect silence, while humanity has failed time and again because of its compulsive need to speak.  

    At this point, the speaker poses the poem’s poignant question: If nature can keep divine secrets, why cannot human beings behave honorably, without constantly needing to speak and be heard?

    The term “survive” suggests the strong need for listeners; it is not merely a preference but an existential need. The speaker thus implies that humans require witnesses to their thoughts to maintain their very existence.  

    Ultimately, the speaker is creating a sharp distinction between “nature” and “human nature.”  Nature is capable of self-sufficient silence, while human nature has acquired the bad habit of constant verbal interaction just to function.

    The question becomes philosophical as well as practical. The speaker wonders whether humanity’s need for an audience is weakness or simply part of its essential character as social beings.  

    The speaker implies that humanity’s inability to keep secrets stems from its fundamental need for connection.  Human beings speak because they must be heard to feel that they are living.

    The question rises to a note of near-pathetic bewilderment. The speaker remains genuinely baffled by humanity’s inability to match nature’s perfect discretion and self-contained silence.

    Third Stanza: The Moral Lesson

    Admonished by her buckled lips
    Let every babbler be
    The only secret people keep
    Is Immortality.

    The speaker concludes with nature as an instructor of ethical and moral behavior.   The image of nature’s “buckled lips,” clasped tightly, serves to castigate human compulsive loquaciousness.

    The image of “buckled lips” is also mechanical as well as organic. The speaker suggests that while nature’s silence is instinctive, it is also deliberate, making it a disciplined choice.  

    The speaker chastises “every babbler,” shaming human beings for their inability to hold their tongues. Apparently, they cannot mirror the volcano’s patient discretion or even understand nature’s faithful, enduring silence.

    The term “babbler” is especially damning, reducing human communication to meaningless chatter.  Such constant talk lacks the dignity of nature’s meaningfully purposeful silence.

    The speaker delivers the poem’s most devastating irony. The one secret that humans do manage to keep is “Immortality”—their silence about death and what lies beyond.  This final revelation transforms the entire poem’s earlier criticisms. 

    In this final irony, the speaker both condemns and redeems humanity.  Humans are babblers about everything except what matters most—their own eternal destiny and ultimate meaning.

    But what does the speaker imply by claiming that humanity keeps secrets about Immortality?  Merely the fact that most of humanity speaks and behaves without giving Immortality or what lies beyond the grave much thought.

    The topic of “Immortality” is left up to poets, philosophers, and theologians.  And although these groups have proffered tomes on the issue, their theories go largely unnoticed on the street.  

    The speaker would have talk about life beyond this life become more open to everyone.  She seems to feel that the one secret that humanity continues to keep is the only one that truly matters.  

    She thus would have humanity keep some of its more chatty issues to itself, reorder its thinking, and begin producing volcanic force in conversations that would truly move the culture along to a more open sharing of eternal truths.  But first, of course, she must try to influence humanity to take an interest in profundity instead of petty, chatty gossip.

  • Emily Dickinson’s “The Only News I know”

    Image: Emily Dickinson - Amherst College - Daguerrotype of the poet at age 17, circa 1847 - likely the only authentic, extant likeness of the poet
    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 “The Only News I know”

    In “The Only News I know,” Emily Dickinson creates a speaker who offers a glimpse at the poet’s satisfying daily existence.  She demonstrates how she keeps her consciousness focused only on things of the Divine Realm, thus, avoiding those of the mundane, vulgar, physical existence.

    Introduction with Text of  “The Only News I know”

    The reality of “the news” automatically holds all manner of things that have gone wrong during ordinary life.  Accidents, illness, murders, robberies, war, deceit, political intrigue all figure in the news reports that come to one daily.  

    While these topics tend to agitate, confuse, and sadden most folks who listen to “the news,” seldom does anyone offer an antidote to lessen the pain, frustration, confusion brought about by the bad news reports that accost the citizenry daily.

    Although Emily Dickinson’s poem, “The Only News I know,” is obviously an exaggeration, it, nevertheless, dramatizes the most important topics with which the poet likes to engage: immortality, eternity, and God.   She likes to engage and occupy her thinking and musing with ethereal places and events.  And this creative thinking easily replaces the mundane and vulgar events that daily hem one round.

    The physical world is such a cold and often desolate place for sensitive individuals and once those individuals acquire some inkling of a different world, a spiritual level of existence, or an astral world, they prefer it. 

    They inquire, read, and study about the possibility of a place where the soul lives on after it leaves the gross physical encasement.  Such a place offers the individual the opportunity to live more abundantly and completely without the trammels and trappings of earthly existence. 

    The thought of a “heaven” or an astral existence gives one hope that all the unseemly events reported in “the news” are only temporary and feature only a passing blight that the pure soul must put up with but only for a while.  While the physical reality is only temporary, the soul’s reality is permanent.

    Emily Dickinson’s “The Only News I Know” consists of four tercets, or three-line stanzas that examine the glorious possibility of living in a world of everlasting beauty, with an always blissful feeling, and ever-new joy. 

    Each tercet adheres to its own rime scheme: ABC, ABA, AAB, ABC. Each line displays six syllables, except for the final line in the final tercet, which yields only four syllables.  The four-syllable line gives the poem an abruptness that further enhances the meaning of the content: the speaker makes her claims in crispness and ends with a snap.

    The Only News I know

    The Only News I know
    Is Bulletins all Day
    From Immortality.

    The Only Shows I see  –
    Tomorrow and Today –
    Perchance Eternity –

    The Only One I meet
    Is God – The Only Street –
    Existence – This traversed

    If Other News there be –
    Or Admirabler Show –
    I’ll tell it You –

    Commentary on “The Only News I know”

    In this poem, Emily Dickinson has created a speaker who reports brief glimpses of what it is like to create a satisfying daily existence.   Instead of “bulletins” from news reports on daily misery, her bulletins come from a mystical place where only joy permeates the soul. 

    First Tercet:  Focus on the Spiritual  

    The Only News I know
    Is Bulletins all Day
    From Immortality.

    In the first stanza, the speaker asserts that the only information she recognizes is that which comes from “Immortality.” She claims that she receives brief news headlines during the whole day, implying that these brief reports come to her even as she is working. 

    This speaker is more interested in mystical, that is, spiritual awareness than she is in mundane earthly things.  Thus she can easily space out the mundane and fill it with ethereal blessings.

    Second Tercet:  A Permanent Frame of Mind  

    The Only Shows I see –
    Tomorrow and Today –
    Perchance Eternity –

    The speaker then avers that the only programs or performances she watches are those that pertain similarly to things and events that are everlastingly entertaining.   She then implies that the time frame in which she experiences these blessings is permanent. She leaves open some doubt by inserting the term “[p]erchance” likely only for the sake of skeptical listeners.

    It becomes clear that this speaker entertains no doubt about her claims regarding the landscape of the soul—those topics that obtain for “Immortality” and “Eternity.”   She is not so naïve as to believe that in the physical world these qualities hold fast.  

    If that were so, she would have no need to report on such beyond-earth loci.  She could go about simply revealing all the blessings she detects from earthly pleasures.   But because earthly paradise remains out of possibility, she has to report about mystical places with figurative language, including colorful images and metaphors.

    Third Tercet:   God Alone

    The Only One I meet
    Is God – The Only Street –
    Existence –This traversed

    The speaker then reveals her startling claim, as Dickinson speakers are often wont to do: “The Only One I meet / Is God.”   And instead of further drama or explication on meeting God, she rushes on mid-line to claim that the only path she travels is that of “Existence.” This “street” is the one that she “traverse[s]” freely. 

    Her interest focuses only on being.  She leaves the idea of becoming to others.  While she experiences this great eternal present of being, she remains in a state of blissful confidence. 

    Fourth Tercet:    No Other News

    If Other News there be –
    Or Admirabler Show –
    I’ll tell it You –

    Then the speaker declares that if, in fact, she ever acquires any other significant information, she will let her listeners know about it. But her matter-of-fact declamations have made it quite clear that she does not expect such “Other News” to assail her consciousness. 

    She is aware that she is creating her own garden of verse into which she has the ability to place anything she wishes.  In her garden of creation, she can remain in her mystical state of awareness, meeting only angels and other eternal beings. 

    Every flower, every bird, every blade of grass has become endowed with the grace of the Heavenly Father, the Ultimate Reality, the Divine Being that is God.  The speaker’s dedication to such bliss becomes so full that she is urged to share her state with her audience, and she gladly complies with that urge. 

  • Emily Dickinson’s “A Light exists in Spring”

    Image: Emily Dickinson - Amherst College - Daguerrotype of the poet at age 17, circa 1847 - likely the only authentic, extant likeness of the poet
    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 “A Light exists in Spring”

    The speaker in Emily Dickinson’s “A Light exists in Spring” is striving to portray a certain kind of light that “exists [only] in Spring” or very near spring.

    Introduction with Text of “A Light exists in Spring”

    Emily Dickinson’s “A Light exists in Spring” features five quatrains with a somewhat erratic rime scheme.  Each quatrain follows a fairly regular pattern of ABCB with the second quatrain offering the slant rime, “fields / feels,” and the third quatrain offering no rime at all. 

    The final quatrain again features an irregular pair of rimes, “Content / Sacrament.”  The theme of the poem focuses on a special feeling that becomes engendered in the observer as she experiences a certain kind of light.


    A Light exists in Spring

    A Light exists in Spring
    Not present on the Year
    At any other period –
    When March is scarcely here

    A Color stands abroad
    On Solitary Fields
    That Science cannot overtake
    But Human Nature feels.

    It waits upon the Lawn,
    It shows the furthest Tree
    Upon the furthest Slope you know
    It almost speaks to you.

    Then as Horizons step
    Or Noons report away
    Without the Formula of sound
    It passes and we stay –

    A quality of loss
    Affecting our Content
    As Trade had suddenly encroached
    Upon a Sacrament.

    Commentary on “A Light exists in Spring”

    Emily Dickinson has created a speaker in “A Light exists in Spring” who is musing upon and then striving to portray a certain kind of light that becomes visible only during the season of spring or, at least, very near that season of rebirth.

    First Quatrain:  A Particular Light

    A Light exists in Spring
    Not present on the Year
    At any other period —
    When March is scarcely here

    The speaker asserts that this light may be experienced “in Spring,” and this particular light cannot be seen at any other time of the year.  However, the speaker then reports that this light does appear just after the month of March has arrived.

    This claim, therefore, suggests that the light might also appear just before the actual season of spring has arrived.  The season of spring does not begin until the third week of March, not in early March, as the speaker seems to be suggesting.

    Second Quatrain:   Not Identified by Science

    A Color stands abroad
    On Solitary Fields
    That Science cannot overtake
    But Human Nature feels.

    The speaker now claims that it is possible to observe a certain shade of color that has descended upon the “fields.” This extraordinary “color” apparently has not been identified in nature by science.  However, human beings, according to this speaker, are capable of sensing this color without a name for or scientific description of it.

    The speaker, therefore, hints that the color of this special light does not exist at all in nature, and it is perhaps only visible to the human soul—not the mind or even the heart—as  such lights as rainbows or the aura borealis are visible to the human eye.

    Third Quatrain:  Unearthly, Perhaps Mystical

    It waits upon the Lawn,
    It shows the furthest Tree
    Upon the furthest Slope you know
    It almost speaks to you.

    This unearthly—perhaps even mystical—light with its special color may be experienced as it stands “upon the Lawn.” However, the light may also appear in trees that grow very far away and may also be gleaned from faraway, quite distant from the where the speaker views it.  The speaker now reports that this strange mystical light may seem to converse with anyone, but its language would be one only known to the soul.

    The speaker then strives to arouse in her listeners and readers an understanding that would be quite likely impossible to shape into words.  The speaker has been carried to an indescribable place within her own soul.

    This light that is capable of “wait[ing] upon the Lawn” but does not instantly pass across the lawn strongly suggests that it is capable of  halting time for a short period—possibly to allow the observer to contemplate the nature of its existence.

    Fourth Quatrain:  As the Light Passes

    Then as Horizons step
    Or Noons report away
    Without the Formula of sound
    It passes and we stay —

    That time period which comes through experiencing that special light cannot wait long and thus “it passes.”  Of course, the observer remains, that is, this speaker remains where she is while the light passes on.

    The special light thus seems to resemble sunlight after it has passed overhead around the noon hour.  Naturally, its final departure is without fanfare, although the speaker seems to have expected a sound, or some other sign to help her understand the strange feeling that this light has engendered in her.

    Fifth Quatrain:   An Inappropriate Intrusion

    A quality of loss
    Affecting our Content
    As Trade had suddenly encroached
    Upon a Sacrament.

    The speaker then asserts that she feels a kind of deep loss.  It is as if something drastically inappropriate has happened.   The speaker expresses that painful inappropriateness as the same as finding of “Trade” intruding “Upon a Sacrament.”  She feels as wronged as Jesus felt upon encountering the money changers in the temple.  

    Spiritual Clarity

    In Emily Dickinson’s “A Light exists in Spring,” the speaker has made a valiant effort to describe the ineffable.  Such a task is impossible, but it is possible to portray the feelings that this ineffable entity has engendered in the heart and mind of the individual observer of that indescribable entity. 

    Thus the speaker has remained vague about what this light looks like, but she has made it quite clear how it has made her feel, and that is her reason for creating this particular little drama.

    The speaker’s experience viewing this special light has moved her very deeply. Although she cannot portray the light’s physical nature, she can suggest the nature of the way the light has influenced her mentally and spiritually.

  • Emily Dickinson’s “The Brain – is wider than the Sky”

    Image: Emily Dickinson - Amherst College - Daguerrotype of the poet at age 17, circa 1847 - likely the only authentic, extant likeness of the poet
    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 “The Brain – is wider than the Sky”

    Emily Dickinson’s poem, “The Brain – is wider than the Sky,” compares and contrasts the human brain/mind with the sky, the sea, and God.

    Introduction and Text of “The Brain – is wider than the Sky”

    The idea that a human being is made in the image of God was not first conceived by a poet; that claim is found in the ancient text of the Holy Bible, and both Eastern and Western religious philosophical texts expound principles that the image of the Divine Creator exists in the children that He has created.  

    Emily Dickinson possessed a great depth of knowledge of the King James Version of the Bible. Undoubtedly, as she composed this poem, she quite obviously kept in mind the following biblical claim from Genesis 1:26: “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” 

    Dickinson’s poem, “The Brain – is wider than the Sky,” offers a unique expression of understanding regarding the unity of the Godhead and humankind.  Emily Dickinson’s mystical ability allowed her to understand many ideas and concepts about the ineffable levels of being.

    She was, therefore, able to interpret and expound on those ideas and concepts.  However, instead of showcasing her knowledge in treatises, she chose to create little dramas with her poems.

    The Brain – is wider than the Sky

    The Brain – is wider than the Sky –
    For – put them side by side –
    The one the other will contain
    With ease – and You – beside –

    The Brain is deeper than the sea –
    For – hold them – Blue to Blue –
    The one the other will absorb –
    As Sponges – Buckets – do –

    The Brain is just the weight of God –
    For – Heft them – Pound for Pound –
    And they will differ – if they do –
    As Syllable from Sound –

    Commentary on “The Brain – is wider than the Sky”

    Metaphorically referring to the mind as the “Brain,” Dickinson’s speaker offers the essential truth that the Supreme Creator fashioned human beings in His image.

    First Stanza:  Brain Power

    The Brain – is wider than the Sky –
    For – put them side by side –
    The one the other will contain
    With ease – and You – beside –

    The first stanza contrasts the brain/mind with the sky claiming that the brain is wider because it can think about the sky and at the same time can think about the person who is thinking about the sky, and it can perform this operation easily. 

    That the brain can hold the sky reveals that the “Brain” is, indeed, a metaphor for “mind.”  It is the mind, after all that, entertains the thought that is labeled “sky.”  And while the mind is thinking “sky,” it also has the marvelous ability to retain thoughts of “you,” the reader, listener, audience—whoever might be hearing this lyric.

    It will also be noted that the mind—”Brain”—possesses the ability to range even farther than the sky because it is “wider.”  The width of the sky is not known; it is unlimited, thus the “mind” is even beyond unlimited—it being “wider.”  

    Such a quality must give one pause as one considers the possibility of possessing an instrument that can range beyond the limits of visual acuity.  And this speaker is offering many instances that give the reader pause for thought—in order words, to exercise that mighty Brain/mind.

    Second Stanza:  More Brain Power

    The Brain is deeper than the sea –
    For – hold them – Blue to Blue –
    The one the other will absorb –
    As Sponges – Buckets – do –

    The second stanza contrasts the brain with the sea asserting that the brain can take in the sea as a sponge sucks up a bucket of water, once again referencing the vast thinking ability of the brain/mind. 

    If sponges can absorb buckets of water, they must be very large sponges and/or very many of them.  The speaker is asserting again a vastness that is unlimited, even as sponges sucking up buckets of water might be.  

    But because she does not say two buckets, four buckets, or more, being absorbed by twenty or forty sponges, she has again allowed an unlimited number of items to come to mind. As the sky is limitless, those sponges and buckets must remain limitless as well, if their metaphorical likeness to the brain/mind is to remain operative.

    Third Stanza:  The Ultimate Brain Power

    The Brain is just the weight of God –
    For – Heft them – Pound for Pound –
    And they will differ – if they do –
    As Syllable from Sound –

    The third stanza contrasts but also compares the human brain to God. This stanza inflicts an interpretive difficulty; certain readers might mistakenly believe that the speaker is making a blasphemous assertion that the brain and God are the same.  However, as elucidated in the following section, “God Is Not Limited,” such a claim is without merit.

    God—the Unlimited

    All devout believers contend that God is not limited by or to any one item of His creation. Almighty God—the Divine Belovèd and Father of All—is rightly considered to be vastly greater than all His creations taken together.  

    The human brain/mind thus is only one of God’s many creations, so to claim that “The Brain is just the weight of God” may at first without due reflection seem as if the speaker means that they are equal. 

    However, the blasphemy charge can be denied with a closer look at what the poem actually does, especially in the last three lines of the last stanza: 

    For – Heft them – Pound for Pound –
    And they will differ – if they do –
    As Syllable from Sound –

    The speaker does not claim that the brain/mind and God are the exact same; she is concluding that the brain/mind and God are similar because of their vastness which she has demonstrated in her contrasts with the sky and sea.  

    The sky and the sea are massive—virtually cosmic in their proportions to other earthy creations—yet the brain/mind can conceive of them as ideas, which means that the brain/mind can hold them–that is, it can hold the ideas of those enormous entities. 

    As the speaker makes her claim that the brain/mind and God are close in essence, she expresses the reality that they do differ–they differ one from the other as a “syllable” differs from a “sound.” That difference is a solid one because there is a definite difference between a syllable and a sound.  

    The sense of the term “if”—in “if they do”—then becomes more accurately interpreted as “since” or “because.”  She is offering the actual difference which negates the dual property of “if.”

    However, because the aim of her speculation is to celebrate the significance as well as vastness of the brain/mind’s capabilities, the speaker avers that the brain/mind and God are similar.  After all, it is the brain/mind that conceives the notion of God. 

    Still, God remains greater than the brain/mind because while the brain/mind is a “syllable,” God is “sound”; thus, the brain/mind becomes a perceivable symbolic representation of the ineffable God, as a syllable is a representation of sound.   The difference is real, and ultimately, it is immeasurably more vast than the sky and ocean.

  • Emily Dickinson’s “I gave myself to Him”

    Image: Emily Dickinson - Amherst College - Daguerrotype of the poet at age 17, circa 1847 - likely the only authentic, extant likeness of the poet
    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 “I gave myself to Him”

    The speaker in Emily Dickinson’s “I gave myself to Him” is musing on the imbalance that remains even after one has surrendered one’s life to God the Creator.

    Introduction and Text of “I gave myself to Him”

    The speaker in Emily Dickinson’s “I gave myself to Him” is exploring the idea that after having devoted her attention to the Creator by giving herself “to Him,” she finds that the giving of such a gift cannot be mutual.  She suggests the idea that the gift of herself will surely disappoint the Giver and Creator of all things.

    She leaves open the notion there may be some mutual gain because “[s]ome” have “found it” so.  She is likely referring to testimony from the saints who assure their listening audience of the great riches attained by such surrender to God.

    The speaker is likely reassuring herself that such a bargain cannot bring about an occasion to boast, nor can it eliminate the necessity to remain humble.  Her ultimate conclusion may seem pessimistic at first. 

    However, God remains the ultimate authority to which the human heart, mind, and soul must surrender regardless of any emphasis of mutuality in considering gain and loss.  Thus without stating the conclusion directly, the speaker is implying that the human debt to God has to remain insolvent until the soul grasps its relationship to its Creator.

    I gave myself to Him

    I gave myself to Him –
    And took Himself, for Pay,
    The solemn contract of a Life
    Was ratified, this way –

    The Wealth might disappoint –
    Myself a poorer prove
    Than this great Purchaser suspect,
    The Daily Own – of Love

    Depreciate the Vision –
    But till the Merchant buy –
    Still Fable – in the Isles of Spice –
    The subtle Cargoes – lie –

    At least – ’tis Mutual – Risk –
    Some – found it – Mutual Gain –
    Sweet Debt of Life – Each Night to owe –
    Insolvent – every Noon –

    Commentary on “I gave myself to Him”

    The speaker is exploring the nature of her relationship with her Divine Creator, the Heavenly Father, Divine Mother, or God.  Although she professes to have given her life to her Creator or Heavenly Father, she discovers that she still owes a debt that can never fully be repaid.

    First Stanza:  Surrendering Her Life to the Divine 

    I gave myself to Him –
    And took Himself, for Pay,
    The solemn contract of a Life
    Was ratified, this way –

    The speaker begins with a somewhat ambiguous statement that she has given herself to “Him.”  The capitalized, masculine pronoun “Him” indicates she is likely referring to her Creator (God).  Such capitalization is known as reverential or biblical capitalization.  She continues to employ the reverential capital in the second line with the reflexive, masculine pronoun “Himself.” 

    The idea of giving oneself or one’s life to God is hardly a novel one.  The religious and spiritual minded become positively gleeful at the notion of surrendering their lives to their Creator.  So upon first encountering the speaker’s claim, the reader will then wonder what new or fascinating rendition of such a confession might be in the offing.

    The speaker then begins to elaborate.  After surrendering herself to God, the speaker affirms that her life became a reality. Her “contract” offers her “Pay,” or something substantial for her surrender.

    That contract, in fact, “ratified” her existence.  Just as a political contract, such as the American Constitution, had to be ratified, the speaker’s life was ratified or put into existence by affirmation by the contract she made when she gave her life to God.

    Second Stanza:  An Economics (Trade) Metaphor 

    The Wealth might disappoint –
    Myself a poorer prove
    Than this great Purchaser suspect,
    The Daily Own – of Love

    The speaker then admits that the “Purchaser” of her insignificant life might well be disappointed because she may prove to be “poorer” than the Purchaser of her contract might have suspected.

    The “great Purchaser” (God) may find that her ability to offer love may not be up to the standards He might expect.  Of course, she is demonstrating her ability to remain humble because she is well aware that God’s love will always outweigh, outshine, and outpace her own.

    Likely she is simply thinking of or musing on possibilities, as she employs an economics (trade) metaphor with such terms as “wealth,” “Purchaser,” and “Own.”   She cannot know how important this life choice is going to be for her ability to love or to navigate the seas upon which her life’s boat will have to sail.  

    The speaker can only contemplate at this point, although she does know she can be certain that God’s love will always be greater than she could ever afford; the inevitability of such remains a given, a concept that even the most ardent atheist can grasp even if not accept.

    Third Stanza:  Speculating on Her Importance

    Depreciate the Vision –
    But till the Merchant buy –
    Still Fable – in the Isles of Spice –
    The subtle Cargoes – lie –

    The speaker continues to muse and employ a trade metaphor.  She suggests that one must lower expectations until the time has arrived to sell the product.  Although she has, in fact, given her life over to the “Purchaser,” she has continued to speculate about her own importance.  

    Thus she wonders if she might have oversold her own self in the process.  She then suggests that like the precious “Cargoes” that remain in places from which rich spices are harvested, she may have presented herself as a fabulous commodity that is yet to be realized, like those “subtle Cargoes.”  They remain “subtle” until they are delivered.  And until they are delivered they simply rest or “lie” in one place.

    Fourth Stanza:  Equal Loss – Equal Gain

    At least – ’tis Mutual – Risk –
    Some – found it – Mutual Gain –
    Sweet Debt of Life – Each Night to owe –
    Insolvent – every Noon –

    Finally, the speaker seems to come to the notion that the exchange is not all one-sided:  there may be a chance of failure on both sides.  Yet, she asserts that there are those (saints perhaps?) who have declared that such a transaction garners gain on both sides.

    After all, each night when the human body lies down to rest, it owes a debt for its life.  As all debts must be repaid, that same body with a mind, heart, and soul continues to own that debt, which remains “insolvent” in the bright light of day.

    While night time reminds the human ego as it prays to its Creator that it has not created itself, still it must remain aware to Whom it owes its continued existence.  The speaker’s insolvency will remain because the limited human mind and heart can never repay the debt it owes its all-powerful Creator and Benefactor; only the soul can do that.

  • Emily Dickinson’s “‘Why do I love’ You, Sir?”

    Image: Emily Dickinson - Amherst College - Daguerrotype of the poet at age 17, circa 1847 - likely the only authentic, extant likeness of the poet
    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 “‘Why do I love’ You, Sir?”

    The speaker of Emily Dickinson’s oddly punctuated poem “‘Why do I love’ You, Sir?” uses logic to demonstrate the reasoning that leads the created soul to experience love for its Creator.

    Introduction with Text of “‘Why do I love’ You, Sir?”

    This unusual Emily Dickinson poem begins with the following oddly punctuated first line: “Why do I love” You, Sir?

    Emily Dickinson’s Editors

    When analyzing the poems of Emily Dickinson’s, it is useful to remember that she did not work with an editor for the purpose of publishing.   Her poems were first edited after her death by Thomas Wentworth Higginson and Mabel Loomis Todd.

    But, unfortunately, their reworking often smoothed out Dickinson’s quirky use of language to the point of crushing the innovation and nuances that made her the unique poet that she was.  Therefore, Thomas H. Johnson restored her poems to the originals as found in the bundles (fascicles) of poems written in her own handwriting. 

    Thus the reader must be aware that Dickinson might have been persuaded to alter some of her quirks for publication, if she had been assured that her meaning would not be changed but instead made clearer by the changes.

    The odd punctuation of this poem, especially the first line, is an example of a Dickinsonian quirk which, no doubt, would have been altered by an editor after close consultation with the poet.  Indeed, it would be fascinating to hear Dickinson’s explanation for placing “Why do I love” in quotation marks, making it appear as a unit of thought that seems to address the second person “You.”

    No one can ever know for certain what significance that odd punctuation might have had for the poet, and it is likely that modern readers may simply dismiss the quotation marks as they begin the poem.

    The poem features four stanzas; the first two are innovative cinquains, the third is an innovative sestet, and the fourth is a Dickinsonian quatrain.  The poem dramatizes the theme of God’s love as mystery.  

    But it also makes it clear that the speaker is simplifying that emotion:  it is merely a natural sequence of events that the created soul will love its Creator.  The complication comes in giving thought to that sequence.  The speaker seems to desire to uncomplicate the issue once and for all.

    “Why do I love” You, Sir?

    “Why do I love” You, Sir?
    Because –
    The Wind does not require the Grass
    To answer – Wherefore when He pass
    She cannot keep Her place.

    Because He knows — and
    Do not You –
    And We know not –
    Enough for Us
    The Wisdom it be so –

    The Lightning – never asked an Eye
    Wherefore it shut — when He was by –
    Because He knows it cannot speak –
    And reasons not contained –
    – Of Talk –
    There be – preferred by Daintier Folk –

    The Sunrise – Sire – compelleth Me –
    Because He’s Sunrise – and I see –
    Therefore – Then –
    I love Thee –

    Commentary on “‘Why do I love’ You, Sir?”

    The speaker of Dickinson’s oddly punctuated poem uses logic to demonstrate the reasoning that leads the created soul to love for its Creator.

    First Stanza:   Unavoidable Love

    “Why do I love” You, Sir?
    Because –
    The Wind does not require the Grass
    To answer – Wherefore when He pass
    She cannot keep Her place.

    The speaker seems to be talking to the Divine Reality (God), calling Him “Sir,” and questioning Him as to why she loves Him. Then the speaker replies with her own answer, “Because — / The Wind does not require the Grass / To answer.”  However, in order to completely respond to this amazing mystery, the speaker finds it necessary to compare her feelings with phenomena of nature. 

    She thus decides to compare her love to the act of love the grass possesses.  The grass simply cannot prevent itself from undergoing its waving motion after the wind has blown through it. 

    The speaker’s love for her Heavenly Father Creator God is just simply natural.  There can be no questioning it.   Of course, she will continue to question and answer.  That’s just the way she rolls!

    Second Stanza:  The Wisdom of Love

    Because He knows — and
    Do not You –
    And We know not –
    Enough for Us
    The Wisdom it be so –

    In the second stanza, the speaker suggests that God as Father along with all she knows about anything, holds the “Wisdom” motivating the love in the soul of the created children for their Creator.   Nothing more is necessary, because everything is enfolded in that love and wisdom.

    Third Stanza:  “Why” Remains Irrelevant

    The Lightning – never asked an Eye
    Wherefore it shut — when He was by –
    Because He knows it cannot speak –
    And reasons not contained –
    – Of Talk –
    There be – preferred by Daintier Folk –

    In the third stanza, the speaker returns to describing phenomena of nature to explicate the “why”:  she reveals that that love eruption is akin to lightning striking the eye.  The eye will never stop to ask “why” it is acting as it does as it closes from the onslaught of  the light’s sudden brilliance.  Intimately coalescing occurrences do not motivate one to ask why.  They just are.  Or it is so obvious that no one has ever in history bothered to question it.   

    The speaker is nevertheless still aware that human minds crave reasons for things and events.   The human mind wants to discuss and declaim about the ineffable, even though the ineffable will never be “contained — / — Of Talk.”   The mind may be likened to “Daintier Folk,” who wish everything to be clarified in words, despite the fact that words often cannot perform that feat.

    By qualifying the mind and others who are not privy to such erudition as simply “daintier,” the speaker manages to suggest that there are those who are merely  incapable of seeing what is right before their eyes.  The employment of such a euphemism renders the speaker both kind and sympathetic and yet at the same time demonstrates her unique talent and deep mental perception.

    Fourth Stanza:  The Logic of Loving One’s Creator

    The Sunrise – Sire – compelleth Me –
    Because He’s Sunrise – and I see –
    Therefore – Then –
    I love Thee –

    The love for God, for this speaker, remains quite uncomplicated:  as the sun rises, her eyes perceive light.  As the Creator creates, the created loves.  To her mind, only the completely daft can question the logic of loving one’s Creator.

    But even without uttering any negativity regarding those who lack such natural understanding, the speaker has demonstrated her stance which remains replete with obvious implications.

  • Emily Dickinson’s “I measure every Grief I meet”

    Image: Emily Dickinson - Amherst College - Daguerrotype of the poet at age 17, circa 1847 - likely the only authentic, extant likeness of the poet
    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 “I measure every Grief I meet”

    In “I measure every Grief I meet,” the speaker examines the nature of suffering. The poem is long by Dickinson standards—ten quatrains.  Its theme relates squarely to the Dickinson voice that has become so beloved by her readers.

    Introduction and Text of “I measure every Grief I meet”

    By Dickinsonian reckoning, this poem is quite long.  Of course, her longest poem is “Awake ye muses nine, sing me a strain divine,” the first one that appears in Thomas H. Johnson’s The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson.  But that Valentine message remains an anomaly, which hardly represents the poet’s later accomplishments.

    The theme of “I measure every Grief I meet” squares directly with the Dickinson voice that has become so beloved by her fans.  Death, dying, and grief figure greatly in her canon, yet the sum of her output is nothing other than finding the good, true, and beautiful that human beings are capable of experiencing on this “terrestrial ball.”

    I measure every Grief I meet

    I measure every Grief I meet
    With narrow, probing, Eyes  –
    I wonder if It weighs like Mine –
    Or has an Easier size.

    I wonder if They bore it long  –
    Or did it just begin  –
    I could not tell the Date of Mine  –
    It feels so old a pain  – 

    I wonder if it hurts to live  –
    And if They have to try  –
    And whether  –  could They choose between  –
    It would not be  –  to die  – 

    I note that Some  –  gone patient long  –
    At length, renew their smile  –
    An imitation of a Light
    That has so little Oil  – 

    I wonder if when Years have piled  –
    Some Thousands  –  on the Harm  –
    That hurt them early  –  such a lapse
    Could give them any Balm  – 

    Or would they go on aching still
    Through Centuries of Nerve  –
    Enlightened to a larger Pain  –
    In Contrast with the Love  – 

    The Grieved  –  are many  –  I am told  –
    There is the various Cause  –
    Death  –  is but one  –  and comes but once  –
    And only nails the eyes  – 

    There’s Grief of Want  –  and Grief of Cold  –
    A sort they call “Despair”  –
    There’s Banishment from native Eyes  –
    In sight of Native Air  – 

    And though I may not guess the kind  –
    Correctly  –  yet to me
    A piercing Comfort it affords
    In passing Calvary  – 

    To note the fashions  –  of the Cross  –
    And how they’re mostly worn  –
    Still fascinated to presume
    That Some  –  are like My Own  – 

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBYyOo7kTtg&t=

    Commentary on “I measure every Grief I meet”

    In “I measure every Grief I meet,” the speaker examines the nature of human suffering. The poem is long by Dickinson standards, filling out a whopping ten quatrains.

    First Quatrain:  Special Observant Attention 

    I measure every Grief I meet
    With narrow, probing, Eyes  –
    I wonder if It weighs like Mine  –
    Or has an Easier size.

    The speaker in Emily Dickinson’s “I measure every Grief I meet” from Thomas H. Johnson’s Complete Poem of Emily Dickinson asserts that she scrutinizes every person who has sorrow with especially observant attention. 

    In this poem, “every Grief” provides a metonymic reference to a person who is grieving, of whose sorrow the speaker wishes to determine the breadth and depth. She knows the “size” of her own suffering, and thus she wonders if her fellows take their suffering as seriously as she does. 

    Second Quatrain:  Old Pain 

    I wonder if They bore it long  –
    Or did it just begin  –
    I could not tell the Date of Mine  –
    It feels so old a pain  – 

    The speaker then avers that she has speculated about how much time has passed since the griever’s suffering commenced. She notices that her own suffering has been with her so long that it seems to be as old as pain itself. 

    Third Quatrain:  The Depth of Suffering 

    I wonder if it hurts to live  –
    And if They have to try  –
    And whether  –  could They choose between  –
    It would not be  –  to die  – 

    The speaker then ponders the possibility that the depth of hurt might cause the suffering one to wish for death; she wonders if the sufferers think about or contemplate making the choice between continuing to live in pain and committing suicide. 

    Fourth Quatrain:  The Onset of Complacency

    I note that Some  –  gone patient long  –
    At length, renew their smile  –
    An imitation of a Light
    That has so little Oil  – 

    The speaker reports that from her observations she has detected that some of those people in pain have grown so accustomed to their lot that they “renew their smile,” but their “imitation” smile is as faint as a lamp with “so little Oil.” 

    Fifth Quatrain:  Any Balm in Time? 

    I wonder if when Years have piled  –
    Some Thousands  –  on the Harm  –
    That hurt them early  –  such a lapse
    Could give them any Balm  – 

    The speaker then wonders if after the passage of “[s]ome Thousands” of years, they might finally have recovered from their original hurt; could such a long period of time be “a lapse” that “[c]ould give them any Balm”? 

    Sixth Quatrain: Pain Larger than Love 

    Or would they go on aching still
    Through Centuries of Nerve  –
    Enlightened to a larger Pain  –
    In Contrast with the Love  – 

    The speaker suspects that the suffering might continue, especially if the “pain” grew “larger” than “the Love.” 

    Seventh Quatrain: Waxing Philosophical 

    The Grieved  –  are many  –  I am told  –
    There is the various Cause  –
    Death  –  is but one  –  and comes but once  –
    And only nails the eyes  – 

    The speaker then waxes philosophical in stating that many individuals have suffered and continue to suffer.  Clearly, this speaker knows this fact largely from what she had heard and read.  While the poet was something of a mystic, she does not create omniscient speakers

    The speaker has likely been advised that many reasons exist for so much suffering in the world.  Death is one cause only.  While “death” is thought to happen to each individual only once, this speaker realizes that death “only nails the eyes.”

    Death has no way of removing suffering from the soul.  The mind of the unself-realized person will retain that taint until the sufferer has become God-united.  The real “self” or soul transcends death’s reach, as this speaker understands.

    Eighth Quatrain:  The Causes  

    There’s Grief of Want  –  and Grief of Cold  –
    A sort they call “Despair”  –
    There’s Banishment from native Eyes  –
    In sight of Native Air  – 

    The speaker continues speculating about other causes of pain: “Grief of Want” and “grief of Cold” are two examples; then there are “Despair” and the “Banishment from native Eyes” despite remaining “In Sight of Native Air.” All of these instruments of pain are ancient and ever-present; they can never be eliminated. 

    Ninth Quatrain:  Consolation in Christ

    And though I may not guess the kind  –
    Correctly  –  yet to me
    A piercing Comfort it affords
    In passing Calvary  – 

    The speaker finally realizes that although she cannot ascertain the origin of the pain, she finds a deep measure of consolation from the experience and struggles of the blessed Lord Jesus. 

    Tenth Quatrain:   A Spiritual Duty

    To note the fashions  –  of the Cross  –
    And how they’re mostly worn  –
    Still fascinated to presume
    That Some  –  are like My Own  – 

    As the speaker observes the many styles of crosses people over the centuries have worn and borne, she realizes that suffering is universal and shared.  While such knowledge does not alleviate the suffering, it does demonstrate that there is a divine purpose, and that fact makes the act of bearing grief a spiritual duty, which ultimately leads to divine Bliss.

  • Emily Dickinson’s “Two Butterflies went out at Noon”

    Image: Emily Dickinson - Amherst College - Daguerrotype of the poet at age 17, circa 1847 - likely the only authentic, extant likeness of the poet
    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 “Two Butterflies went out at Noon”

    Emily Dickinson possessed the gift of mystic vision, and that vision is displayed brilliantly in this enchanting poem that dramatizes two butterflies embarking on a mystical flight. The poem offers a glimpse into Dickinson’s ability to blend nature with transcendental themes.

    Introduction and Text of “Two Butterflies went out at Noon”

    In Emily Dickinson’s “Two Butterflies went out at Noon” (#533 in Thomas H. Johnson’s The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson), the speaker is dramatizing an imaginary flight of two butterflies that ease out on a amazing journey.

    Emily Dickinson creates a speaker, whose mystical vision is revealed in many of her poems, and this one serves as one of the finest examples of that vision.  Her insightful gift accompanies her gift for creating little dramas that feature snippets of that insight in poetic form.

    Two Butterflies went out at Noon

    Two Butterflies went out at Noon –
    And waltzed above a Farm –
    Then stepped straight through the Firmament
    And rested on a Beam –

    And then – together bore away
    Upon a shining Sea –
    Though never yet, in any Port –
    Their coming mentioned–be –

    If spoken by the distant Bird –
    If met in Ether Sea
    By Frigate, or by Merchantman –
    No notice – was – to me –

    Commentary on “Two Butterflies went out at Noon”

    In Emily Dickinson’s “Two Butterflies went out at Noon,” the speaker dramatizes an imaginary flight of two butterflies embarking on an extraordinary journey.   This poem exemplifies Dickinson’s mystical vision and her ability to craft poetic dramas that explore profound human themes through metaphorical imagery. It is a masterful example of her unique poetic voice.

    First Stanza: Mysterious Arrival

    Two Butterflies went out at Noon –
    And waltzed above a Farm –
    Then stepped straight through the Firmament
    And rested on a Beam –

    The speaker begins with the simple yet intriguing statement, “Two Butterflies went out at Noon.” The butterflies’ sudden appearance is mysterious; they seemingly emerge from nowhere, unbound by any specific origin. 

    Their only marker is time—”Noon”—which suggests a moment of illumination or clarity. This temporal detail invites readers to ponder their symbolic significance as creatures of light and transformation.

    The butterflies “waltzed above a Farm,” an image that evokes grace and harmony. Their movement suggests a carefree dance, embodying the beauty of nature’s fleeting moments. 

    The farm below serves as a grounding contrast to their ethereal presence, emphasizing their transcendence. Yet, their origin remains unknown, adding an air of mystery to their appearance and suggesting they are more than merely the physical beings well-known as butterflies.

    The speaker does not clarify her own location during this observation, leaving readers to wonder whether she is physically present or perceiving them through an inner, mystical,  transcendental vision. 

    After their graceful waltz, the butterflies “stepped straight through the Firmament,” ascending beyond the earthly realm into the heavens. This transition marks their departure from tangible reality into a cosmic or spiritual dimension.

    Once beyond the firmament, the butterflies “rested on a Beam.” The beam could symbolize a ray of sunlight or divine energy, reinforcing their connection to higher realms. 

    This imagery suggests that the speaker’s perception extends beyond ordinary sight; she sees with an inner eye attuned to spiritual truths. The butterflies become metaphors for thoughts or souls—ephemeral entities that transcend physical boundaries.

    Dickinson’s speaker’s metaphorical comparison likens these butterflies to thoughts—mysterious, fleeting, and boundless. Just as thoughts arise spontaneously and traverse unseen realms, so do these butterflies appear suddenly and vanish into intangible spaces with grace and speed. 

    The journey of these special butterflies mirrors the movement of ideas or spiritual insights that come unbidden and often disappear just as quickly.  The nature of flight coincides with the nature of speed and lightness.

    Second Stanza: Ephemeral Thoughts

    And then – together bore away
    Upon a shining Sea –
    Though never yet, in any Port –
    Their coming mentioned–be –

    In the second stanza, the butterflies continue their journey “Upon a shining Sea.” This sea symbolizes eternity or an infinite expanse, reflecting Dickinson’s  life-long fascination with transcendence and the soul’s voyage beyond earthly confines. 

    The imagery evokes a sense of boundlessness, as the butterflies glide effortlessly over this luminous ocean without needing any vessel to carry them.  Just as the soul, and even the mind, may seem to glide effortlessly from thought to feeling and back again.

    The speaker notes that these remarkable butterfly-thoughts never stop at “any Port.” Their journey is uninterrupted by mundane destinations; they pass through existence without anchoring themselves in any fixed location. This detail emphasizes their ephemeral nature—they are not bound by material concerns but remain free to traverse limitless realms.

    The absence of any mention of their arrival further underscores their elusiveness. The speaker suggests that if their presence had been detected in any port along their journey, it surely would have been noted or remarked upon by someone. Yet no such acknowledgment exists, heightening the sense of mystery surrounding their destination and purpose.

    This seamless movement evokes wonder about where these itinerant butterflies will go next. Their path seems guided by an unseen force, reflecting Dickinson’s belief in the unseen powers that govern existence. 

    The butterflies’ journey becomes a metaphor for fleeting thoughts or spiritual revelations—beautiful yet transient experiences that defy capture or explanation.  Even understanding by mental power exists beyond their realm.

    Through this stanza, Dickinson’s speaker invites readers to reflect on the nature of impermanence and the ineffable qualities of spiritual experiences. The shining sea represents both possibility and mystery, a realm where boundaries dissolve and transformation occurs.

    Third Stanza: Evading the Ultimate

    If spoken by the distant Bird –
    If met in Ether Sea
    By Frigate, or by Merchantman –
    No notice – was – to me –

    In the final stanza, the speaker avoids answering where the butterflies ultimately settle, instead emphasizing their elusive nature. She speculates about who might have observed them since their departure but concludes that no one has reported seeing them again. This lack of information reinforces their otherworldly quality—they exist beyond human comprehension or observation.

    The speaker imagines possible witnesses who might have encountered these roaming butterflies: perhaps a “distant Bird” soaring high above or voyagers like frigates and merchantmen traversing vast seas.

    These figures symbolize different perspectives—natural creatures attuned to the skies and human explorers navigating uncharted waters, like Christopher Columbus. Yet even these potential observers provide no reports of the butterflies’ whereabouts.

    This absence of acknowledgment underscores their ethereal quality—they are invisible to ordinary perception and evade even those who might be best positioned to notice them. The butterflies symbolize fleeting thoughts or spiritual entities that traverse unseen dimensions, leaving no trace behind.

    The speaker herself admits that she has no concrete knowledge of their final destination. Even as she entertains these butterfly-thoughts within her mind, she acknowledges their elusive nature—they come and go without leaving tangible evidence of their presence. Only through poetic imagination can she capture and display them for others to experience.

    The speaker’s portrayal of these creatures reflects her longing for transcendence and her fascination with life’s mysteries. The poem becomes a devotional musing on impermanence, beauty, and the soul’s journey beyond the material level of existence.

    A Poetic Meditation on Transcendence

    In “Two Butterflies went out at Noon,” Emily Dickinson creates a speaker, who weaves an intricate tapestry of imagery and symbolism to explore themes of impermanence, transcendence, and spiritual insight. 

    The butterflies serve as metaphors for fleeting thoughts or souls—ephemeral entities that arise mysteriously, traverse unseen realms, and vanish without explanation—the nearly perfect description of the flight of thoughts and soul experience.

    Through her vivid descriptions and enigmatic narrative, Dickinson’s speaker invites readers to reflect on life’s mysteries and embrace the beauty of impermanence. The poem exemplifies her ability to transform simple observations into profound musings on existence, showcasing her unique poetic vision.

    Dickinson’s mystical perspective shines brightly in this work, offering readers not only a glimpse into her imaginative world but also an opportunity to contemplate their own journeys through life’s vast and mysterious landscapes.

    A musical rendition  

  • Emily Dickinson’s “I know a place where Summer strives”

    Image: Emily Dickinson - Amherst College - Daguerrotype of the poet at age 17, circa 1847 - likely the only authentic, extant likeness of the poet
    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 “I know a place where Summer strives”

    In Emily Dickinson’s “I know a place where Summer strives,” the speaker personifies summer as a woman who struggles to overcome the coldness of late spring.

    Introduction with Text of  “I know a place where Summer strives”

    The poet especially loved summer, and in this fascinating poem, she allows her speaker to convert summer into a gardener who experiences the obstacles that sometimes accompany the difficult birth of the summer season.  

    Sometimes it seems that it takes great effort or striving to overcome the coldness of late spring in New England, where residents may suffer snow and frost before the warmth of summer blossoms into the promised reality.

    The poem offers a unique look at the arrival of the summer season. The speaker’s personification of summer as a woman tending her garden creates a magnificent drama that occurs every late spring.

    Emily Dickinson’s poem, “I know a place where Summer strives,” consists of three stanzas. Each stanza has the rime scheme ABCB.  The poems is #337 in Thomas H. Johnson’s The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson.

    I know a place where Summer strives

    I know a place where Summer strives
    With such a practised Frost –
    She – each year – leads her Daisies back –
    Recording briefly – “Lost” –

    But when the South Wind stirs the Pools
    And struggles in the lanes –
    Her Heart misgives Her, for Her Vow –
    And she pours soft Refrains

    Into the lap of Adamant –
    And spices – and the Dew –
    That stiffens quietly to Quartz –
    Upon her Amber Shoe –

    Commentary on “I know a place where Summer strives”

    In Emily Dickinson’s “I know a place where Summer strives,” the speaker personifies summer as a woman who struggles to overcome the coldness of late spring.

    First Stanza:  Summer Endeavoring to Become

    I know a place where Summer strives
    With such a practised Frost –
    She – each year – leads her Daisies back –
    Recording briefly – “Lost” –

    In the first stanza, the speaker makes the puzzling claim that she knows “a place where Summer strives.” This remark is startling; one does not think of seasons as having the ability or the need to “strive.”   

    Only people are capable of striving. But in this poem, the speaker is, in fact, dramatizing the onset of summer by personifying Summer as a woman; Summer becomes a gardener who is endeavoring to accomplish the arrival of the summer growing season. 

    Unlike those who find the arrival of each season an automatic transition that is hardly noticeable, this speaker dramatically reveals that sometimes the Summer growing season is won by fits and starts. The speaker says that Summer “strives / With such a practised Frost.”   

    Late spring can remain cold in New England, where Dickinson lived all of her life. So it would seem that summer sometimes had a difficult birth, contending with frost and even snow.  But Summer makes a great effort, and her endeavors result in bringing back the flowers, which seemed lost during the winter. 

    Second Stanza:   A Helping Hand

    But when the South Wind stirs the Pools
    And struggles in the lanes –
    Her Heart misgives Her, for Her Vow –
    And she pours soft Refrains

    The speaker then asserts that for all the difficult attempts at arriving, a situation arises that offers a helping hand to Summer in bringing the season to full bloom. The “South Wind stirs the Pools,” and a summer storm blows up. 

    But Summer then still has some doubt about her success, and she has a promise to keep in delivering summer qualities of warmth and fertility so that seeds in the ground may grow into viable plants for food for people and animals.   But then the rains begin, and Summer does absolutely arrive. All her striving has paid off.

    Third Stanza:  A Fierce Attempt

    Into the lap of Adamant –
    And spices – and the Dew –
    That stiffens quietly to Quartz –
    Upon her Amber Shoe –

    Summer “pours soft Refrains // Into the lap of Adamant”; she strives fiercely to arrive. She brings rain to the plants that will flourish during the growing season, which she had promised.  

    The rains will convert the landscape to a glowing green grassy hue that will illuminate the summer’s growing season.   The Summer as a woman will tend her garden, and she will get mud on her shoes.  That mud will become hardened like “Quartz.”  Thus “Sumner” will sport shoes of “Amber.”

    But happily, all her arduous striving will have succeeded: the flowers will gloriously come back.  The frost will have finally departed, and the summer rains will be moistening the thirsty mouths of the plants.  

    Marvelous spices will result from Summer’s loving care of sun and rain.  And even the gardener’s shoes will wear a beautiful “amber” because she has trampled in the mud caring for all the varieties of plants that help fill her larder for winter.

    Dickinson’s “I know a place where Summer strives” rendered in song