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  • Emily Dickinson’s “If I should cease to bring a Rose”

    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 “If I should cease to bring a Rose”

    The speaker in Emily Dickinson’s “If I should cease to bring a Rose” asserts that only death can prevent her small acts of tribute and remembrance.

    Introduction and Text of “If I should cease to bring a Rose”

    Emily Dickinson’s “If I should cease to bring a Rose” thematically sections into two balanced stanzas. The speaker contemplates the only force that could interrupt her customary offerings of a rose on festival days and her naming of commemorative buds.

    On the literal level the speaker announces that absence from these gentle rituals will signal her departure beyond earthly flowers. Paramahansa Yogananda explains that our real self, the soul, is immortal and that death is only an experience through which one learns one cannot die.

    If I should cease to bring a Rose

    If I should cease to bring a Rose
    Upon a festal day,
    ‘Twill be because beyond the Rose
    I have been called away –


    If I should cease to take the names
    My buds commemorate –
    ‘Twill be because Death’s finger
    Claps my murmuring lip!

    Commentary on “If I should cease to bring a Rose”

    The speaker calmly names death as the sole cause that would end her quiet gestures of remembrance and tribute.

    First Stanza: “If I should cease to bring a Rose”

    If I should cease to bring a Rose
    Upon a festal day,
    ‘Twill be because beyond the Rose
    I have been called away –

    The speaker opens with a conditional statement about ending the gift of a rose on a festival day. Such a cessation would not arise from forgetfulness or indifference.  The reason rests solely in her having been summoned beyond the rose itself.

    The flower stands as the last earthly token she might offer.  In my earlier essays on Dickinsonian poems, I have discussed the speaker’s habit of treating death as a quiet summons rather than a violent rupture.

    The phrase “called away” softens the departure into an invitation issued from a realm past physical blossoms. Contemplative musing reveals the speaker’s quiet certainty that only this call could silence her ritual.  Paramahansa Yogananda explains that the soul merely sleeps a little while in the change called death yet remains eternally existing.

    Second Stanza: “If I should cease to take the names”

    If I should cease to take the names
    My buds commemorate –
    ‘Twill be because Death’s finger
    Claps my murmuring lip!

    The speaker next considers the naming of buds that keep memory alive. Should that naming stop, the cause would again be death alone.  Death’s finger is pictured as gently closing the lip that still murmurs names. The image remains tender rather than harsh.

    In my earlier essays on Dickinsonian poems, I have discussed the speaker’s steady focus on immortality as the true condition of the soul.The final image seals the poem with quiet finality. Only the touch of death can still the voice that once spoke the commemorative names.