Belovèd opens wide the window’s frame, A sacred act that melts all pain away. On morning’s wing, she stands in light’s array, Defying storms that threaten without shame. Into the mystic mists her gaze now came, Divine awareness in the breeze’s sway. Though danger lurks within her mind’s display, Her soul, wrapped in a holy glow, takes aim.
Her inner self learns how truly to see, Each tranquil scene a balm to make her whole. While thoughts dart swift and dust falls endlessly, Her spirit soars beyond the mundane toll. In stillness, love and joy flow ceaselessly, As divine Bliss remains her only goal.
Emily Dickinson’s “Safe in their Alabaster Chambers” (1859)
Emily Dickinson’s “Safe in their Alabaster Chambers” contemplates death, resurrection, and the soul’s mysterious condition beyond earthly awareness. The speaker contrasts the stillness of the grave with the restless activity of the living world.Dickinson’s 1861revision of the second stanza renders the contrast more cosmic in nature.
Introduction and Text of “Safe in their Alabaster Chambers” (1859)
Emily Dickinson’s “Safe in their Alabaster Chambers” is one of the speaker’s most profound meditations on death and immortality. The poem unfolds in two compact stanzas that juxtapose the silence of the tomb against the movement and noise of earthly existence.
In earlier essays, I have discussed Dickinson’s fascination with immortality and the soul’s destiny, concerns that appear repeatedly throughout her finest poems. Here the speaker creates a little drama in which the dead seem sheltered from time itself, while nature continues its cheerful but oblivious routines above them. The poem’s paradox emerges from the tension between physical death and spiritual continuance.
Safe in their Alabaster Chambers (1859)
Safe in their Alabaster Chambers Untouched by Morning And untouched by Noon— Sleep the meek members of the Resurrection— Rafter of satin, And Roof of stone.
Light laughs the breeze In her Castle above them— Babbles the Bee in a stolid Ear, Pipe the Sweet Birds in ignorant cadence— Ah, what sagacity perished here!
Commentary on “Safe in their Alabaster Chambers” (1859)
The speaker presents death neither as annihilation nor as tragedy. Instead, she portrays a condition of profound stillness that transcends earthly commotion.
First Stanza: “Safe in their Alabaster Chambers”
Safe in their Alabaster Chambers Untouched by Morning And untouched by Noon— Sleep the meek members of the Resurrection— Rafter of satin, And Roof of stone.
The opening line immediately places the dead within “Alabaster Chambers,” a metaphor for tombs or graves. The adjective “safe” establishes a surprisingly comforting atmosphere rather than one of dread. The speaker is offer the notion that these resting places serve as shelters.
The occupants remain “Untouched by Morning” and “untouched by Noon.” Time no longer affects them because earthly cycles have lost their authority. Morning and noon symbolize the passage of worldly existence from beginning toward maturity.
The speaker refers to the deceased as “the meek members of the Resurrection.” By employing the term “Resurrection,” she hints that death represents a temporary condition rather than a final ending. The dead await a future awakening beyond mortal perception.
Paramahansa Yogananda explains that the soul remains immortal and merely passes through a change called death. He teaches that “the soul feels a joyous sense of relief and freedom” after leaving the body. The speaker’s image of peaceful sleepers harmonizes with that spiritual concept.
The word “sleep” further softens the reality of death. Rather than depicting decay or destruction, the speaker offers an image of repose. The dead appear withdrawn from activity but not extinguished.
The final two lines provide an elegant architectural image. A “Rafter of satin” suggests softness and refinement, while a “Roof of stone” reminds readers of the grave’s physical permanence. The combination unites comfort with solemnity. The stanza presents a remarkable balance between Christian symbolism and Eastern mysticism.
In earlier essays, I have discussed Dickinson’s tendency to approach spiritual questions through intuition rather than doctrine. The speaker similarly leaves the mystery unresolved while emphasizing serenity.
The first stanza ultimately suggests that the dead have entered a realm beyond ordinary measurements of time. Their condition remains inaccessible to earthly observers. Yet the speaker implies that their apparent silence conceals a deeper destiny.
Second Stanza: “Light laughs the breeze”
Light laughs the breeze In her Castle above them— Babbles the Bee in a stolid Ear, Pipe the Sweet Birds in ignorant cadence— Ah, what sagacity perished here!
The second stanza shifts attention from the dead to the living world above them. Nature remains energetic, animated, and noisy. The speaker personifies the breeze as laughing in her “Castle.” The image of the castle elevates the atmosphere of the upper world. Air, light, and movement continue their endless activity. Meanwhile, the dead remain separated from those earthly amusements.
The bee “Babbles” into a “stolid Ear.” The adjective “stolid” rightly emphasizes the inability of the dead to respond. No sound, however lively, can penetrate their utterly profound stillness. Likewise, the birds continue their songs in “ignorant cadence.” The birds are unaware of the significance of those who lie beneath them. Of course, Nature performs her routines without comprehending human mortality.
The speaker’s insight becomes especially striking in the final line. “Ah, what sagacity perished here!” expresses admiration for the wisdom once possessed by the deceased. The exclamation acknowledges the loss of great minds and souls.
Yet the line also contains irony. If resurrection awaits, then that sagacity has not truly perished. Only its earthly expression has disappeared from human sight. This speaker is completely aware that the soul is eternal.
Paramahansa Yogananda explains that death does not destroy consciousness but merely removes the soul from its bodily garment. He teaches that the soul remains “an immortal soul, a child of God.” The speaker’s lament therefore resonates more as a human perception than an ultimate truth.
The poem concludes without resolving the mystery. The cheerful sounds of nature continue above, while the dead remain hidden below. Through that contrast, the speaker invites readers to muse upon whether apparent endings conceal an unseen continuation of life.
Note on the 1861 Revision
In Thomas H. Johnson’s The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, the editor offers this poem as #216, but there are two versions of this poem, one from 1859 and one from 1861. The first stanza is virtually unchanged, except for spacing, but the second stanza takes on a whole new aura.
Safe in their Alabaster Chambers (1861)
Safe in their Alabaster Chambers— Untouched by Morning And untouched by Noon— Lie the meek members of the Resurrection— Rafter of Satin—and Roof of Stone!
Grand go the Years—in the Crescent—above them— Worlds scoop their Arcs— And Firmaments—row— Diadems—drop—and Doges—surrender— Soundless as dots—on a Disc of Snow—
Dickinson’s 1861 revision shifts the poem’s emphasis from the quiet repose of the dead to the vast movements of cosmic time. In the 1859 version, the second stanza focuses on earthly nature—breezes, bees, and birds continuing their activities in ignorance of the dead below. The contrast remains local and intimate.
The 1861 version expands the speaker’s vision dramatically. Instead of observing nature’s small routines, she contemplates immense cycles of history and the universe: “Years,” “Worlds,” and “Firmaments” move across the heavens while rulers and crowns vanish. The dead remain unchanged in their “Alabaster Chambers,” but now entire civilizations and celestial systems pass before them.
The final image, “Soundless as dots—on a Disc of Snow,” reduces worldly power and achievement to near insignificance. Kings, doges, and diadems disappear as silently as falling snowflakes.
The revision thus deepens the poem’s contemplative musing on eternity, suggesting not merely that the dead are removed from earthly life, but that they rest beyond the reach of time itself. The perspective becomes more metaphysical, more cosmic, and ultimately more awe-inspiring than that of the earlier version.
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 “To lose one’s faith – surpass”
Emily Dickinson’s “To lose one’s faith – surpass” reveals the speaker’s vision of faith as a singular inward inheritance whose loss exceeds material loss.
Introduction and Text of “To lose one’s faith – surpass”
Emily Dickinson’s “To lose one’s faith – surpass” is an American-Innovative lyric featuring the Dickinsonian plethora of dashes, while remaining unrimed. The speaker contrasts spiritual loss with material loss.
The tone remains steady and reflective, allowing meaning to unfold through simple comparative statements rather than extended argument or narrative expansion. The speaker frames faith as something more interior than property or inheritance. The poem moves between material imagery and inward consequence.
To lose one’s faith – surpass –
To lose one’s faith – surpass – The loss of an Estate – Because Estates can be Replenished – faith cannot –
Inherited with Life – Belief – but once – can be – Annihilate a single clause – And Being’s – Beggary –
Commentary on “To lose one’s faith – surpass”
The speaker presents faith as an inner possession whose loss creates a deeper condition than material ruin. The poem moves toward inward deprivation rather than external loss.
First Stanza: Cannot Get Back
To lose one’s faith – surpass – The loss of an Estate – Because Estates can be Replenished – faith cannot –
The speaker begins with a quiet but firm comparison between faith and material inheritance. An estate represents something large, structured, and recoverable in worldly terms.
The speaker completes the contrast by establishing permanence in loss. An estate may return through circumstance or restoration, but faith does not follow that pattern of recovery.
The tone remains calm, almost observational, as if the speaker is stating a condition of reality rather than offering persuasion or argument. The word “surpass” suggests that spiritual loss rises above material loss in seriousness. The speaker sets a hierarchy of inward and outward value.
The estate functions as a symbol of continuity in earthly life, where loss can be repaired through time, labor, or inheritance. Faith, however, is treated as singular and non-repeatable. Once absent, it does not return in the same inward form.
The speaker’s phrasing suggests a quiet finality, where spiritual absence becomes a lasting condition rather than a temporary state. The simplicity of diction reinforces the seriousness of the claim, allowing the idea to feel inevitable rather than debated.
In earlier commentaries on Dickinsonian poems, I have discussed Dickinson’s creating metaphysical weight through plain comparison rather than rhetorical expansion. The speaker’s structure mirrors this method, placing two forms of loss side by side until their difference becomes unavoidable.
Paramahansa Yogananda explains that inward perception of spiritual reality requires sustained alignment, and when that alignment is broken, outer substitutes cannot fully replace it, as taught.
The speaker’s comparison therefore moves beyond economics into inward life itself, where restoration is not guaranteed. The stanza closes with a sense of irreversible distinction between what can be regained and what cannot.
Second Stanza: You, too, maybe!
Inherited with Life – Belief – but once – can be – Annihilate a single clause – And Being’s – Beggary –
The speaker shifts toward origin, suggesting that belief is not merely learned but carried within life itself as an initial endowment. The phrase “but once” introduces a sense of singularity, as if belief arrives in a form that does not naturally duplicate.
The speaker turns language itself into a structure of being. A disruption in understanding is presented as capable of total inward collapse. The “single clause” suggests that even a small fracture in comprehension can affect the whole structure of belief.
The tone remains restrained, yet the implication is severe, as though identity depends upon coherence of inward language. The speaker concludes with a stark image of existential deprivation. “Beggary” becomes a condition of being rather than a social state.
The loss described is not partial but total in inward effect, where existence continues but without spiritual fullness. The simplicity of the final phrase intensifies its meaning, leaving the impression of stripped interior life.
In other essays, I have noted that Dickinson often compresses entire states of existence into single concluding words that carry structural weight. Paramahansa Yogananda explains that when inner awareness of divine connection is obscured, life continues outwardly but loses its sustaining inner richness.
The speaker’s logic suggests that faith is not supplementary but foundational to inward coherence. The poem ends by presenting existence without faith as a condition of essential lack, where being remains but fullness and purpose are withdrawn.
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.
Time’s hands unveil as morning’s glow fades, A silver face like pewter forward parades. In silence, like the dove on fence post still, The pewter visage moves with quiet will.
The mind holds desires in a brimming cup, No calming stone of regret to lift up. As blood flushes cheeks in meandering flow, A vein in the brain bursts, letting life go.
Skin stays unchanged through centuries long, Where invented wheels roll, heavy and strong. Unswayed by mourners’ destiny so grim, An endless route of minds, intruding, skims.
The turtle’s dark lips part in silent speech, Each soul burns star-like, beyond earthly reach. Over rocks of intrigue and fury they soar, As mapping songs on breezes gently pour.
Stone wise, the world remains a place so hard, Brute gales and pestilence, hidden, stand guard. Tempting the margins with blasts of sin’s might, The devil plays judge, spinning games of spite.
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.
The glow of moon sets me to musing On moving in the distance of surprise.
Fear cannot conquer itself, you might think, But how to know courage might also be A subject to muse on and to fuse then Your sorrow to the ilk of betrayal Not searching for the end but the stop.
The glow of moon sets me again to musing On moving surprise into the distance far.
Doing all I can to state what I mean In the space around divided worries I will not go beyond words to wield The sword of hatred that may blind Too many eyeballs blinkered by power.
The glow of moon musing sets me to wink At surprising moves that go the distance.
After I learn to see and feel and know My own will as it exerts itself strong I will never sit in the same seat Where wrong has overcome right— Where night has pretended day.
The glowing moon is musing on me, inspiring Distances with humble, intimate surprises.
I will question, I will inquire, I will query— As I meditate on the glowing light, Where I go to transcend, where I move And meet this flesh-housed treasure That glows louder and brighter than the moon.
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 whooffers 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.
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