Linda's Literary Home

Tag: literature

  • 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.

  • A Sense of Sorrow

    Image: Created by ChatGPT inspired by the poem
    Image: Created by ChatGPT inspired by the poem

    A Sense of Sorrow

    The darkness and vastness of the center
    Bends over the vastness of each beginning—
    Over the rivers of memory, you spread
    Rivers of sick sorrow to each end.

    The end of each vein springs blood
    And blood seeps into the water of light.
    Water finds its own reference point
    And each point fingers mud on granite.

    The mud that covers your soul
    Will shuck itself in the soul of sorrow.

  • Langston Hughes’ “Night Funeral in Harlem”

    Langston Hughes - https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/23/sojourner - Photograph by Carl Van Vechten / Carl Van Vechten Trust / Beinecke Library, Yale - 1280
    Image: Langston Hughes – Photograph by Carl Van Vechten / Carl Van Vechten Trust / Beinecke Library, Yale – 1280

    Langston Hughes’ “Night Funeral in Harlem”

    The speaker in Langston Hughes’ “Night Funeral in Harlem” wonders how this poor dead boy’s friends and relatives are able to afford such a lavish funeral.

    Introduction and Text of “Night Funeral in Harlem”

    Langston Hughes’ “Night Funeral in Harlem” is an example of the poet’s affinity for the blues. He employs a form that includes the blues flavor, allowing the reader to hear a mournful voice that implies issues that he never actually discusses.

    The speaker’s questions are more than mere decoration, and their implications attempt to make a political and sociological, as well as religious, evaluation. The poem’s form features an inconsistent conglomeration of rimed stanzas, with varied refrains.

    Night Funeral in Harlem

         Night funeral
         In Harlem:

         Where did they get
         Them two fine cars?

    Insurance man, he did not pay—
    His insurance lapsed the other day—
    Yet they got a satin box
    for his head to lay.

         Night funeral
         In Harlem:

         Who was it sent
         That wreath of flowers?

    Them flowers came
    from that poor boy’s friends—
    They’ll want flowers, too,
    When they meet their ends.

         Night funeral
         in Harlem:

         Who preached that
         Black boy to his grave?

    Old preacher man
    Preached that boy away—
    Charged Five Dollars
    His girl friend had to pay.

         Night funeral
         In Harlem:

    When it was all over
    And the lid shut on his head
    and the organ had done played
    and the last prayers been said
    and six pallbearers
    Carried him out for dead
    And off down Lenox Avenue
    That long black hearse done sped,
         The street light
         At his corner
         Shined just like a tear—
    That boy that they was mournin’
    Was so dear, so dear
    To them folks that brought the flowers,
    To that girl who paid the preacher man—
    It was all their tears that made
         That poor boy’s
         Funeral grand.

         Night funeral
         In Harlem.

    Reading:  

    Commentary on “Night Funeral in Harlem”

    The speaker in Langston Hughes’ “Night Funeral in Harlem” jabs insults at these mourners as he wonders how this poor dead boy’s friends and relatives are able to afford such a lavish funeral.

    First Movement:  An Critical Observer

         Night funeral
         In Harlem:

         Where did they get
         Them two fine cars?

    Insurance man, he did not pay—
    His insurance lapsed the other day—
    Yet they got a satin box
    for his head to lay.

         Night funeral
         In Harlem:

         Who was it sent
         That wreath of flowers?

    The speaker begins with his refrain that features his subject, “Night funeral / In Harlem.” He then shoots in his first question that is ultimately insulting to the mourners. The speaker wonders, “Where did they get / Them two fine cars?” 

    The speaker’s dialect is intended to reveal him as an intimate with the mourners, yet his questions actually separate him from them. If he is one of them, why does he have to ask where the cars come from? His concern, therefore, comes across as disingenuous.

    The speaker then introduces the “insurance man,” who might be the reason for the “fine cars,” but no, the poor boy’s “insurance lapsed the other day.” Again, the speaker’s knowledge of the particulars of the situation clash; he knows the people well enough to know that their insurance lapsed, but yet not well enough to know who, in fact, is paying for the lavish funeral. 

    And then the speaker offers a further bit of incongruity that these poor folks have managed to supply a “satin box / for [the deceased’s] head to lay.” The speaker offers these incongruities but never manages to make clear his purpose.

    Second Movement:  A Question of Integrity

    Them flowers came
    from that poor boy’s friends—
    They’ll want flowers, too,
    When they meet their ends.

         Night funeral
         in Harlem:

         Who preached that
         Black boy to his grave?

    The speaker again introduces his next stanza with a variation on the opening refrain: “Night funeral / In Harlem: / / Who was it sent / That wreath of flowers?” Again, the speaker reveals that his distance from the mourners is so great that he has to ask about the flowers. But then he admits that he does actually know that the flowers came from “that poor boy’s friends.”

    But the speaker then insults those friends by accusing them of sending them only because “They’ll want flowers, too, / When they meet their ends,” and also implying that he wonders how those friends paid for the flowers.

    Third Movement:  Is Race Really the Issue?

    Night funeral
      Night funeral
         in Harlem:

         Who preached that
         Black boy to his grave?

    Old preacher man
    Preached that boy away—
    Charged Five Dollars
    His girl friend had to pay.

    The third stanza’s opening varied refrain asks, “Who preached that / Black boy to his grave?” He reveals for the first time that the deceased is black but does not clarify why he should offer the race of the dead at this point.  

    The had been implying that the deceased was black all along by using stereotypical Black English and placing the funeral in Harlem, which was heavily populated by African Americans at the time that the poet was writing.

    The preacher is portrayed then as a money-grubber, charging five dollars to “preach[ ] that boy away,” and the poor boy’s girlfriend had to pay the preacher the five dollar charge.  Again, how it is that the speaker knows the girlfriend paid the preacher, but that he does not know who paid for two limousines, casket, flowers?

    Fourth Movement:   Despite the Insults

        Night funeral
         In Harlem:

    When it was all over
    And the lid shut on his head
    and the organ had done played
    and the last prayers been said
    and six pallbearers
    Carried him out for dead
    And off down Lenox Avenue
    That long black hearse done sped,
         The street light
         At his corner
         Shined just like a tear—
    That boy that they was mournin’
    Was so dear, so dear
    To them folks that brought the flowers,
    To that girl who paid the preacher man—
    It was all their tears that made
         That poor boy’s
         Funeral grand.

         Night funeral
         In Harlem.

    The final stanza is a rather flabby summation of what has happened during this Harlem funeral at night. The opening refrain merely reiterates the subject, “Night funeral / In Harlem.”

    Gone is the additional commentary as appeared in the three opening refrains, but the speaker does leave the affair on a compassionate note; at least he can admit, “It was all their tears that made / That poor boy’s / Funeral grand.”  

    Despite his probing, insulting questions, he finally admits that the importance of the event is that it shows the love the mourners had for their dearly departed.

    Image:  Langston Hughes - Commemorative Stamp  http://usstampgallery.com/view.php?id=0787693b268f0944d0264088b300c02721d73814&Langston_Hughes&st=Langston%20Hughes&ss=&t=&s=8&syear=&eyear=  US Stamp Gallery
    Image: Langston Hughes – Commemorative Stamp  – US Stamp Gallery

  • Emily Dickinson’s “There’s something quieter than sleep”

    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 “There’s something quieter than sleep”

    Emily Dickinson’s “There’s something quieter than sleep” dramatizes the speaker’s reverence for the mystery of death, portraying it as a sacred and nearly mystical transition beyond earthly experience.

    Introduction and Text of “There’s something quieter than sleep”

    Emily Dickinson’s “There’s something quieter than sleep” features four minimalist quatrains that progress from observation to meditation. The speaker contemplates the stillness surrounding death, yet she approaches the subject delicately, refusing crude or noisy emotional excess. 

    Dickinson’s characteristic dashes and slant rimes contribute to the hushed atmosphere, while the speaker’s use of euphemism reveals both awe and uncertainty before the soul’s departure from its physical encasement.

    The poem’s spiritual atmosphere recalls Paramahansa Yogananda’s teaching that death is merely “a sleep of forgetfulness” before the soul awakens again in divine consciousness. 

    There’s something quieter than sleep

    There’s something quieter than sleep
    Within this inner room!
    It wears a sprig upon its breast –
    And will not tell its name.

    Some touch it, and some kiss it–
    Some chafe its idle hand –
    It has a simple gravity
    I do not understand!

    I would not weep if I were they –
    How rude in one to sob!
    Might scare the quiet fairy
    Back to her native wood!

    While simple–hearted neighbors
    Chat of the “Early dead” –
    We – prone to periphrasis,
    Remark that Birds have fled!

    Commentary on “There’s something quieter than sleep”

    The speaker contemplates death as a solemn but peaceful mystery whose stillness transcends ordinary sleep and earthly sorrow.

    Stanza 1: Deeper Than Sleep

    There’s something quieter than sleep
    Within this inner room!
    It wears a sprig upon its breast –
    And will not tell its name.

    The speaker opens by comparing death to sleep, yet she quickly insists that death possesses an even greater silence. The “inner room” suggests both a literal chamber where the deceased lies and the inward spiritual realm where the soul retreats after leaving the body. 

    By refusing to name the condition directly, the speaker creates an atmosphere of reverent uncertainty, as though ordinary language cannot fully contain the mystery before her.

    The “sprig upon its breast” likely refers to a funeral flower or symbolic greenery placed upon the body. Such imagery quietly evokes immortality because evergreen branches traditionally symbolize eternal life. 

    Paramahansa Yogananda frequently taught that the soul remains untouched by bodily death, affirming that spirit “cannot die because it was never born.” The speaker appears instinctively aware that what lies in the room is not annihilation but transition.

    Stanza 2: What Some Do

    Some touch it, and some kiss it–
    Some chafe its idle hand –
    It has a simple gravity
    I do not understand!

    The speaker now observes the behavior of mourners gathered around the deceased. Some touch the body tenderly, while others attempt to warm the “idle hand,” as though reluctant to accept the final stillness. Their gestures reveal humanity’s instinctive resistance to separation and mortality.

    Yet the speaker remains fascinated less by grief than by the strange dignity surrounding the dead. 

    The phrase “simple gravity” conveys both physical stillness and spiritual weight. The body no longer participates in earthly activity, yet it seems surrounded by a quiet authority the speaker cannot explain. 

    Dickinson’s speakers often encounter realities that intuition senses more deeply than reason can analyze, and here her speaker admits openly that death possesses meanings beyond intellectual understanding.  The stanza also reveals the speaker’s restraint. 

    Rather than indulging in emotional display, she studies the scene with contemplative wonder. That attitude resembles Dickinson’s many poetic riddles, in which truth emerges indirectly through symbol, suggestion, and silence rather than declaration.

    Stanza 3: Shy Fairies

    I would not weep if I were they –
    How rude in one to sob!
    Might scare the quiet fairy
    Back to her native wood!

    The speaker gently criticizes loud mourning, suggesting that sobbing is almost discourteous in the presence of death’s delicate mystery. Her use of the term “quiet fairy” transforms death into a shy spiritual visitor rather than a terrifying destroyer. The fairy imagery softens the scene and presents death as something ethereal, elusive, and perhaps even benevolent.

    By imagining that noisy grief could frighten the fairy away, the speaker implies that death deserves calm reverence instead of emotional chaos. The image resembles ancient folklore in which supernatural beings vanish when approached too aggressively. Dickinson’s speaker thus elevates death into a sacred event requiring inward stillness.

    The stanza also reflects the speaker’s intuition that the soul belongs ultimately to another realm, the “native wood.” The earthly body merely hosts the spirit temporarily before it returns to its true home. 

    uch an idea harmonizes with Yogananda’s teaching that the soul journeys through many states of existence while remaining eternally connected to Divine Spirit. 

    Stanza 4: Euphemism and Evasion

    While simple–hearted neighbors
    Chat of the “Early dead” –
    We – prone to periphrasis,
    Remark that Birds have fled!

    In the final stanza, the speaker contrasts ordinary language with poetic circumlocution. The “simple-hearted neighbors” speak plainly of the “Early dead,” employing conventional social terminology without reflection. The speaker, however, admits that “we” prefer “periphrasis,” or indirect expression.

    Instead of saying someone has died, the speaker remarks that “Birds have fled.” The bird symbolizes the departing soul escaping the confinement of the physical encasement. 

    Dickinson often employed birds as emblems of transcendence, freedom, and spiritual aspiration. Here the image beautifully transforms death from grim cessation into graceful departure.

    The stanza closes the poem on a note of mystery rather than despair. The speaker never claims complete knowledge regarding death, but she senses that the soul’s leaving resembles flight more than extinction. 

    Like many Dickinson speakers, this speaker balances uncertainty with spiritual intuition, allowing poetry itself to gesture toward ineffable truths, which ordinary speech cannot fully express.

  • Emily Dickinson’s “Could live – did live”

    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 “Could live – did live”

    Emily Dickinson’s speaker in “Could live – did live” is speculating about the possible inner motivation that urged on the heart of an individual acquaintance who has now died.  He did live, she insists, but what drove him?—This man, who seems to have maintained such an even-minded temperament. 

    Introduction and Text of “Could live – did live”

    In Emily Dickinson’s “Could live – did live,” the speaker is speculating about the inner life of an individual who has died.  Because she refers to the deceased as “he” and “his” in the lines, “Through faith in one he met not, / To introduce his soul,” it is safe to assume that the individual is a man or boy—more likely a man because of the nature of the information offered by the speaker.  

    The dead man has experienced enough of life that the speaker, who has observed at least periodically the man living his life, has acquired and retained enough information to make certain assumptions about how he thought and felt and what his inclinations might have been.

    As Dickinson is wont to do, in this poem, the poet is playing with English grammar.  She is employing the conditional mood of verbs.  In the opening two lines, she juxtaposes the conditional mood use with the indicative mood emphatic; thus, she moves from “could live” to  “did live.”  

    That the poet added her own emphasis to the emphatic “did” further highlights her play on the language.  In modern print, the emphasis is shown by italicizing—”did“—while in her handwriting, Dickinson shows that emphasis by underlining–”did.”

    Could live – did live

    Could live – did live –
    Could die – did die –
    Could smile upon the whole
    Through faith in one he met not,
    To introduce his soul.

    Could go from scene familiar
    To an untraversed spot –
    Could contemplate the journey
    With unpuzzled heart –

    Such trust had one among us,
    Among us not today –
    We who saw the launching
    Never sailed the Bay!

    Commentary on “Could live – did live”

    The speaker in this Dickinson gem is offering a somewhat clipped observation about the possible inner life of an individual male acquaintance who has died.  She has observed at least enough of the individual’s comings and going that she remains capable of forming an opinion about him.  

    Interestingly, what the speaker claims about the possible inner life of another more than likely remains even more on target about her own station in life.

    First Stanza:  Conditional Speculation

    Could live – did live –
    Could die – did die –
    Could smile upon the whole
    Through faith in one he met not,
    To introduce his soul.

    The speaker begins by contrasting the difference between the conditional and the indicative moods.  She states elliptically that someone had been able to live —”could”—but then adds immediately that he did, in fact, live.  

    The first proposition is stated with the conditional mood auxiliary verb “could,” and the second half of her statement features the emphatic form “did” of the indicative mood “live.”

    In the second line, she repeats the conditional vs indicative moods again with the opposite of “live.”  Thus she is reporting that someone who could have lived, did, in fact, live, and then this same individual could have died—because he lived, of course—and he, in fact, “did die.”

    By playing with the grammar of the language, the speaker indicates that her own solemn mood may be moving her to speculate and to postpone her grieving for this individual.  But then she launches another conditional mood “could smile,” as she reports the level of the deceased’s faith.  

    The deceased was able to smile upon the whole bewildering commotion of life and death likely remaining quite neutral about any deep meaning those puzzling acts might hold; he, at least, possessed some level of faith to be able to hold such a smile, and his soul thereby has remained an entity without dedication to a higher consciousness.  The speaker, however, is merely reporting, not judging.

    Second Stanza:  Remaining Conditional

    Could go from scene familiar
    To an untraversed spot –
    Could contemplate the journey
    With unpuzzled heart –

    Returning again to the conditional mood, the speaker continues to report on the deceased’s ability to face the various vicissitudes of life.  His temperamental state seems to have remained somewhat even-minded whether he was moving in “familiar” territory or venturing out to parts unknown.

    The speaker asserts that the deceased “could go” and was also able to “contemplate” his travels without his “heart” becoming puzzled, or likely even frazzled.  The speaker is offering only her interpretation of how the deceased felt; thus the continued employment of the conditional mood remains operative and most appropriate.  

    While her uncertainly is not paramount, she, nevertheless, does not wish to sound as though she can make any final pronouncement about how the deceased went about his life and his days upon planet Earth.  

    She knows that too deep a speculation would ultimately amount to judging.  She does imply that she likely would not retain such an even-minded ability throughout her puzzling sojourn through life and death.

    Third Stanza:  Trust and Faith in Life’s Inner Turmoil

    Such trust had one among us,
    Among us not today –
    We who saw the launching
    Never sailed the Bay!

    The speaker finalizes her speculative evaluation of the deceased’s inner mental/heartfelt state by asserting that his trust, which did not rise to level of faith, was as she has thus far described.  He was “among us,” and today he is no longer “among us.”

    The speaker then concludes by remarking that although “we,” the living, have been able to observe the manner in which the deceased passed his days, we cannot know for certain how his experience actually shaped and formed his deep heart’s core and ultimate mental state.

    While we may have observed, an observation is not the actual experience.  The deceased is the only one who has “sailed the Bay”; his friends, family, and acquaintances merely caught certain glimpses of his “launching.”  They remain in state of “should, would, could” as far as the deceased’s inner life is concerned.  

    The speaker offers an observation, however, that may be quite accurate, but in the long run, the accuracy is in her own self-revelation, not necessarily in that of the target of her report.

  • Emily Dickinson’s “A Day! Help! Help! Another Day!”

    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 Day! Help! Help! Another Day!”

    The speaker in Emily Dickinson’s “A Day! Help! Help! Another Day!” dramatizes the intensity with which an individual may view the simple act of the opening of a day.  She concludes by revealing the superior power of the soul in overcoming all adversity.

    Introduction and Text of “A Day! Help! Help! Another Day!”

    The speaker of Emily Dickinson’s “A Day! Help! Help! Another Day!” opens with an effusion, calling for assistance—another day is here and dire need, calamity, and trials and tribulations are on the horizon.   This speaker has opened her heart and mind to the material level of reality and is reacting to the cant and cacophony that that level brings the sensitive individual.

    After offering a broad scope for consideration of national and worldly events, the speaker concludes with the same heartfelt level of awareness that leads the speaker and her environment of sensitivities back to her garden of soul reality.  The soul triumphs despite upsetting—even disastrous—worldly or national events.  The soul remains able to “stand unshaken amid the crash of breaking worlds.”  

    A Day! Help! Help! Another Day!

    A Day! Help! Help! Another Day!
    Your prayers, oh Passer by!
    From such a common ball as this
    Might date a Victory!
    From marshallings as simple
    The flags of nations swang.
    Steady — my soul: What issues
    Upon thine arrow hang!

    Commentary on “A Day! Help! Help! Another Day!”

    The speaker offers a contrasting movement from effusion at possible impending calamity to revelation of steadfast, complete endurance in the face of all chaos and consternation.

    First Movement:  A Cry of Consternation

    A Day! Help! Help! Another Day!
    Your prayers, oh Passer by!

    The speaker stations herself in an etherial location from which she can contemplate and consider the vicissitudes of life. Upon awakening to the breaking of “Another Day!,” she offers a prayerful command to one who “[p]ass[es] by” her vision, imploring that individual for “Prayers.”   

    At this point, the speaker has offered only a nebulous environment from which she can view activities, contemplate events, and make judgments about them. Little can be fathomed from such an effusive outcry, but she has attracted attention for her discourse.

    The speaker’s opening cry that another day has opened, and then her subsequent cry for “Help! Help!” alerts those around her that all is not well, or at least, not likely to remain so for long. 

    Thus something must be out of order, or some circumstance which eludes her control prompts her to command assistance—all for the simple act of another day arriving.  At first blush, such drama may seem melodramatic, but as the speaker continues, all events, thoughts, and feelings take their appropriate place upon the horizon.

    Second Movement:  The Potential for Winning

    From such a common ball as this
    Might date a Victory!

    The speaker continues to remain somewhat vague, yet at the same time she refers to the planet upon which she takes her breaths and pulses her blood.  Calling Earth a “common ball,” she adds that despite her opening call for help, such a place may offer the scope and time allotment for great winning.

    The “Victory” upon which the speaker may stand remains at this point a forethought, perhaps even an illusion.  She has not yet revealed any specific reason for her opening effusive cry or for implying that some victorious event may occur. 

    As she continues to riddle and minimize, she yet opens her toolkit of ideas, images, and emotions to a vast array of pairs of opposites, such as the trope of winning and losing, and then to opening and closing, weakness and strength, close and far, life and death.

    Third Movement:  A Pride of Being

    From marshallings as simple
    The flags of nations swang.

    The speaker then alludes to national pride—the allowing to swing the banners of nations; thus she indicates that the country has accrued some level of success in some undertaking.  Such prideful acts could include war, treaties with potential enemies, or creating a national harmony that permits citizens to crave out better, more prosperous lives.

    The speaker still has not delineated any specifics, for her purpose remains to make a general statement, a simple remark in passing regarding the nature of reality and how actions and events accrue to yield any given result.  She has, thus far, opened the day with a concerning cry but then yielded to the possibility of victory—which at the same time yields the possibility of utter failure.

    Now by referring to “flags,” the speaker has opened her discourse to the likelihood that she wishes to make a generalized statement about events that in no way remain in the private or personal sphere of reality.  

    The speaker now has only one way to continue this observation—she must bring events into her own sphere, else she will have to abandon any hope making a sensible observation.

    Fourth Movement:  The Soul’s Victory

    Steady — my soul: What issues
    Upon thine arrow hang!

    The speaker then abruptly addresses her own soul, admonishing it to be “Steady.”  She has touched, even if lightly, on activities, events, and possibilities at worldly and national levels.  She has implied that these activities, events, and possibilities may have a detrimental effect on her as an individual.  

    Such detriment would rattle the hearts and minds of any individual, perhaps even to soul level.  Thus the speaker now closes her investigation on those outside possibilities, concentrates on the purely personal, and discovers that she must calm her heart and mind in order for her soul to become once again “Steady.”

    The speaker’s final effusion is the simple remark that profundity clings to the sharp point of soul clarity.  Metaphorically likening the soul to an “arrow” allows her to demonstrate that the soul is the only weapon that can discharge and conquer the “issues” that fluster, confuses, and cause pain and anguish in the hearts and minds of individuals.

    Obsolete Usage: “Swang”

    The term “swang” is the obsolete irregular simple past tense form of “swing,” which apparently was still in use in the Dickinsonian century; current usage requires “swung,” the same form as the past participle “swung.”  Similar verb forms such as “sting,” “sling,” and “fling” have all lost their simple past tense form of “stang,” “slang,” and “flang.”  

    The verb “ring” however retains its irregular simple past tense form of “rang”: “ring, rang, rung” remain the three usages that continue in the current American parlance. 

    The terms, “ding,” which has a similar meaning to “ring,” and “bring” both have different simple past and participle forms:  “ding” follows the regular verb formation by merely adding the suffix “-ed” to the present tense form, while “bring” has the irregular form of “brought” in both simple past and past participle forms.

    A close study of the etymology of these terms would reveal the trajectory of those changes, and they would likely be perfectly sensible, even though a mere glance seems that this change in language usage has no rime or reason.

  • Emily Dickinson’s “It sifts from Leaden Sieves”

    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 https://www.amherst.edu/library/archives/holdings/edickinson

    Emily Dickinson’s “It sifts from Leaden Sieves”

    Emily Dickinson composed several poems that are just pure fun; they work similarly to riddles, not mentioning their subject that can be determined only by a correct interpretation of the poetic devices.

    Introduction and Text of “It sifts from Leaden Sieves”

    It is widely understood that Emily Dickinson fashioned most of her poems to focus on profound themes: life, death, the afterlife (immortality), and complex human relationships.

    However, the Amherst recluse also composed a number of poems that show a propensity for pure fun.  These poems may be validly called riddles as they describe the subject but allow the reader to ferret out what the subject is.

    It sifts from Leaden Sieves

    It sifts from Leaden Sieves –
    It powders all the Wood.
    It fills with Alabaster Wool
    The Wrinkles of the Road –

    It makes an Even Face
    Of Mountain, and of Plain –
    Unbroken Forehead from the East
    Unto the East again –

    It reaches to the Fence –
    It wraps it Rail by Rail
    Till it is lost in Fleeces –
    It deals Celestial Vail

    To Stump, and Stack – and Stem –
    A Summer’s empty Room –
    Acres of Joints, where Harvests were,
    Recordless, but for them–

    It Ruffles Wrists of Posts
    As Ankles of a Queen –
    Then stills its Artisans – like Ghosts –
    Denying they have been –

    Commentary on “It sifts from Leaden Sieves”

    This Dickinson poem functions as a riddle and remains on of her most widely anthologized creations.  The poem displays in 5 four-line stanzas.

    First Stanza:  The Opening Metaphor

    It sifts from Leaden Sieves –
    It powders all the Wood.
    It fills with Alabaster Wool
    The Wrinkles of the Road –

    The speaker begins by metaphorically describing the item as a material that behaves much as does flour that one would use to bake a cake.  The substance that “sifts from Leaden Sieves” is behaving as if a housewife or baker might be doing in sifting flour for baking.

    As the housewife sifts the flour, she places it in a bowl to prepare the dough; then she spreads the flour over a countertop or cutting board so she can roll out the dough.  However, the poem’s sifted substance does not end up in a bowl, not even in the house at all, but in the woods. As it does so, it fills in the cracks in the road and has the appearance of  “Alabaster Wool.”

    Second Stanza:  A Kitchen Metaphor

    It makes an Even Face
    Of Mountain, and of Plain –
    Unbroken Forehead from the East
    Unto the East again –

    Then the kitchen metaphor transforms into a hyperbolic face as the speaker asserts that this substance has piled so high that it creates the illusion that a mountain and the plain that appear level; it is “Unbroken Forehead from the East / Unto the East again.”

    Third Stanza:  Moving Outdoors

    It reaches to the Fence –
    It wraps it Rail by Rail
    Till it is lost in Fleeces –
    It deals Celestial Vail

    The speaker then has the substance reaching to the fence where it forms a ring around the rail, making the fence appear to be wearing wedding gear.  The speaker describes the fields on which the substance has landed as “Summer’s empty Room”; the fields have been harvested and only stubble is still standing. 

    Fourth Stanza:  A Substance That Seems Ubiquitous 

    To Stump, and Stack – and Stem –
    A Summer’s empty Room –
    Acres of Joints, where Harvests were,
    Recordless, but for them–

    Now the substance fills up the empty field.  It become unrecognizable as a field but for the several stalks that still stand up through the white material that has fallen on them like flour over a countertop.

    Fifth Stanza:  The Sifting Powder Made Plain

    It Ruffles Wrists of Posts
    As Ankles of a Queen –
    Then stills its Artisans – like Ghosts –
    Denying they have been –

    In the final stanza, the speaker portrays the substance of some lace-like material that might be worn by a queen, but it is adding ruffles to the “Wrists of Posts.”  Suddenly, the weather changes, it stops snowing, and it seems that craftsmen suddenly ceased their work. 

    The scene has been created, and by this time, readers and listeners will be aware that the substance that “sifts from Leaden Sieves” and “powders” the landscape is none other than snow, which the poem/riddle has never named, but only suggested.

  • Emily Dickinson’s “Through lane it lay – through bramble”

    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 “Through lane it lay – through bramble”

    Emily Dickinson’s speaker employs an extended metaphor that likens the human’s path through life on a troubled planet to a simple walk through the woods—a woods that is, however, anything but ordinary.

    Introduction and Text of “Through lane it lay – through bramble”

    The speaker in Dickinson’s “Through lane it lay – through bramble” takes her audience through an imaginary journey that on the superficial level remains a journey of fantasy filled with danger, as it is colorfully allusive to mythological creatures attempting to attack a flock of children as they venture home.

    But Dickinson never leaves her readers moving gleefully from the adventure story stage; thus, her simple adventure is actually performing as an extended metaphor likening the life of human beings on this earth to a dangerous journey through a mythological forest.

    Through lane it lay – through bramble

    Through lane it lay – through bramble –
    Through clearing and through wood –
    Banditti often passed us
    Upon the lonely road.

    The wolf came peering curious –
    The owl looked puzzled down –
    The serpent’s satin figure
    Glid stealthily along –

    The tempests touched our garments –
    The lightning’s poinards gleamed –
    Fierce from the Crag above us
    The hungry Vulture screamed –

    The satyr’s fingers beckoned –
    The valley murmured “Come” –
    These were the mates –
    This was the road
    Those children fluttered home.

    Commentary on “Through lane it lay – through bramble”

    The speaker in “Through lane it lay – through bramble” is using an extended metaphor, likening the human life-path on a distressed planet to a simple walk through a woodland; however, this woodland is quite extraordinary.

    First Stanza:  Another Jaunty Riddle

    Through lane it lay – through bramble –
    Through clearing and through wood –
    Banditti often passed us
    Upon the lonely road.

    In the opening stanza, the speaker begins rather quietly and again almost hinting that this poem will be another jaunty riddle.  She inserts that nebulous “it,” only stating where it “lay” and led:  in a lane and rambled through “bramble”; it also ran through a “clearing” and also through a “wood.”

    The speaker then identifies the “it” as a “lonely road,” in the same breath as asserting that the little group of folks was often passed by marauding robber gangs, or “banditti.”   She employs the rare spelling for “bandits.”  

    One can imagine the poet running upon that word and laying it away for later use in a poem.  Dickinson did enjoy the appearance of cosmopolitanism; she was amused by the charm of worldly engagement, even as she peered intensely into the ultra personal, the ultimate individual soul.

    Second Stanza:  The Fantastic Journey

    The wolf came peering curious –
    The owl looked puzzled down –
    The serpent’s satin figure
    Glid stealthily along –

    The speaker continues the fantastic journey.  After describing the “lonely road” on which the travelers are traveling, she now describes animals that the group encounters.  Wolves that seem quite nosey come and stare at them.  From up in trees, “puzzled” owls peer down at them.  They even observe snakes slithering “stealthily along.”

    The speaker skillfully now begins to drop hints that this is no ordinary walk through the woods.  After providing imagery that has thus far remained quite literally earthly, she employs the term “serpent” for snake.  

    The term “serpent” adds heft to the image of the creature that simply glides upon the earth because that term immediately identifies that creature as the creature from the biblical Genesis–that evil one who tempted the first pair of human beings to ignore the only commandment placed upon them by their Creator-God.  

    Third Stanza:  No Ordinary Journey

    The tempests touched our garments –
    The lightning’s poinards gleamed –
    Fierce from the Crag above us
    The hungry Vulture screamed –

    The speaker continues to deviate her description from an ordinary jaunt through the  woods.  Now she asserts that their clothes were disheveled by “tempests” – not merely did a storm blow up and get them wet.  

    The storms were “tempests,” or many violent storms, a term which again increases the severity the situation and likely alludes to the Shakespeare play, “The Tempest,” which featured a convoluted tale of intrigue and romance, in other words, a simulacrum of the world with its trials and tribulations along with intrigue and romance.

    As the speaker describes the lightning from these “tempests,” she employs the term “poinards.”  That French term “poignard” means dagger.  When anglicized, the correct spelling of the term is “poniard.”  

    Yet for some reason Dickinson has once again baffled her readers with an obvious departure from the accurate spelling of the term.  And again one wonders why Thomas H. Johnson, the editor who restored Dickinson’s poems to the forms that more closely represent her originals, did not quietly correct that spelling.

    Regardless of the reasoning behind the spelling “poinards,” the speaker uses the term for the continued purpose of supporting the extended metaphor of a treacherous journey through life on earth.  Just as the storms are “tempests,” the lightning gleams in daggers.  

    The claims of the scenarios must remain somewhat exaggerated in order to deepen and widen the metaphor from simple journey through the woods to complex journey on the path of life through a threatening world.

    The speaker thus continues to transport her audience from that simply walk through the woods to the journey on the path of life through a menacing world.  

    Fourth Stanza:  The Allure of Lust

    The satyr’s fingers beckoned –
    The valley murmured “Come” –
    These were the mates –
    This was the road
    Those children fluttered home.

    The final movement finds the speaker addressing the issue of human lust.  Just as the first pair was hassled by the serpent and urged to commit the one sin that would banish them from their garden paradise, all of the children resulting from that pair’s falling are hassled and urged to commit that same sin repeatedly.  

    This “road’ through life is replete with the fingers of lust luring, “beckon[ing]” the children to “come” into that “valley” of lustful pleasure.  The not-so-subtle images of “fingers” and “valley” complete the metaphor and remind the audience that those “mates” on this road have caused “those children” the misery of having to “flutter” on their way home.

    The only bright and optimistic hope is that those children are, in fact, on their way home, and that they will finally begin to realize that those satyr “fingers” plunging into those “valleys” only beckon one to death, not to the pleasure promised by those liars.

  • The Shakespeare Lyric “Orpheus”

    Image: Orpheus playing lyre

    The Shakespeare Lyric “Orpheus”

    The Shakespearean speaker presents Orpheus as the embodiment of music’s power, showing how art, particularly music, has the ability to harmonize nature and relieve human suffering through its transformative, calming influence.

    Introduction and Text of the “Shakespeare Lyric ‘Orpheus’”

    Excerpted from Henry VIII (Act III, Scene 1), this brief lyric distills the ancient myth of Orpheus into a musing on the transformational and consolatory power of music. 

    The speaker expresses a vision in which art exerts a gentle but irresistible authority over nature itself, bringing harmony where there is chaos, motion where there is stillness, and rest where there is unrest.

    The figure of Orpheus becomes less a mythological character than an emblem of art’s highest potential: to reshape the external world and quiet the inward life.  I have employed the Orpheus ethos in my plea for more control and better expression in the art of poetry.

    “Orpheus”  (from Henry VIII  – Act III, Scene 1)

    Orpheus with his lute made trees
    And the mountain tops that freeze
    Bow themselves when he did sing:
    To his music plants and flowers
    Ever sprung; as sun and showers
    There had made a lasting spring.

    Every thing that heard him play,
    Even the billows of the sea,
    Hung their heads and then lay by.
    In sweet music is such art,
    Killing care and grief of heart
    Fall asleep, or hearing, die.

    Commentary on “The Shakespeare Lyric ‘Orpheus’”

    In this Shakespeare excerpt that functions as a stand-alone poem, the speaker is alluding to the Greek mythological character Orpheus to celebrate music as a force of order, renewal, and inward healing.  Orpheus was the god of music and poetry i Greek mythology.

    Stanza 1:  Music’s Powerful Influence

    Orpheus with his lute made trees
    And the mountain tops that freeze
    Bow themselves when he did sing:
    To his music plants and flowers
    Ever sprung; as sun and showers
    There had made a lasting spring

    The speaker opens with a striking assertion of music’s powerful influence over the natural world.  The phrasing remains condensed, as though the act of music itself compresses time and causation. Trees and mountain tops do not merely respond; they are “made” or commanded to respond by bowing to the sound of Orphean singing. 

    This shaping force exerts itself to images of rigidity and lifeless cold. That mountain summits are called to “bow themselves” introduces a paradox: what is fixed becomes responsive, what is cold becomes animate, and what is elevated yields in humility.

    The verb “bow” carries a dual resonance. It suggests both submission and grace, implying that nature’s response is not actually coerced but harmonized. The speaker presents music not as domination but as persuasion, a gentle authority that draws all things into alignment. Even the harshest elements—frozen peaks—are softened by sound, indicating that art reaches where physical force cannot.

    The hyperbole exerted in these images is astounding, leading not to disbelief but to the famous Romantic assertion by Samuel Taylor Coleridge “that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith.” After all, the purpose of exaggeration is only to emphasize a claim, not to make a melodramatic spectacle.

    The stanza then shifts from gesture to growth: “plants and flowers / Ever sprung.” The effect is not momentary but continuous, captured in the word “ever.” Music generates an ongoing fertility, a perpetual blossoming that resists decay. 

    The comparison to “sun and showers” grounds this transformation in natural cycles, yet the phrase “lasting spring” exceeds ordinary seasonal change. Spring, typically transient, becomes permanent under the influence of music. The speaker thus elevates art above nature’s own processes, suggesting that while sun and rain produce life, music sustains it indefinitely.

    The imagery moves from rigidity (mountains) to vitality (flowers), tracing a progression from stillness to generative abundance. The speaker’s syntax reinforces this flow, with lines that seem to unfold organically, mirroring the growth they describe. Music becomes both cause and condition of harmony, a principle that unifies disparate elements—earth, air, and life itself.

    What emerges is not merely a portrait of Orpheus but an argument about art’s capacity to reconcile opposites: cold and warmth, height and humility, barrenness and fertility. The speaker implies that music achieves what nature alone cannot—a permanence of renewal, a “lasting spring” that suspends the ordinary limits of time and change.

    Again, as in most successful art, the tension of the pairs of opposites makes an appearance.  As the great Guru Paramahansa Yogananda has explained, the force of Maya, the very cause of the material level of being, works through the pairs of opposites.

    Stanza 2:   The Universal Influence of Music

    Every thing that heard him play,
    Even the billows of the sea,
    Hung their heads and then lay by.
    In sweet music is such art,
    Killing care and grief of heart
    Fall asleep, or hearing, die.

    The second stanza broadens the scope from land to sea, extending the reach of music to “Every thing that heard him play.” The universality is emphatic; nothing remains outside the sphere of music’s influence. 

    While the first stanza emphasizes growth and animation, the second turns toward quieting and rest. The “billows of the sea,” emblematic of motion and unrest, are personified “h[anging] their heads and then l[ying] by.” The image suggests human beings becoming calm after turbulence, with ceaseless motion transforms into stillness.

    The phrase “hung their heads” echoes the earlier “bow themselves,” reinforcing the motif of submission, yet here it carries a more subdued, almost weary connotation. The sea, often a symbol of emotional excess or instability, is brought into repose. The progression from bowing to lying still marks a deepening effect: music does not merely elicit acknowledgment; it also induces tranquility.

    The final lines turn inward with even more gravity, shifting from the external world to the human condition: “care and grief of heart.” The speaker identifies these as persistent burdens, analogous to the restless sea. 

    Music’s power is now psychological and emotional, not merely physical. The phrase “killing care” is striking in its severity; music does not soothe lightly but eradicates distress at its root.

    Yet the resolution is nuanced: care and grief either “fall asleep, or hearing, die.” The dual possibility suggests degrees of relief. Sleep implies temporary suspension, while death indicates permanent release. The ambiguity allows for a range of experience—music may offer respite or complete transformation. In either case, it alters the condition of suffering.

    The line “In sweet music is such art” functions as a reflective statement, drawing together the stanza’s implications. “Sweet” emphasizes harmony and pleasure, but “art” underscores intention and craft. The speaker presents music as both aesthetic and efficacious, capable of shaping not only perception but feeling itself.

    The movement of the stanza—from the vast sea to the inner heart—compresses the scale of influence, suggesting that the same force governs both realms. The calming of waves parallels the quieting of grief, establishing a correspondence between outer and inner worlds. Music becomes a mediating principle, aligning nature and human emotion within a single order of harmony.

    The final stanza affirms that art’s highest function lies not merely in delight but in restoration. It brings the restless to rest, the troubled to peace, and in doing so, offers a vision of existence in which discord is not denied but resolved.

    Image: Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford The “Shakespeare” Writer

  • Emily Dickinson’s “Awake ye muses nine, sing me a strain divine”

    Image: Emily Dickinson – Amherst College – Daguerrotype of the poet at age 17, circa 1847 – likely the only authentic, extant likeness of the poet

    Emily Dickinson’s “Awake ye muses nine, sing me a strain divine”

    The first poem in  Thomas H. Johnson’s The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson is a Valentine aimed at persuading a young man to marry and is quite atypical of the poet’s style in her canon of 1,775 poems.

    Introduction with Text of “Awake ye muses nine, sing me a strain divine”

    In The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited and returned to Dickinson’s idiosyncratic style by Thomas H. Johnson, the first poem sports a whopping 40 lines of 20 riming couplets.   It is Dickinson’s longest published poem and departs in style greatly from the remaining 1,774 in the volume.

    Emily Dickinson’s “Awake ye muses nine, sing me a strain divine” begins with a traditional invocation to the muses; however, instead of displaying in  quatrains, as most of the poet’s poems do, it rests as a single lump chunk down the page.  

    The poet’s Germanic influenced capitalization of nouns and her many sprinklings of dashes are missing; yet, she does insert two dashes into the last three lines. Dickinson’s speaker addresses a young man, urging him to choose a young lady and propose marriage to her.  

    The central theme of this piece plays out in a similar manner to the Shakespeare “Marriage Sonnets,” in which the speaker is exhorting a young man to marry and produce beautiful offspring.   However, the Dickinson poem remains a playful piece focusing on the Valentine season, while the Shakespeare “Marriage Sonnets” remain quite serious in their urgency.

    Richard B. Sewall’s The Life of Emily Dickinson has asserted that the young gentleman addressed in this poem is Elbridge Bowdoin, a partner in the Dickinson father’s law firm.  

    The poet’s Valentine was sent in 1850 in a book that she was returning to Bowdoin.   The poem seems to be quite flirtatious. Bowdoin, nevertheless, did not appear to take notice. It seems he snubbed the advice in the poem by remaining a life-long bachelor.

    Awake ye muses nine, sing me a strain divine

    Awake ye muses nine, sing me a strain divine,
    Unwind the solemn twine, and tie my Valentine!

    Oh the Earth was made for lovers, for damsel, and hopeless swain,
    For sighing, and gentle whispering, and unity made of twain.
    All things do go a courting, in earth, or sea, or air,
    God hath made nothing single but thee in His world so fair!
    The bride, and then the bridegroom, the two, and then the one,
    Adam, and Eve, his consort, the moon, and then the sun;
    The life doth prove the precept, who obey shall happy be,
    Who will not serve the sovereign, be hanged on fatal tree.
    The high do seek the lowly, the great do seek the small,
    None cannot find who seeketh, on this terrestrial ball;
    The bee doth court the flower, the flower his suit receives,
    And they make merry wedding, whose guests are hundred leaves;
    The wind doth woo the branches, the branches they are won,
    And the father fond demandeth the maiden for his son.
    The storm doth walk the seashore humming a mournful tune,
    The wave with eye so pensive, looketh to see the moon,
    Their spirits meet together, they make their solemn vows,
    No more he singeth mournful, her sadness she doth lose.
    The worm doth woo the mortal, death claims a living bride,
    Night unto day is married, morn unto eventide;
    Earth is a merry damsel, and heaven a knight so true,
    And Earth is quite coquettish, and beseemeth in vain to sue.
    Now to the application, to the reading of the roll,
    To bringing thee to justice, and marshalling thy soul:
    Thou art a human solo, a being cold, and lone,
    Wilt have no kind companion, thou reap’st what thou hast sown.
    Hast never silent hours, and minutes all too long,
    And a deal of sad reflection, and wailing instead of song?
    There’s Sarah, and Eliza, and Emeline so fair,
    And Harriet, and Susan, and she with curling hair!
    Thine eyes are sadly blinded, but yet thou mayest see
    Six true, and comely maidens sitting upon the tree;
    Approach that tree with caution, then up it boldly climb,
    And seize the one thou lovest, nor care for space, or time!
    Then bear her to the greenwood, and build for her a bower,
    And give her what she asketh, jewel, or bird, or flower –
    And bring the fife, and trumpet, and beat upon the drum –
    And bid the world Goodmorrow, and go to glory home!

    Commentary on “Awake ye muses nine, sing me a strain divine”

    The first poem in Emily Dickinson’s Complete Poems is a Valentine aimed at persuading a young man to marry and is quite atypical of the poet’s style in her canon of 1,775 poems.

    First Movement:  Invocation to the Muses

    Awake ye muses nine, sing me a strain divine,
    Unwind the solemn twine, and tie my Valentine!

    Oh the Earth was made for lovers, for damsel, and hopeless swain,
    For sighing, and gentle whispering, and unity made of twain.

    The ancient epics of Homer and Virgil begin with an invocation to the muse, wherein the speaker asks for guidance as he narrates his tales of adventure.   In her Valentine poem, Emily Dickinson has playfully added an invocation to all nine muses to help her with her little drama aimed at the young man for the Valentine season.

    Dickinson has her speaker command all nine muses to wake up and sing her a little ditty that she may relay to inflame her Valentine’s heart to do as she requests.  She then begins by describing how things of the earth all come in pairs.  

    One part of the pair seeks and unites with the other: the damsel is courted by the “hopeless swain” and there is whispering and sighing as a “unity” brings the “twain” together.

    Second Movement:   Earth Creatures Pair Up

    All things do go a courting, in earth, or sea, or air,
    God hath made nothing single but thee in His world so fair!
    The bride, and then the bridegroom, the two, and then the one,
    Adam, and Eve, his consort, the moon, and then the sun;
    The life doth prove the precept, who obey shall happy be,
    Who will not serve the sovereign, be hanged on fatal tree.
    The high do seek the lowly, the great do seek the small,
    None cannot find who seeketh, on this terrestrial ball;
    The bee doth court the flower, the flower his suit receives,
    And they make merry wedding, whose guests are hundred leaves;
    The wind doth woo the branches, the branches they are won,
    And the father fond demandeth the maiden for his son.
    The storm doth walk the seashore humming a mournful tune,
    The wave with eye so pensive, looketh to see the moon,
    Their spirits meet together, they make their solemn vows,
    No more he singeth mournful, her sadness she doth lose.
    The worm doth woo the mortal, death claims a living bride,
    Night unto day is married, morn unto eventide;
    Earth is a merry damsel, and heaven a knight so true,
    And Earth is quite coquettish, and beseemeth in vain to sue.

    After alluding to a human pair, the speaker then narrates her observation that everything on this earth seems to be courting its mate, not only on dry land but also in the “sea, or air.”  In the next twenty or so lines, she supplies an abundant sampling of things of the earth that pair up.  

    She exaggerates for comedic affect that God has made nothing in the world “single” except for the target of her discourse, who is the young man. The speaker then tells the young man that the bride and bridegroom pair up and become one.  Adam and Eve represent the first pair, and then there is the heavenly united pair, the sun and the moon.  

    And those who follow the precept of coupling live happily, while those who avoid this natural act end up “hanged on fatal tree.”  Again, she is exaggerating for the fun of it! The speaker then assures the young man that no one who looks will not find.  After all, the earth as she has said, was “made for lovers.”  

    She then begins her catalogue of earth things that make up the two part of a unified whole:  the bee and flower marry and are celebrated by a “hundred leaves.”  In two masterful lines, the speaker creates a metaphorical and symbolic wedding of bee and flower:   “The bee doth court the flower, the flower his suit receives, / And they make merry wedding, whose guests are hundred leaves.”

    The speaker continues the catalogue of earth things that make up a unified pair:  the wind and the boughs, the storm and the seashore, the wave and the moon, night and day.  

    She sprinkles in references to the human realm with such lines as, “the father fond demandeth the maiden for his son,” “The worm doth woo the mortal, death claims a living bride,” and “Earth is a merry damsel, and heaven a knight so true.”

    With the line regarding the worm wooing the mortal, the speaker, similar to the Shakespearean speaker, is reminding her target that life on this planet does not last forever, and each human physical encasement is subject to death and decay.   It is because of this plight that she is urging the young man not to allow his life to speed by without fulfilling his duty as part of a unified couple.

    Third Movement:  Thus It Follows That

    Now to the application, to the reading of the roll,
    To bringing thee to justice, and marshalling thy soul:
    Thou art a human solo, a being cold, and lone,
    Wilt have no kind companion, thou reap’st what thou hast sown.
    Hast never silent hours, and minutes all too long,
    And a deal of sad reflection, and wailing instead of song?

    Now, the speaker announces what has to happen because of her description of  the way life goes “on this terrestrial ball.”  The single man must be brought to justice.    The speaker then remarks bluntly, “Thou art a human solo,” along with a melancholy description of unhappiness that being alone can bring.  She rhetorically asks if he does not spend many hours and sad minutes of reflecting on this situation.

    Of course, she is implying that she knows he does wallow in this sorrowful state, and thus she has the antidote for eliminating all the miserable melancholy.  She will turn his melancholic “wailing” back into “song.”  If only he will follow her sage advice, he will become the happy soul he wishes to be.

    Fourth Movement:   A Shakespearean Command

    There’s Sarah, and Eliza, and Emeline so fair,
    And Harriet, and Susan, and she with curling hair!
    Thine eyes are sadly blinded, but yet thou mayest see
    Six true, and comely maidens sitting upon the tree;
    Approach that tree with caution, then up it boldly climb,
    And seize the one thou lovest, nor care for space, or time!
    Then bear her to the greenwood, and build for her a bower,
    And give her what she asketh, jewel, or bird, or flower —
    And bring the fife, and trumpet, and beat upon the drum —
    And bid the world Goodmorrow, and go to glory home!

    The speaker now names six young damsels—Sarah, Eliza, Emeline, Harriet, and Susan; she refers to the sixth young damsel—herself—without naming her, only that she is “she with curling hair.”  

    The speaker opines that any one of these young ladies is fit to become a valuable partner for her solo, sad, single young man. The speaker commands the young bachelor to choose one and take her home to be his wife.  

    In order to make that demand, she creates a little drama by having the ladies situated up in a tree. She commands the young man to climb the tree boldly but with caution, paying no attention to “space, or time.”

    The young man then is to select his love and run off to the forest and build her a “bower” and lavish upon her what she wishes, “jewel, or bird, or flower.”  After a wedding of much music and dancing, he and his bride will flit away in glory as they head home.