Linda's Literary Home

Tag: poem

  • Emily Dickinson’s “I never lost as much but twice”

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

    Emily Dickinson’s “I never lost as much but twice”

    Emily Dickinson’s “I never lost as much but twice” dramatizes the speaker’s confrontation with devastating earthly loss and her anguished appeal to divine compensation.

    Introduction and Text of “I never lost as much but twice”

    Emily Dickinson’s “I never lost as much but twice” features one of the poet’s most compressed spiritual dramas. In only eight lines, the speaker moves from grief to restoration and then back again into deprivation, as she attempts to understand the mysterious machinations of the Divine. 

    The poem’s minimalist structure intensifies its emotional force, while its startling metaphors—“beggar,” “Burglar,” “Banker,” and “Father”—reveal a speaker wrestling with the paradox of God as both giver and taker.

    I never lost as much but twice

    I never lost as much but twice,
    And that was in the sod.
    Twice have I stood a beggar
    Before the door of God!

    Angels – twice descending
    Reimbursed my store –
    Burglar! Banker – Father!
    I am poor once more!

    Commentary on “I never lost as much but twice”

    Emily Dickinson’s “I never lost as much but twice” portrays the speaker’s struggle to reconcile unbearable sorrow with faith in divine providence.

    First Stanza: The Two-Fold Sorrow of Human Loss

    I never lost as much but twice,
    And that was in the sod.
    Twice have I stood a beggar
    Before the door of God!

    The speaker begins with a striking declaration that she has endured catastrophic loss only “twice,” and both occasions involved “the sod,” that ancient symbol for the grave and burial earth. Readers have often speculated that the losses refer to the deaths of loved ones, but the speaker wisely leaves the reference broad enough to encompass any profound bereavement. By refusing specificity, she elevates her suffering from the merely personal into a universal human condition.

    The phrase “stood a beggar / Before the door of God” reveals a soul stripped of earthly confidence. The speaker no longer approaches the Divine as an equal child of Spirit but as one emptied by grief and compelled to plead for mercy. 

    The image recalls the teaching of Paramahansa Yogananda, which cautions against approaching God in spiritual beggary, insisting instead that the soul possesses a divine inheritance. Dickinson’s speaker, however, dramatizes the raw emotional reality that grief often reduces even strong souls to desperation.

    The tension between earthly sorrow and spiritual assurance appears frequently in Dickinson’s poetry. In additional commentaries on Dickinson poems, I reveal that her speakers are often in the process of confronting the distance between mortal experience and eternal truth. This speaker occupies precisely that threshold, poised between despair and faith, unable to relinquish either one.

    The exclamation point concluding the fourth line intensifies the speaker’s emotional urgency. She does not quietly petition heaven; she cries out from the depths of deprivation. Yet even in anguish, she stands “before the door of God,” not outside divine awareness altogether. 

    This image clearly indicates that despite suffering, the speaker still believes the Divine Presence remains accessible.  The stanza also demonstrates Dickinson’s genius for compression and minimalism. In four brief lines, the speaker moves from memory to theological speculation and then from graveyard imagery to metaphysical yearning. 

    The emotional trajectory resembles Paramahansa Yogananda’s teaching from his talk Removing All Sorrow and Suffering that human beings seek release from suffering by lifting consciousness toward divine awareness. Dickinson’s speaker has not yet transcended grief, but she instinctively turns toward the Divine as the only possible source of restoration.

    Second Stanza: Facing Loss a Third Time?

    Angels – twice descending
    Reimbursed my store –
    Burglar! Banker – Father!
    I am poor once more!

    The second stanza shifts dramatically from deprivation to restoration. The speaker reports that “Angels” descended twice and “reimbursed” her losses, suggesting moments of spiritual consolation or renewed blessings after earlier grief. 

    The financial language of “reimbursed my store” transforms emotional recovery into an economic transaction, as though heaven keeps careful accounts of human suffering.  Yet the restoration proves temporary. 

    The astonishing line “Burglar! Banker – Father!” presents the Divine through three contradictory metaphors. God becomes simultaneously the thief who removes blessings, the banker who restores them, and the loving father who presides over both actions.   Dickinson’s speaker refuses sentimental religion; instead, she confronts the terrifying mystery of a God who both wounds and heals.

    The emotional complexity of this address resembles the spiritual paradox explored in Paramahansa Yogananda’s talk Awake in the Cosmic Dream, where the great Guru explains that worldly conditions continually shift while God alone remains permanent reality. Dickinson’s speaker suffers precisely because earthly attachments are unstable. Every restored joy remains vulnerable to removal, leaving the soul “poor once more.”

    The final declaration carries tremendous emotional weight because the speaker offers no resistance or argument after naming God as “Father.” Despite bewilderment and pain, she still recognizes divine parentage. 

    Her faith survives, though stripped of comfort and certainty. The speaker’s endurance reflects Dickinson’s recurring fascination with the soul’s ability to continue seeking meaning even after repeated disappointment.

    The repeated emphasis on poverty also deepens the poem’s spiritual resonance. Material poverty often signifies lack of worldly goods, but Dickinson transforms it into a symbol of emotional and spiritual depletion. Yet mystical traditions frequently teach that emptiness prepares the soul for greater realization. 

    Paramahansa Yogananda revealed in his writings on “Meditation & Kriya Yoga” that lasting peace arises only when one discovers inward communion beyond external conditions. Dickinson’s speaker has not yet achieved such peace, but her anguish pushes her toward that realization.

    By ending the poem with “I am poor once more!” the speaker leaves readers suspended between despair and revelation. The line may sound tragic, yet it also suggests spiritual awakening through repeated loss. 

    Earthly possessions, relationships, and consolations vanish, but the soul’s dialogue with the Divine continues. Dickinson’s speaker therefore transforms grief into a profound metaphysical/mystical inquiry, revealing that suffering often becomes the doorway through which the soul most intensely seeks God.

  • 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 “Snow flakes”

    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 “Snow flakes”

    Emily Dickinson’s speaker in this jaunty little poem dramatizes an effusion of emotion after becoming enthralled by watching the many machinations of snowflakes as they dance their way through the air before landing on their targets of earthly entities. 

    Introduction and Text of “Snow flakes”

    In Thomas Johnson’s The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, the text I use for these commentaries, the poem, “Snow flakes.,” appears to be the only poem with a title.  However, one might reasonably argue that the seeming title cannot be considered a true  title.  

    In none of the other poems—1,775 in all—does a title grace and define.  That any poet would appear so consistent and then offer such an anomaly should raise the doubt that only one poem out of close to two thousand has a title.  There are three reasons for doubting that the poem has a title and therefore realizing that the so-called title functions very differently from most titles. 

    First, the noun “snowflake” is one word, and Dickinson has clearly written two words, and that act converts the one word to a sentence. A snowflake is a piece of snow that has “flaked off” from a larger entity; thus “snow flakes.” Because of the fact that “Snow flakes.” looks like a sentence, it is wise to think of it as a sentence or first line of the poem, and not a title.

    Second, that form of the so-called title itself demonstrates that the title is indeed merely the first line of the poem, “Snow flakes.”  The period at the end—along with the fact that there are two words—indicates a sentence.  

    Emily Dickinson was a voracious reader, and she was well aware that titles contain no end punctuation.  And although she did engage in innovative capitalization, punctuation, and techniques employing the use of space and dash, there is no reason to assume that she would title one poem out 1,775, and deliberately make the title look like an ordinary sentence. 

    Three, by beginning with an act, claiming that “snow flakes,” the speaker is heralding the very active “dance” that she creates as she personifies the snowflakes as ballerinas.  Even though Johnson has placed, “Snow flakes.,” in the position which a title would occupy, I suggest that the proper form would simply place the line as the first line of the poem. 

    I do admit that the hand-written copy of “Snow flakes.” appears to center the line, still the spacing between the line and the rest of the poem is comparable to the remaining  lines of the poem.

    Riddle Poem?  Maybe Not

    “Snow flakes” seems to have been intended to function as one of Emily Dickinson’s riddle poems, but it may be that she decided to add the first line because that poem might have remained unintelligible as a riddle.  Readers may not be able to understand that this poem is speaking about flakes of snow without the poet offering that first line.  

    Unlike her obvious riddles that do not name the object such as “It sifts from Leaden Sieves” and “I like to see it lap the Miles,” this one would offer too many other possibilities to function as a workable riddle-poem, thus the addition of the first line, which can be mistaken for a title.

    Snow flakes

    Snow flakes.
    I counted till they danced so
    Their slippers leaped the town,
    And then I took a pencil
    To note the rebels down.
    And then they grew so jolly
    I did resign the prig,
    And ten of my once stately toes
    Are marshalled for a jig!

    Commentary on “Snow flakes”

    Observing fakes of snow create in the speaker’s mind a phantasmagoric dance with myriad ballerinas competing for visual attention. 

    First Movement:  Dancing Snow Ballerinas

    Snow flakes.
    I counted till they danced so
    Their slippers leaped the town,

    The speaker begins with the odd claim that snow can be perceived as breaking into little pieces or “flakes”; she likely wants the reader to take the term “flakes” as both a noun and a verb—a pun of sorts.  

    This kind of function can often be detected in Dickinson’s poems; she quite frequently employs one part of speech to function as another or both, as in “The Soul selects her own Society” where in the lines, “To her divine Majority – Present no more,” the word “Present” functions both as an adjective and a verb in the imperative mood.

    The speaker then begins the report of her activity.  She is observing flakes of snow falling, likely just outside her window, and she begins to count them.  She continues to count the flakes, and suddenly she realizes that they seem to be dancing.  

    It then occurs to her that they are like ballerinas, so she personifies the flake placing “slippers” on the imagined feet, and she is off to the races!  Those ballerinas are performing their dance, as they are leaping and bounding all over town.

    Second Movement:  Capturing the Scene

    And then I took a pencil
    To note the rebels down.

    At this point, watching the dancing snow flakes that have become countless graceful ballerinas in her imaginative mind, she then grabs “a pencil” to take notes on their movements.  Of course, she is referring to taking notes for a poem about what she is observing. 

    She calls the dancers “rebels”; they seem to rebel against any way of describing them.  Thought after thought is passing through her mind, and she has to grab that writing instrument and begin to capture some of those quickly passing images.

    Poets sometimes feel that a poem writes itself, but only if the poet can capture the words in time, for so often, an image will present itself only to be lost to the next rapidly occurring image.  

    Most writers keep writing equipment—paper and pen, nowadays computer tablets—in case some graceful ideas clothed in beautiful, meaningful language come dancing across the writer’s mental vision.

    Third Movement:  Overwhelmed by Jolly Dancers

    And then they grew so jolly
    I did resign the prig, 

    As the speaker continues to take notes and watch those dancers, they become “so jolly” that she feels that they are becoming downright decadent in their outlandish flurry.  Because of this decadence, she finds she has to discontinue this observation; likely she is feeling overwhelmed trying to take account of those millions of dancers.  

    If one tries to imagine a ballet stage with millions of ballerinas all competing for one’s attention, one gets the idea of how the speaker felt watching and trying to see each dancing snowflake.

    Fourth Movement:  Itching to Dance

    And ten of my once stately toes
    Are marshalled for a jig!

    The priggish or intrusively haughty nature of such a phantasmagoria stops the speaker from her fitful attempt to capture all the machinations of this metaphoric ballet; thus, she lays down her pencil, likely gives a sigh, but then an odd things occurs.  She notices that her own toes are hankering to imitate that dance that the speaker has just observed and described.  

    The speaker’s toes were “once stately,” remaining dignified and stationary in her shoes, but now they are becoming as rebellious as those dancing snow flakes; they want the speaker to get up and engage them in a dance.  They want to commit to a “jig,” having been prompted by all those flaking snow ballerinas.

  • Emily Dickinson’s “My wheel is in the dark!”

    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 “My wheel is in the dark!”

    The speaker in Emily Dickinson’s “My wheel is in the dark!” is making a statement about knowing without sense perception.  This subject especially interested the poet, who was specifically concerned with issues such as immortality and life after death.

    Introduction and Text of “My wheel is in the dark!”

    Despite the grammatical error in the last line of Emily Dickinson’s “My wheel is in the dark!,” the speaker’s revelation shines through clearly and offers a unique perspective about the nature of understanding and explaining the ineffable.

    My wheel is in the dark!

    My wheel is in the dark!
    I cannot see a spoke
    Yet know its dripping feet
    Go round and round.

    My foot in on the Tide!
    An unfrequented road –
    Yet have all roads
    A clearing in the end –

    Some have resigned the Loom –
    Some in the busy tomb
    Find a quaint employ –

    Some with new – stately feet –
    Pass royal through the gate –
    Flinging the problem back
    At you and I!

    Commentary on “My wheel is in the dark!”

    Rendering information about the ineffable level of being is virtually impossible, but through use of poetic devices and other literary language that rendering becomes somewhat meaningful and therefore understandable to the mind and heart.

    First Stanza:  Vision by Implication

    My wheel is in the dark!
    I cannot see a spoke
    Yet know its dripping feet
    Go round and round.

    The speaker reports that she is capable of knowing that the spoke on a wheel moves in a circular motion as it drips water even though there is no light on the wheel.  She is revealing that she, as all human beings are, is able to infer information without direct sense perception that might otherwise reveal such knowledge.

    Human beings prefer to rely on what they can “see” or “hear.”  But sometimes seeing and hearing are not possible.  For example, human beings are convinced that love and hate both exist, even though they cannot see the concepts to which those nouns refer. 

    The ultimate argument ensues from the issue of whether God exists.  Some will argue that because he cannot “see” God, then God must not exist.  The argument runs further as the atheist insists that he also cannot hear, feel, taste, or touch God—and what cannot be experienced through the senses, therefore, does not exist.

    The speaker in “My wheel is in the dark!” thus counters such an argument by demonstrating that not only is metaphysical knowledge based on intuition and inference but also simple knowledge about things like wet wheels that go round and round in the dark.

    Second Stanza:  An Uncharted Path

    My foot in on the Tide!
    An unfrequented road –
    Yet have all roads
    A clearing in the end –

    The speaker continues with her comparison stating that she is walking an uncharted path, but she knows, again by intuition and inference, that this road will eventually lead to “a clearing.”  

    Despite the danger, such as would be experienced by having one’s foot “on the Tide,” the speaker can, with fairly great certainty, be assured that all the danger and complexity of the road she walks will end, and all will be understandable when she moves into that landscape which features clarity.

    The speaker places that clarity at the end, which is at the end of her life, a time at which she will come to the end of the path and enter the “clearing.”  Her “unfrequented road” is unique as is each road each soul must frequent as it passes through life on the physical level of being.

    Third Stanza t:  Resigning the Loom

    Some have resigned the Loom –
    Some in the busy tomb
    Find a quaint employ –

    The speaker now reports that others have departed from this world.  She indicates that departure by referring to their occupation while alive.  She colorfully claims that some of the folks who have died simply “resigned the Loom.” 

    But she does not offer a catalogue or list of what resigners have resigned.  By mentioning one earthly occupation only, she implies that that “Loom” not only refers to the occupation of weaving but also to the fabric that exists as life itself.

    Thus those “some” that have “resigned” from the fabric of life find a different way to engage their time and effort “in the busy tomb”; she claims that they “find a quaint employ.” 

    The speaker is reporting from her intuition that after death the soul will continue its engagements, even though its engagements after leaving the physical encasement will be different.  They nevertheless will be “quaint,” an obviously optimistic claim.

    Fourth Stanza:  Remaining Mum about the Afterlife

    Some with new – stately feet –
    Pass royal through the gate –
    Flinging the problem back
    At you and I!

    Those souls who will remain busy with quaint engagements, however, are not the only class of souls that the speaker intuits.  In addition to those who engage in the those quaint pursuits, there are those who will become similar to royalty.  They will possess “stately feet” and enter the kingdom of heaven on those stately feet.

    The speaker then returns to the world but without any definitive answer about what the real differences are between life and afterlife.  When those of the royal, stately feet pass through that gate into paradise, they will not reveal their new experiences; they will simply be “flinging the problem” into the faces of those left watching for wheels “in the dark” and walking “on the Tide.”  

    Only those who have actually passed through that heavenly gate will understand what that experience offers.  Thus we–”you and I”–will continue to speculate about that experience, as the speaker has done in this poem and the many more that are to come.

    Dickinson and Grammar

    As Dickinson’s readers discover, the poet often misspelled words and left her grammatical constructions a little cockeyed.  Thomas H. Johnson, the editor of The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, who restored her poems to their near originals, has revealed that he did correct some misspellings. 

    And it remains unclear why he left the inaccurate grammatical construction, “At you and I!”; the correct pronoun form in that prepositional phrase is “me” instead of “I”—the objective case is required after a preposition.  

    A reason for leaving such an error could be to complete a rime scheme, but that is not the case with this line.  As a matter of fact, by inserting “me” instead of “I,” a partial rime would be achieved: “feet” would become a partial rime with “me.”    Nevertheless, this problem remains a slight one. No meaning is lost despite the grammatical error.   Such errors may interfere with the total enjoyment of a poem.

    However, readers need not become alarmed about them unless they interfere with understanding. Luckily, this error does not confound meaning, and comprehension of the poem remains clear and unobstructed, despite the slight distraction that inaccurate pronoun inflicts.

  • 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.

  • Emily Dickinson’s “Winter is good – his Hoar Delights”

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

    Emily Dickinson’s “Winter is good – his Hoar Delights”

    For Emily Dickinson, the seasons offered ample opportunities for verse creation, and her love for all of the seasons is quite evident in her poems.  However, her poetic dramas become especially deep and profound in her winter poems.

    First Winter Poem: “Winter is good – his Hoar Delights”

    Emily Dickinson creates speakers who are every bit as a tricky as Robert Frost’s tricky speakers. Her two-stanza, eight-line lyric announcing, “Winter is good” attests to the poet’s skill of seemingly praising while showing disdain in the same breath.

    The rime scheme of “Winter is good – his Hoar Delights” enforces the slant rime predilection with the ABAB approximation in each stanza.  All of the rimes are near or  slant in the first stanza, while the second boasts a perfect rime in Rose/goes.

    Winter is good – his Hoar Delights

    Winter is good – his Hoar Delights
    Italic flavor yield –
    To Intellects inebriate
    With Summer, or the World –

    Generic as a Quarry
    And hearty – as a Rose –
    Invited with Asperity
    But welcome when he goes.

    Commentary on “Winter is good – his Hoar Delights”

    Emily Dickinson loved all of the seasons, and she found them inspiringly colorful in their many differing attributes.  These seasonal characteristics gave this observant poet much material for her creative little dramas.

    First Stanza: Winter’s Buried Charms

    Winter is good – his Hoar Delights
    Italic flavor yield –
    To Intellects inebriate
    With Summer, or the World –

    The speaker claims rather blandly that “Winter is good” but quickly adds not so plainly that his frost is delightful. That winter’s frost would delight one, however, depends on the individual’s ability to achieve a level of drunkenness with “Summer” or “the World.” 

    For those who fancy summer and become “inebriat[ed]” with the warm season’s charms, winter takes some digging to unearth its buried charm.  And the speaker knows that most folks will never bother to attempt to find anything charming about the season they least favor.

    But those frozen frosts will “yield” their “Italic flavor” to those who are perceptive and desirous enough to pursue any “Delights” that may be held there.  The warmth of the Italian climate renders the summer flavors a madness held in check by an other-worldliness provided by the northern climes.

    The speaker’s knowledge of the climate of Italy need be only superficial to assist in making the implications this speaker makes.  Becoming drunk with winter, therefore, is a very different sport from finding oneself inebriated with summer, which can be, especially with Dickinson, akin to spiritual intoxication.

    Second Stanza: Repository of Fine Qualities

    Generic as a Quarry
    And hearty – as a Rose –
    Invited with Asperity
    But welcome when he goes.

    Nevertheless, the speaker, before her hard-hitting yet softly-applied critique, makes it clear that winter holds much to be honored; after all, the season is “Generic as a Quarry / And hearty – as a Rose.”  It generates enough genuine qualities to be considered a repository like a stone quarry that can be mined for all types of valuable rocks, gems, and granite.

    The season is “hearty” in the same manner that a lovely flower is “hearty.” The rose, although it can be a fickle and finicky plant to cultivate, provides a strength of beauty that rivals other blossoms.    That the freezing season is replete with beauty and its motivating natural elements render it a fertile time for the fertile mind of the poet.

    But despite the useful and luxuriant possibilities of winter, even the mind that is perceptive enough to appreciate its magnanimity has to be relieved when that frozen season leaves the premises or as the speaker so refreshingly puts it, he is “welcome when he goes.” The paradox of being “welcome” when “he goes” offers an apt conclusion to this tongue-in-cheek, left-handed praise of the coldest season.  

    The speaker leaves the reader assured that although she recognizes and even loves winter, she can well do without his more stark realities as she welcomes spring and welcomes saying good-bye to the winter months.

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

  • Some Bones

    Image:  Created by Grok inspired by the poem

    Some Bones

    Some bones stand like corn stalks
    After late harvest. They bristle in the field.
    They remain unclean though they look
    Bleached and scrubbed.

    Skeletons may hang in closets
    But not these bones—the ones
    That are losing themselves
    As they scream and pound sand.

    Some bones cry for a thinner cloak
    But unlike some hearts
    They have never broken themselves
    Over the pain of this mud ball.

    Some bones slash themselves in early spring
    And cleave to youth too late in summer.
    A young brain cannot pool its dreams
    To yield the pith of adult philosophy.

    Some bones have no star to guide errant ways.
    They may stitch themselves by valves
    But sense no light in the chambers
    That wobble and bleed ugly passions.

    Some bones keep wobbling, sputtering,
    Spitting in the face of any thought
    That might hold them to account
    Lingering in the mud of passing time.

    A Prose Commentary on My Original Poem “Some Bones”

    In my poem “Some Bones,” I have created a speaker who is musing on fragmentation, arrested development, and the failure of inner cohesion, using the recurring image of bones—stripped, exposed, and stubbornly animate—as a controlling metaphor for the human condition when it is cut off from spiritual integration. 

    Unlike the quiet endurance of stone, bone suggests a harsher, more restless existence: something once living that refuses, even in its partial ruin, to settle into peace.  Such failure epitomizes the blocked condition of generations of unhappy, prideful, and dangerous individuals who have remained strangers to themselves.

    The language remains constructively physical—bones, closets, sand, mud, valves—yet it continually gesticulates toward psychological and spiritual disarray. My speaker does not offer consolation; instead, she allows the imagery to confront the reader with a kind of unresolved agitation. Where wisdom might emerge, it does so jarringly, often obstructed by immaturity, illusion, or sheer refusal.

    Underlying the poem is my own sense that without a guiding metaphysical orientation—whether one names it divine light, higher consciousness, or moral clarity—the human being risks becoming disjointed, reactive, and perpetually unfinished.  Such an orientation of mind has been instilled in my mindset by my blessèd Guru Paramahansa Yogananda.

    First Stanza: Residue after Harvest

    In the opening stanza, my speaker presents bones as remnants, likened to corn stalks left standing after harvest. This simile is intentional: what remains is not fruitful but residual, something overlooked, perhaps even abandoned. The bones “bristle,” suggesting defensiveness, a kind of posturing that masks emptiness.

    Though they appear “bleached and scrubbed,” they remain “unclean.” This contradiction establishes a central tension: outward purification does not equate to inner transformation. 

    The bones carry a stain that cannot be washed away by exposure or time alone. I wanted the speaker to imply that mere survival or endurance does not guarantee wisdom; one can persist and yet remain fundamentally unresolved.

    Second Stanza: Refusal of Containment

    Here, my speaker contrasts the familiar idiom of “skeletons in closets” with these bones, which refuse concealment. They are not hidden but actively “losing themselves / As they scream and pound sand.” The image is specifically chaotic and futile—pounding sand accomplishes nothing, yet it expresses frustration and desperation.

    These bones are not passive relics but disintegrating agents, unable to maintain coherence. The phrase “losing themselves” suggests a failure of identity, a dissolution rather than a stable essence. The speaker is emphasizing a kind of existential noise: movement without direction, expression without meaning—a condition that will remind my readers of the influence of postmodernism on poetry.

    Third Stanza: Avoidance of True Suffering

    In this stanza, the bones “cry for a thinner cloak,” desiring relief or escape, yet my speaker contrasts them with hearts that have “broken themselves / Over the pain of this mud ball.” The implication is that these bones have avoided the kind of deep suffering that refines and transforms.

    There is, in my view, a necessary breaking that accompanies genuine emotional or spiritual growth. These bones, however, remain intact in a superficial sense precisely because they have not undergone that process. 

    Their complaint is shallow; they seek comfort without having earned insight. The “mud ball” underscores the earth’s dirty imperfection, a condition that must be confronted rather than evaded.

    Fourth Stanza: Temporal Dislocation and Immaturity

    The fourth stanza examines the misalignment of time and development. The bones “slash themselves in early spring” and “cleave to youth too late in summer,” suggesting a disordered relationship to life’s natural phases. There is both premature self-harm and delayed attachment to youth.

    The concluding line suggests frenetically what the imagery implies: maturity requires synthesis. Dreams alone, without discipline or time, cannot produce wisdom. I wanted the speaker to assert that intellectual and spiritual depth cannot be rushed or improvised; it must be cultivated through experience and reflection.

    Fifth Stanza: Absence of Guiding Light

    Here, my speaker turns sternly to the absence of direction. The image that “Some bones have no star to guide errant ways” invokes the ancient image of navigation by the heavens. Without such a reference point, these bones attempt a kind of self-repair—“stitch themselves by valves”—but the effort is mechanical and insufficient.

    The “chambers” evoke both the heart and the mind, yet they “sense no light.” This lack is crucial: the structure exists, but illumination does not. The result is a system that “wobbles and bleed[s] ugly passions,” governed not by clarity but by disorder. The speaker is averring that without an orienting principle, human faculties become unstable, even grotesque.

    Sixth Stanza: Defiance and Stagnation

    In the final stanza, the bones persist in their agitation—“wobbling, sputtering”—but now their resistance is directed against accountability itself. They reject introspection or discipline.

    The closing image, “Lingering in the mud of passing time,” echoes to the earlier “mud ball,” but now it emphasizes stagnation. Time moves, yet the bones do not progress; they remain mired, neither decaying fully nor transforming. 

    This eventuality is, perhaps, the most severe judgment in the poem: not suffering, not even failure, but refusal—the unwillingness to engage the very processes that might lead to growth.

    An Afterthought

    In “Some Bones,” I have attempted to portray a condition of partial existence—one in which the human being retains structure and motion but lacks integration, direction, and illumination. The bones are not dead, but neither are they fully alive in any meaningful sense.

    Where my earlier musing on stone suggested endurance and the possibility of quiet wisdom, here I explore a more troubled state: persistence without purpose, animation without coherence. 

    The poem ultimately argues, though indirectly, that without a willingness to suffer, to mature, and to orient oneself toward a higher principle, one risks becoming like these bones—restless, exposed, and perpetually incomplete.

  • Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnet 34 “With the same heart, I said, I’ll answer thee”

    Image: Elizabeth Barrett Browning – Baylor University

    Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnet 34 “With the same heart, I said, I’ll answer thee”

    Returning to the melancholy character in sonnet 34 “With the same heart, I said, I’ll answer thee,” as she has so often maintained, the speaker contrasts her light-hearted childhood’s response with her serious maturity.

    Introduction and Text of Sonnet 34 “With the same heart, I said, I’ll answer thee”

    The character speaking in Barrett Browning’s Sonnet 34 “With the same heart, I said, I’ll answer thee” from Sonnets from the Portuguese has returned to her melancholy attitude.  Now she is contrasting her happy, carefree childhood years to her very stern and serious life as a mature adult.

    The speaker however is addressing her belovèd, imploring him to consider how important he is to her.  As earnest, obedient, and steadfast as she was as a child, now her constancy with her belovèd is even more in evidence.    The speaker continues to build her case for deserving the love of such an accomplished man, whom she considers to be much above her own station in life.  

    Sonnet 34 “With the same heart, I said, I’ll answer thee”

    With the same heart, I said, I’ll answer thee
    As those, when thou shalt call me by my name—
    Lo, the vain promise! is the same, the same,
    Perplexed and ruffled by life’s strategy?
    When called before, I told how hastily
    I dropped my flowers or brake off from a game,
    To run and answer with the smile that came
    At play last moment, and went on with me
    Through my obedience. When I answer now,
    I drop a grave thought, break from solitude;
    Yet still my heart goes to thee—ponder how—
    Not as to a single good, but all my good!
    Lay thy hand on it, best one, and allow
    That no child’s foot could run fast as this blood.

    Commentary on Sonnet 34 “With the same heart, I said, I’ll answer thee”

    Returning to the melancholy character she has so often maintained, the speaker contrasts her light-hearted childhood’s response with her serious maturity.

    First Quatrain:  The Necessity of Consistency

    With the same heart, I said, I’ll answer thee
    As those, when thou shalt call me by my name—
    Lo, the vain promise! is the same, the same,
    Perplexed and ruffled by life’s strategy?

    The pensive speaker professes a need to be consistent; thus, she repeats the word “same” three times in three lines.  She is of the “same heart” as she was earlier in her lifetime.  She is called by “[her] name.  But she is unsure about “life’s strategy.”  She is even “perplexed and ruffled” by it.

    The speaker hopes to convince herself that love has merely continued to flow into around her life.  She also demands from her new love relationship a constant heart as she lovingly and gently makes demands on her belovèd.

    Second Quatrain:  The Obedient One

    When called before, I told how hastily
    I dropped my flowers or brake off from a game,
    To run and answer with the smile that came
    At play last moment, and went on with me

    Earlier in her lifetime, the melancholy speaker had played the obedient one, coming when called, dropping her “flowers” or leaving off her “game.”   She ran to answer and even “with a smile” she appeared. Such behavior continued because of her dedication to obedience.

    The speaker needs to be always consistent in her emotional responses.  The static melancholy that she has experienced has programmed her to need a steady environment, even if she must create it from fragments of memory and emotional responses from the past.

    First Tercet:  Adult Life Different Details

    Through my obedience. When I answer now,
    I drop a grave thought, break from solitude;
    Yet still my heart goes to thee—ponder how—

    Now the specific details of life are a bit different.  Instead of games and flowers, she answers from the position of having dropped “a grave thought” or a “break from solitude.”  But her heart goes now always to the belovèd.  She spills out a command before venturing on, telling her beloved to “ponder how . . . .” 

    Even though the details of her adult life are different, her emotional responses are essentially the same.  Her same heart-responses continue to guide her.  Her new love relationship has become even more important to her than any relationship before.

    Second Tercet:  From Childhood to Adulthood

    Not as to a single good, but all my good!
    Lay thy hand on it, best one, and allow
    That no child’s foot could run fast as this blood.

    The speaker then concludes that the good her beloved has done her is not one in one single area but in “all my good!”  She asks her beloved to understand that as fleet foot as she was at obedience as child, she is much faster at running to her belovèd than she could have ever been in her earlier life.  

    The speaker’s blood now runs faster and with more passion than ever her foot did as a child.  As important to her as were her earlier loves, her new belovèd has become even more vital to her life.

    The speaker’s melancholy seems to be desperate for her lover to grasp his importance to her.  Thus, she continues to compare and contrast her life’s environments from childhood to maturity.

    Image: Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning – 1852. Portraits painted by Thomas Buchanan Read

  • Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnet 7 “The face of all the world is changed, I think”

    Image: Elizabeth Barrett Browning – Getty Images

    Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnet 7 “The face of all the world is changed, I think”

    Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s sonnet 7, “The face of all the world is changed, I think,“ offers a tribute to the speaker’s lover, who has wrought deep and lasting important changes in the speaker’s life.

    Introduction with Text of Sonnet 7 “The face of all the world is changed, I think”

    Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s sonnet #7, “The face of all the world is changed, I think,” from Sonnets from the Portuguese expresses the speaker’s astonishment and delight at a new awareness she is sensing.

    She has begun to notice that her situation is in the process of a unique transformation, and she, therefore, wishes to extend her gratitude to her belovèd suitor for these marvelous, soul-inspiring changes in her life.

    Sonnet 7 “The face of all the world is changed, I think”

    The face of all the world is changed, I think,
    Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul
    Move still, oh, still, beside me, as they stole
    Betwixt me and the dreadful outer brink
    Of obvious death, where I, who thought to sink,
    Was caught up into love, and taught the whole
    Of life in a new rhythm. The cup of dole
    God gave for baptism, I am fain to drink,
    And praise its sweetness, Sweet, with thee anear.
    The names of country, heaven, are changed away
    For where thou art or shalt be, there or here;
    And this … this lute and song … loved yesterday,
    (The singing angels know) are only dear
    Because thy name moves right in what they say.

    Reading  

    Commentary on Sonnet 7 “The face of all the world is changed, I think”

    Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s sonnet 7, “The face of all the world is changed, I think,” focuses specifically on the tribute to the speaker’s belovèd partner in love, who has wrought deep and lasting important changes in her life.  

    In fact, the entire sonnet sequence performs the awe-inspiring task of recording the evolution of the poet’s life transformation after meeting and becoming the partner of her belovèd life mate.

    First Quatrain:  The Speaker’s Changing Environment

    The face of all the world is changed, I think,
    Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul
    Move still, oh, still, beside me, as they stole
    Betwixt me and the dreadful outer brink

    The emotional speaker notes that all things in her environs have changed their appearance because of her new outlook after having become aware of her new love. Lovers traditionally begin to see the world through rose-colored glasses upon falling in love.  The happiness in the heart spreads like a lovely, fragrant flower garden throughout the lover’s whole being.

    Every ordinary object takes on a brilliant, rosy glow that flows like a gentle river from the happiness in the heart of the romantic lover.This deep-thinking speaker asserts that her lover has placed himself between her and the terrible “death.”

    Heretofore, she had sensed that all she had to look forward to was more misery and ultimately the act of leaving her physical body.  That mindset had continued to engulf her being her whole lifelong. 

    But now the “footsteps” of her belovèd suitor have been so gentle that they seemed to be the soft sounds of his soul approaching her.  His meaning for her has become deep and abiding, spreading meaning and joy in her life.

    Second Quatrain:   Doomed Without Love

    Of obvious death, where I, who thought to sink,
    Was caught up into love, and taught the whole
    Of life in a new rhythm. The cup of dole
    God gave for baptism, I am fain to drink,

    The speaker had been convinced that without such a love to save her she would be doomed to “obvious death.” She finds herself suddenly transported to a new world, a new “life in a new rhythm” with the arrival of her belovèd suitor. 

    She has been so mired in sadness that it seemed that she was being “baptized” in that mindset, as one drowning in one’s own fears and tears.However, the melancholy speaker finds herself reluctant to allow herself complete immersion in her newfound happiness, but still she has to admit that her new status is overcoming her prior terror.She is beginning slowly to change her doubts to delightful possibilities.

    First Tercet:   A Universal Change

    And praise its sweetness, Sweet, with thee anear.
    The names of country, heaven, are changed away
    For where thou art or shalt be, there or here;

    The speaker must extol the “sweetness” that she receives from her new belovèd swain. Because he is beside her, she has changed in a universal way—”names of country, heaven, are changed away.” 

    Nothing is the same, even the ordinary names of things seem altered and in a good way; all of her old cheerless, dreary life is transforming utterly, and she finally seems to become able to enjoy and appreciate this transformation.The more confident speaker is now willing to entertain the notion that he will remain by her side to delight her life permanently, throughout time and space.

    Second Tercet:  The Singing of Angels

    And this … this lute and song … loved yesterday,
    (The singing angels know) are only dear
    Because thy name moves right in what they say.

    The glad speaker hears the angels singing in the voice of her belovèd suitor.Even as she loved his poems and music before this new awakening of love between the two, she has now become even more enamored with those art forms after only a brief period of time has passed. His very name motivates the speaker in a heavenly manner.  As the angels sing and heavenly music delights her, she realizes that her belovèd has brought about her pleasant state of mind.

    The thankful speaker wants to give him all the tribute he deserves. She feels that she cannot exaggerate the magnitude  of his effect on her state of being and thinking.And everything she knows and feels now fills her heart and mind with new life.

    Earlier in her life, she had become convinced that she could never experience the joy and fulfillment that she sees herself heading into now because of this special, accomplished man.

    With such an important transformation, she now senses that she cannot say enough to express the value of such an vital act for her well-being and growth. She has only words of love to express her state of mind, and she works mightily to make those words the best, placed in the best order with as much emphasis as she can garner.

  • Emily Dickinson’s “I had a guinea golden”

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

    The speaker in Emily Dickinson’s “I had a guinea golden” is expressing melancholy at the loss of a friend, whom she describes metaphorically in terms of three dear objects: a guinea, a robin, and a star.

    Introduction with Text of “I had a guinea golden”

    This fascinating Emily Dickinson poem of loss offers quite a tricky subversion of thought.  The first three stanzas seem to explain the loss of three separate loved ones. 
    Then the final stanza packs a wallop unloading on only one “missing friend,” who has caused the speaker to create this “mournful ditty” with tears in her eyes.

    This poem demonstrates the depth of Dickinson’s education as she employs metaphors of the British coinage system and allusions to Greek mythology, which has been further employed by the science of astronomy to name stars. 

    Not only did Dickinson study widely in many subject areas, she possessed the ability to employ her learning in creative ways to fashion those beautiful flowers, allowing them to grow in her garden of verse.

    I had a guinea golden

    I had a guinea golden –
    I lost it in the sand –
    And tho’ the sum was simple
    And pounds were in the land –
    Still, had it such a value
    Unto my frugal eye –
    That when I could not find it –
    I sat me down to sigh.

    I had a crimson Robin –
    Who sang full many a day
    But when the woods were painted,
    He, too, did fly away –
    Time brought me other Robins –
    Their ballads were the same –
    Still, for my missing Troubador
    I kept the “house at hame.”

    I had a star in heaven –
    One “Pleiad” was its name –
    And when I was not heeding,
    It wandered from the same.
    And tho’ the skies are crowded –
    And all the night ashine –
    I do not care about it –
    Since none of them are mine.

    My story has a moral –
    I have a missing friend –
    “Pleiad” its name, and Robin,
    And guinea in the sand.
    And when this mournful ditty
    Accompanied with tear –
    Shall meet the eye of traitor
    In country far from here –
    Grant that repentance solemn
    May seize upon his mind –
    And he no consolation
    Beneath the sun may find.

    Reading 

    Commentary on “I had a guinea golden”

    Each stanza builds to a magnificent crescendo of outrage that allows the speaker to lavish affection as well as harsh rebuke to the one leaving her in a state of melancholy.

    First Stanza:  The Value of Small Things

    I had a guinea golden –
    I lost it in the sand –
    And tho’ the sum was simple
    And pounds were in the land –
    Still, had it such a value
    Unto my frugal eye –
    That when I could not find it –
    I sat me down to sigh.

    The speaker begins by referring to the coin “guinea,” which was a British coin manufactured with the gold from the African nation of Guinea.  The coin was worth 21 shillings and ceased circulating in 1813.   The speaker maintains the British monetary metaphor by referring also to “pounds” in the fourth line of the poem.

    Metaphorically, the speaker is calling her lost friend a “golden” coin, which she lost “in the sand.”  She then admits that it was a small loss for much more valuable moneys—”pounds”—were all about her.   Nevertheless, to her, because of her frugality, the value of the small coin was huge, and because it was lost to her, she just “sat down to sigh.”

    Second Stanza:  Missing the Music

    I had a crimson Robin –
    Who sang full many a day
    But when the woods were painted,
    He, too, did fly away –
    Time brought me other Robins –
    Their ballads were the same –
    Still, for my missing Troubador
    I kept the “house at hame.”

    The speaker then employs the metaphor of “crimson Robin.”  This time she is likening her friend to the singing robin who “sang full many a day.”  But when the autumn of the year came around, she loses this friend also.

    Just as other moneys were abounding after the loss of a simple guinea, other robins presented themselves to the speaker after she lost her robin.  But even though they sang the same songs as her lost robin, it just was not the same for the speaker.   She continues to mourn the loss of her robin; thus she kept herself harnessed to her house, likely in case her own robin should show up again.

    Third Stanza:  The Mythology of Science

    I had a star in heaven –
    One “Pleiad” was its name –
    And when I was not heeding,
    It wandered from the same.
    And tho’ the skies are crowded –
    And all the night ashine –
    I do not care about it –
    Since none of them are mine.

    The speaker then finds herself once again mourning the loss of a loved one.  This one she labels “Pleiad.”  Pleiad is an allusion to Greek mythology but also a reference to astronomy.  

    In Greek mythology, the seven daughters of Atlas went into hiding up in the sky among the stars to escape being pursued by Orion.  One the seven seems to disappear perhaps out of shame or grief.  

    In the science of astronomy, the constellation known as Taurus features a group of seven stars, but oddly enough only six can be seen, resulting in the same “Lost Pleiad” as exists in the Greek myth.

    Dickinson, who studied widely the subjects of mythology, history, and science thus alludes to the myth of the “Lost Pleiad” to again elucidate the nature of her third lost beloved.   She has now experienced the loss of money, a bird, and now a star–each more precious than the last.

    The speaker loses the star as she was being heedless–not paying attention.  In her negligent state, her star wanders away from her.  Again, although the sky is full of other stars, they just don’t measure up because “none of them are mine.”

    Fourth Stanza:  Admonishing a Traitor

    My story has a moral –
    I have a missing friend –
    “Pleiad” its name, and Robin,
    And guinea in the sand.
    And when this mournful ditty
    Accompanied with tear –
    Shall meet the eye of traitor
    In country far from here –
    Grant that repentance solemn
    May seize upon his mind –
    And he no consolation
    Beneath the sun may find.

    While wildly famous for her riddles, Dickinson often breaks the riddle’s force by actually naming the object described.  In the final stanza, she blatantly confesses that her little story “has a moral.”  She then blurts out, “I have a missing friend.”  

    It is now that the reader understands the loss is not three different loved ones, but only one.  She has thus been describing that “missing friend” using three different metaphoric images.

    Now, however, she has a message for this friend whose description has revealed multiple times how much she misses the friend and laments the loss.   After again rather baldly admitting her sorrow told in “this mournful ditty” and even “[a]ccompanied with tear,” she refers to that missing friend as a “traitor.”

    If this friend who has betrayed her happens to see this “mournful ditty,” she hopes that it will grab that individual’s mind so that the person will experience “repentance solemn.”  Furthermore, she wishes that the friend be unable to find any solace for the individual’s contrition no matter where that friend goes.