Image: Emily Dickinson – Amherst College – Daguerrotype of the poet at age 17, circa 1847 – likely the only authentic, extant likeness of the poet
Emily Dickinson’s “Going to Heaven!”
The speaker of “Going to Heaven!” muses on the certainty of heaven with equal measures of astonishment and earthly attachment, moving through three stanzas of tender, searching honesty.
Introduction and Text of “Going to Heaven!”
The speaker in Emily Dickinson’s “Going to Heaven!” addresses an unnamed listener, confessing her astonishment at heaven’s inevitability while simultaneously expressing a glad reluctance to leave the Earth behind.
On the literal level, the poem is a musing on what the speaker does and does not know about dying and what follows. She knows heaven is coming; she does not know when or how, and that gap between certainty and comprehension is the poem’s central drama.
On my literary website, Linda’s Literary Home, I have argued that the concept of immortality was one of Dickinson’s deepest preoccupations throughout her creative life, a question she returned to with unfailing curiosity and spiritual seriousness.
The poem moves stanza by stanza from bewilderment, to communal longing, to a final and deeply personal grief held alongside gladness. The speaker never resolves the tension between loving the Earth and accepting heaven; she simply holds both, honestly and without apology. That honesty is what gives the poem its enduring emotional power.
Going to Heaven!
I don’t know when – Pray do not ask me how! Indeed I’m too astonished To think of answering you! Going to Heaven! How dim it sounds! And yet it will be done As sure as flocks go home at night Unto the Shepherd’s arm!
Perhaps you’re going too! Who knows? If you should get there first Save just a little space for me Close to the two I lost – The smallest “Robe” will fit me And just a bit of “Crown” – For you know we do not mind our dress When we are going home –
I’m glad I don’t believe it For it would stop my breath – And I’d like to look a little more At such a curious Earth! I’m glad they did believe it Whom I have never found Since the mighty Autumn afternoon I left them in the ground.
Commentary on “Going to Heaven!”
The speaker’s musing enacts a spiritual journey moving from bewilderment through communal longing to grief and gladness held together in the same breath. Each stanza adds a new layer to the speaker’s understanding of what heaven means and what it will cost her.
First Stanza: What I Do Not Know
I don’t know when – Pray do not ask me how! Indeed I’m too astonished To think of answering you! Going to Heaven! How dim it sounds! And yet it will be done As sure as flocks go home at night Unto the Shepherd’s arm!
The speaker opens by announcing plainly that she cannot answer her listener’s questions about when or how she will go to heaven, not because she doubts it, but because the fact of it leaves her too astonished to speak.
The exclamation “Going to Heaven!” is less a cry of joy than a gasp of disbelief that such a thing should be true. The speaker is not refusing to answer; she is genuinely overwhelmed.
She then makes a striking admission: heaven “sounds” dim to her, meaning the word itself feels thin and inadequate against the magnitude of what it names. This insight spring from a characteristically Dickinsonian observation—the language of religion, worn smooth by repetition, fails to convey the actual force of the reality it describes. The speaker senses the reality is immense; she simply cannot yet grasp it.
Yet the stanza closes in warmth and confidence, comparing the soul’s going to heaven to flocks returning to the shepherd’s arm at nightfall. Paramahansa Yogananda teaches, in his “On Understanding Death and Loss,” that death is not a catastrophe but a natural passage of the soul into greater freedom and divine awareness.
The speaker’s shepherd simile expresses exactly that understanding: going home is the soul’s most natural motion, as inevitable and as gentle as a lamb finding its shepherd at dusk.
Second Stanza: You, too, maybe!
Perhaps you’re going too! Who knows? If you should get there first Save just a little space for me Close to the two I lost – The smallest “Robe” will fit me And just a bit of “Crown” – For you know we do not mind our dress When we are going home –
The speaker now turns to her listener with sudden warmth, wondering aloud whether that person, too, may be going to heaven. “Who knows?” she asks—a phrase of genuine spiritual humility, acknowledging that she cannot determine the soul’s schedule, her own or anyone else’s. The tone shifts from private astonishment to something communal and tender.
She then makes her most touching request: that a small space be saved for her near “the two I lost.” The term “two” points to specific, beloved persons already departed, whose identity the speaker keeps private but whose absence she carries openly.
The capitalized “Robe” and “Crown” gently deflate the grandeur traditionally associated with heavenly reward; the speaker asks for the smallest of each, expressing a humility that is as genuine as it is quietly playful.
The stanza closes by returning to the phrase “going home,” linking it directly to the shepherd simile of the first stanza and reinforcing the poem’s central conviction that death is not exile but return.
Paramahansa Yogananda’s teachings explain that the soul is a perfect reflection of God’s consciousness and that its passage beyond the physical plane is a homecoming to its Eternal Source.
The speaker’s easy dismissal of heavenly dress—“we do not mind our dress / When we are going home”—reflects that same priority: the reunion matters infinitely more than the clothing.
Third Stanza: Glad for not Believing
I’m glad I don’t believe it For it would stop my breath – And I’d like to look a little more At such a curious Earth! I’m glad they did believe it Whom I have never found Since the mighty Autumn afternoon I left them in the ground.
The speaker now delivers the poem’s most surprising statement: she is glad she does not yet fully believe in her going to heaven, because that belief, fully realized, would stop her breath and take her from “such a curious Earth.”
She is not denying heaven; she is confessing that she still loves the Earth too much to be entirely ready to leave it. On my literary website Linda’s Literary Home, I have discussed Dickinson’s deep attentiveness to the natural world alongside her spiritual curiosity as a parallel devotion, neither canceling out the other.
The speaker then turns her gladness in a new direction: she is glad that “they did believe it”—those she has not seen since a mighty autumn afternoon when she left them in the ground.
That single phrase, “left them in the ground,” is the poem’s most direct and devastating moment, stripping away all metaphor to name the plain fact of burial. Their belief in heaven was their comfort in dying, and she honors it with a gladness that is inseparable from grief.
Paramahansa Yogananda teaches that souls who have departed dwell in expanded freedom and love, and that the bonds of deep spiritual friendship are not broken by death but simply suspended until reunion.
The speaker closes the poem holding two kinds of gladness at once —gladness to remain a little longer on the curious Earth, and gladness that those she loved and buried believed in the heaven toward which she, too, is inexorably going.
From Spoon River Anthology, Edgar Lee Masters’ American classic, the epitaph “Cassius Huffier” is written in the American-Innovative sonnet tradition: reversing the Petrarchan octave and sestet, while revealing the depravity of the speaker.
Introduction and Text of “Cassius Hueffer”
Edgar Lee Masters’ “Cassius Hueffer” from the Spoon River Anthology offers up the acerbic belly-aching of a man who hated life so completely that even after his death, he continues his belly-aching about the epitaph written on his tombstone.
Cassius Hueffer
They have chiseled on my stone the words: “His life was gentle, and the elements so mixed in him That nature might stand up and say to all the world, This was a man.” Those who knew me smile As they read this empty rhetoric.
My epitaph should have been: “Life was not gentle to him, And the elements so mixed in him That he made warfare on life, In the which he was slain.” While I lived I could not cope with slanderous tongues, Now that I am dead I must submit to an epitaph Graven by a fool!
Commentary on “Cassius Hueffer”
From Spoon River Anthology, Edgar Lee Masters’ American classic, the epitaph “Cassius Huffier” is written in the American-Innovative sonnet tradition: reversing the Petrarchan octave and sestet, while revealing the depravity of the speaker.
The Sestet: “They have chiseled on my stone the words”
They have chiseled on my stone the words: “His life was gentle, and the elements so mixed in him That nature might stand up and say to all the world, This was a man.” Those who knew me smile As they read this empty rhetoric.
The speaker, Cassius Hueffer, lays out the epitaph that is carved into his grave marker: “His life was gentle, and the elements so mixed in him / That nature might stand up and say to all the world, / This was a man.”
In order to refute the truth of such a claim, Huffier reports that the statement will make the people who were well acquainted with him “smile” because those folks would know well that those kind words are merely, “empty rhetoric.
The epitaph states that Hueffer had been a gentle, loving man in whom “the elements” stacked themselves up to render him a genuine “man.” The epitaph leads people to believe that Cassius Hueffer was a warm man, who always had a kind greeting for those he encountered, and he behaved as a caring soul who was loved and admired by everyone he met.
Of course, Hueffer knows otherwise; therefore, he declares that those words are merely “empty rhetoric.” Huffier is also aware that the people who chafed under his abusive character flaws would comprehend immediately the emptiness of that rhetoric.
The Octave: “My epitaph should have been”
My epitaph should have been: “Life was not gentle to him, And the elements so mixed in him That he made warfare on life, In the which he was slain.” While I lived I could not cope with slanderous tongues, Now that I am dead I must submit to an epitaph Graven by a fool!
After striking down such a beautiful yet vacuous epitaph as it is written, Hueffer suggests his own version, the one that he knows ought to be chiseled on his grave marker: “Life was not gentle to him, / And the elements so mixed in him / That he made warfare on life, / In the which he was slain.”
Hueffer contests the idea that his life was “gentle,” but he does not actually dispute the accuracy of the claim that his own life was gentle, just the “idea” that life was gentle “to him.”
Hueffer contends that life did not deal gently with him. He then employs the same form to assert, “the elements” were “mixed in him” in such a way as to urge him always to be at “warfare on life.” Thus, he battled in life like a warrior, but finally, he “was slain.”
The speaker does not elaborate about the manner in which he was “slain,” but he does contend that he was not able to abide “with slanderous tongues.” He continues in his vagueness, however; thus, the reader remains without any information about either the nature of the slander, or how Hueffer left this earth.
But his last dig at life and society and particularly the person who is responsible for the inaccurately carved epitaph is especially focused as it points an accusing finger: “Now that I am dead I must submit to an epitaph / Graven by a fool!”
Resentful in Life, Resentful in Death
Although many readers of this poem may remain puzzled by the specifics of Hueffer’s life—why he carried on as such a misanthrope? what was the nature of the slander he actually suffered? how did he finally die?—such issues, in the long run, are not vital to the message of the poem, which is simply the grievance of a man who lived a resentful life and now undergoes a resentful death.
Edgar Lee Masters’ “Ollie McGee”and “Fletcher McGee”
“Ollie McGee” and her husband “Fletcher McGee” report their complaints in the third and fourth poems from Masters’ Spoon River Anthology. The couple elucidates the status of their marriage.
Ollie McGee Speaks
Mrs. McGee begins by posing a question and then launches her accusation.
Ollie McGee
Have you seen walking through the village A man with downcast eyes and haggard face? That is my husband who, by secret cruelty Never to be told, robbed me of my youth and my beauty; Till at last, wrinkled and with yellow teeth, And with broken pride and shameful humility, I sank into the grave. But what think you gnaws at my husband’s heart? The face of what I was, the face of what he made me! These are driving him to the place where I lie. In death, therefore, I am avenged.
Commentary on “Ollie McGee”
Ollie McGee offers her take on her marriage with Fletcher McGee.
First Movement: Question and Accusation
Have you seen walking through the village A man with downcast eyes and haggard face? That is my husband who, by secret cruelty Never to be told, robbed me of my youth and my beauty; Till at last, wrinkled and with yellow teeth, And with broken pride and shameful humility, I sank into the grave.
Mrs. “Ollie McGee” begins with a query, wondering if her listeners have observed, “a man with downcast eyes and haggard face,” ambling throughout the village from time to time. She then admits that that haggard face belongs to the man who was her husband.
The speaker then begins to hurl accusations at the man. The wife reveals that he is guilty of horrifying cruelty: the man took away his wife’s youth as well as her beauty. This theft continued over the lifetime of their miserable marriage. Mrs. McGee then died, “wrinkled and with yellow teeth.” He stole her pride and made her suffer “shameful humility.”
Second Movement: Vengeance
But what think you gnaws at my husband’s heart? The face of what I was, the face of what he made me! These are driving him to the place where I lie. In death, therefore, I am avenged.
Ollie then offers a further inquiry, as she questions whether her listeners know what “gnaws at my husband’s heart.” She contends that two images likely unsettle her husband’s heart and mind: “the face of what I was”and “the face of what he made me.” Mrs. McGee asserts that these images are taking his life, “driving him to the place where I lie.” Thus she has convinced herself that she is getting her revenge in death.
Fletcher McGee Speaks
Fletcher McGee offers his own complaint but reveals himself to be a criminal in his own behavior.
Fletcher McGee
She took my strength by minutes, She took my life by hours, She drained me like a fevered moon That saps the spinning world. The days went by like shadows, The minutes wheeled like stars. She took the pity from my heart, And made it into smiles. She was a hunk of sculptor’s clay, My secret thoughts were fingers: They flew behind her pensive brow And lined it deep with pain. They set the lips, and sagged the cheeks, And drooped the eyes with sorrow. My soul had entered in the clay, Fighting like seven devils. It was not mine, it was not hers; She held it, but its struggles Modeled a face she hated, And a face I feared to see. I beat the windows, shook the bolts. I hid me in a corner— And then she died and haunted me, And hunted me for life.
Commentary on “Fletcher McGee”
Two miserable people made each other miserable, but who was the actual culprit in this dungheap of a marriage?
First Movement: Accusations Returned
She took my strength by minutes, She took my life by hours, She drained me like a fevered moon That saps the spinning world. The days went by like shadows, The minutes wheeled like stars.
Mr. “Fletcher McGee” also begins his epitaph with appalling accusations against his wife. Just as he had done, she had foisted on him unspeakable cruelty: “she took my strength,””she took my life,” “she drained me.”
This speaker also includes time measurements to each complaint, in order to increase and compound the pain he claims he suffered at the hands of this woman. Mr. McGee then asserts, “the days went by like shadows, / the minutes wheeled like stars.” His days were dark but time seemed to drag on in an other worldly fashion. He seemed unable to concentrate on anything worthwhile.
Second Movement: Vengeance Returned
She was a hunk of sculptor’s clay, My secret thoughts were fingers: They flew behind her pensive brow And lined it deep with pain. They set the lips, and sagged the cheeks, And drooped the eyes with sorrow. My soul had entered in the clay, Fighting like seven devils. It was not mine, it was not hers; She held it, but its struggles Modeled a face she hated, And a face I feared to see. I beat the windows, shook the bolts. I hid me in a corner— And then she died and haunted me, And hunted me for life.
After fiercely complaining that Mrs. McGee ruined his life, Mr. McGee freely and somewhat gleefully confesses that he, in fact quite deliberately, ruined hers. Instead of pitying his wife for her unhappiness and shrewish behavior, he came to possess the ability to smile about her suffering. His “smiles”grew out of the fact that he had power over her.
He came to see her only as “a hunk of sculptor’s clay.” Thus Mr. McGee went about working to sculpt ugly features onto his wife’s face. This despicable husband asserts that, “my secret thoughts were fingers.” He continues with the sculptor metaphor, as he affirms what Ollie has earlier said about the man.
The miserable husband freely confesses and describes his fingers as sculptors, motivated by his “secret thoughts”which “lined” “her pensive brow” “deep with pain.” Mr. McGee again freely admits that he, in fact, “set the lips, and sagged the cheeks, / And drooped the eyes with sorrow.”
He then bizarrely asserts that his “soul had entered in the clay.” Thus his soul became the force of evil, “fighting like seven devils.” He appears to have become so hooked on making her miserable that he just could not stop himself. His evil served him like a dangerous drug.
Mr. McGee then admits that he actually killed her: “I beat the windows, shook the bolts.” He vaguely claims that he hid “in a corner,” and “she died and haunted me / And hunted me for life.”
He took advantage of his weak, depressed, sorrowful wife. He fully realized what he was doing. Therefore, it becomes clear that Ollie was correct about her lout of a husband, who was in fact a criminal.
At least, Mrs. McGee can feel somewhat avenged in death. But a pathetic irony is laced within these pitiful confessions. Readers are left to doubt that any vengeance or feeling “haunted”can, in fact, offer these tortured souls any meaningful rest.
His words did roam through lanes of rustic gold, By fields where amber wheat doth kiss the sky, Along the river’s bend, both swift and bold, O’er arches wrought of stone they softly fly.
Through wooded snares and breezes light they sweep, Above the crawfish in their misty play, Each sound ablaze, as if the night to keep, A flame of moonshine gilds the fleeting day.
His phrases dance round lilies of the morn, And spark a gleam within mine eyes to shine, Like candlewood where autumn shades are born— Yet sad to say his wayward soul doth not align.
Beneath the boughs, my heart did strain to hear, His tongue’s dulcet tones, to me now no longer dear.
Hod Putt chafed at his low station in life as an unsuccessful laborer who never seemed able to get ahead. His intense envy of those who were successful lead him down a path to perdition.
Introduction and Text of “Hod Putt”
The deceased inhabitants of the fictional village of Spoon River in Edgar Lee Masters’ American classic, Spoon River Anthology, are finally free to let loose their venom on whoever crossed them in life. They now feel free to testify, but their testimony is only their side of it. They can say whatever they like without being rebuked, reprimanded, or criticized.
The advantage of this kind of scenario, masterfully crafted by the poet, is that the dead people have the same stage to make their claims. The study thus reveals differing points of view, even as the individual speakers sometimes focus on similar circumstances.
The Spoon River character study begins with an epitaph featuring the character “Hod Putt,” which qualifies as a versanelle, a short, pithy verse with a gripping punch offering a glimpse at human nature. The poem delivers that interesting punch as it reveals a truth about human nature and its desire to justify the unjustifiable to flatter the ego.
Hod Putt
Here I lie close to the grave Of Old Bill Piersol, Who grew rich trading with the Indians, and who Afterwards took the bankrupt law And emerged from it richer than ever. Myself grown tired of toil and poverty And beholding how Old Bill and others grew in wealth, Robbed a traveler one night near Proctor’s Grove, Killing him unwittingly while doing so, For the which I was tried and hanged. That was my way of going into bankruptcy. Now we who took the bankrupt law in our respective ways Sleep peacefully side by side.
Commentary on “Hod Putt”
Apparently, considering himself a failure in life’s rat race for riches, this speaker Hod Putt envied those who were successful or at least more successful than he was.
From his perch in the afterworld, Putt attempts to improve his lack of substance by concocting an equivalence between his moral bankruptcy and the financial bankruptcy experienced by “Old Bill Piersol.”
Putt belongs to that classification of Spoon River inmates who try to assuage their own guilt by laying a thick blanket of culpability onto others. Readers can see clearly that these scofflaws are merely cutting off the heads of others so that they may appear to stand taller.
First Movement: Blinding Jealousy
Here I lie close to the grave Of Old Bill Piersol, Who grew rich trading with the Indians, and who Afterwards took the bankrupt law And emerged from it richer than ever.
Hod Putt informs his audience that his grave lies near the “grave / Of Old Bill Piersol.” He reports that Piersol was an Indian trader who became wealthy through his lucrative trade association.
Piersol, however, went bankrupt but then recovered his wealth quickly and grew “richer than ever”; these events cause Putt’s jealous nature to overcome his ability to think clearly.
Second Movement: A Double Felony
Myself grown tired of toil and poverty And beholding how Old Bill and others grew in wealth, Robbed a traveler one night near Proctor’s Grove,
Putt implies that he was somewhat lackadaisical with no deep interest in high achievement; just keeping bread on the table caused him to grow “tired of toil and poverty.” While not fond of work, he also found poverty inconvenient.
Putt assumed that “Old Bill and others” had used the system to become wealthy; thus he assumed he could also use the system for his own purposes. He, therefore, dreamed up a plan: instead of working for his pay, he would take from others. He began his new endeavor in crime by robbing a traveler “near Proctor’s Grove.”
Third Movement: Faulty Logic
Killing him unwittingly while doing so, For the which I was tried and hanged. That was my way of going into bankruptcy.
To Putt’s chagrin, he kills the victim while trying to take his property. This felony then gets Putt “tried and hanged.” Like any other act of faulty logic, he asserts that his act just constituted “bankruptcy.”
He, no doubt, believes he is clever in comparing his crimes to what he assumes to be the crimes of others, as he draw a moral equivalency between financial bankruptcy and moral bankruptcy. But his utterly counterfeit comparison to businessmen who declare legitimate bankruptcy according to the law demonstrates the criminal nature of Putt’s mind.
Fourth Movement: Morally Bankrupt
Now we who took the bankrupt law in our respective ways Sleep peacefully side by side.
Putt shows that he is morally bankrupt; he concocts a moral equivalency between his felonious crimes and those of successful men, in this case, Old Bill Piersol, who merely followed bankruptcy laws.
The smug Putt claims that he and Piersol “sleep peacefully side by side”; this claim implies that their “bankruptcies” are just the same.
A Two-Fold Felon
Readers will understand the difference between the two “bankruptcies”: Hod Putt is a criminal trying to vindicate himself while, in fact, revealing his felonious nature. Bankruptcy laws work within the legal system for those who declare bankruptcy.
The laws governing bankruptcy do not exist in order to encourage theft but to allow the unfortunate to place their financial endeavor on the path to recovery. Putt declares that he intended to rob a man, but while committing the robbery, he killed the man.
It is not likely that he intended to kill the man as he was committing his intensional felony. But then, because of the accidental killing, Putt becomes a two-fold felon, failing to even understand his criminal acts.
Now after death, he disingenuously claims to be “sleeping peacefully side by side” with Old Bill Piersol. In his own imagination, Putt is free to believe that his “sleep” after death and that of a legitimate businessman are the same.
But imagination does not make it so. The karma of all individuals dictates how well they rest—not how things may seem at any given time. Apparently, Putt remains blissfully unaware that karma will reckon with him—if not today, nor tomorrow, then sometime in future.
Image: Emily Dickinson – Amherst College – Daguerrotype of the poet at age 17, circa 1847 – likely the only authentic, extant likeness of the poet
Emily Dickinson’s “The reticent volcano keeps”
The speaker in Emily Dickinson’s “The reticent volcano keeps” is musing on the nature of silence and secrets, transforming metaphorically a volcano into a figure of thoughtful restraint. This idea creates a paradox that challenges the nature and purpose of human speech.
Introduction and Text of “The reticent volcano keeps”
The speaker in Emily Dickinson’s “The reticent volcano keeps” is exploring the tense relationship between divine knowledge and human awareness by delving into nature’s ability to keep secrets as opposed to humanity’s driving need to speak out and to be heard by others.
The poem, thus, is ultimately a study in contrasts. The speaker concocts a parallel universe, in which the forces of nature adhere to perfect discretion as human beings often go off the rails by remaining loquacious and even indiscreet, as they engage loudly in mere gossip.
The metaphorical volcano becomes the speaker’s prime example of nature’s superior restraint. Unlike explosive human beings, this volcanic force has mastered the art of keeping secrets and thus holds its ever awake strategy in blissful silence.
The reticent volcano keeps
The reticent volcano keeps His never slumbering plan — Confided are his projects pink To no precarious man.
If nature will not tell the tale Jehovah told to her Can human nature not survive Without a listener?
Admonished by her buckled lips Let every babbler be The only secret people keep Is Immortality.
Commentary on “The reticent volcano keeps”
Emily Dickinson’s “The reticent volcano keeps” creates a speaker who comments on the nature of silence and secrets. The speaker employs a metaphor of a volcano to compare the ideas of restraint to the chatty nature of humanity, whose only secret “Is Immortality.”
First Stanza: The Volcano’s Secret
The reticent volcano keeps His never slumbering plan — Confided are his projects pink To no precarious man.
The speaker begins by metaphorically creating the image of a volcano that keeps secrets. There is almost a hint of personification of that geologic force, as it is described as “reticent” but capable of deliberately and consciously making the choice to keep its secrets.
By calling the volcano “reticent,” the speaker gives it a personality with intention. Thus the volcano becomes human-like with the ability to make choices. And its choice is to stay mum about its purpose for its activities.
The image of the “never slumbering plan” heralds forth a disturbing tension. On its surface, the volcano seems to remain dormant, yet beneath that quiet surface rumbles a permanent, definite intention.
According to this fantasized scenario, the volcano is not experiencing a passive rest but instead is engaging in the restraint of wide-awake watching. Thus the speaker is implying that actual power comes with restraint, not from revelation.
Stated another way: the volcano’s power lies in what it does not say, or what it refuses to reveal about its hidden activities. The volcano does not merely have a plan, but it also protects and preserves that plan from outside observation that would cause interference with its intentions.
The speaker is therefore presenting the volcano as a model of perfect prudence, a power that is capable of destroying the landscape yet chooses to keep its secrets. The speaker is implying that such choices are the result of self-control. And that kind of self-control is to be admired.
The speaker unveils minor details, labeling them “projects pink,” which suggest images of dawn, flowering blossoms, or a gently glowing fire. Still, the volcano reveals these intimate secrets to no one, definitely not to unreliable human beings.
The color “pink” brings an unexpected gentleness into the scenario of volcanic force. The speaker seems to be suggesting that even the most dramatic natural forces contain delicate qualities hidden from view.
The speaker portrays human beings as “precarious” because they remain basically unreliable and too fickle to be trusted with nature’s serious purposes. Human beings are deemed unworthy to be afforded information about nature’s activities.
So, the phrase “confided are” suggests that the volcano’s secrets exist in a state of trust. But such trust is not extended to humans, again because human beings have not proven themselves to be trustworthy.
The speaker has thus created a hierarchy of trustworthiness. The volcano is placed at the top of the spectrum and humanity at the bottom. The natural world, as opposed to the human world thus serves as the reliable retainer of divine secrets.
Second Stanza: Divine Silence
If nature will not tell the tale Jehovah told to her Can human nature not survive Without a listener?
The speaker then broadens her view beyond the volcanic keeper of secrets to encompass all of nature in this conspiracy of silence. The speaker suggests that God Himself has shared secrets with the natural world.
The phrase “the tale / Jehovah told to her” implies the intimate conversational relationship between Creator and creation. The speaker presents this scenario as a whispered confidence that remains eternally unbroken.
By employing the name “Jehovah,” the speaker invokes one of the most sacred names for God. This raises the conversation beyond casual exchange to profound holiness and therefore deserving of absolute attention.
In other words, the speaker is implying that nature serves as God’s confidante. Unlike the human being, who is supposed to be God’s most valuable and honored creation but has fallen short, the natural world has proven itself worthy of divine trust and continues to honor that sacred responsibility.
The term “tale” points to a narrative or story, most likely mythology. The speaker thus implies that God has shared His most profound stories of creation with nature, stories that remain hidden.
The speaker presents this divine sharing as a test of loyalty. Nature has passed the test by maintaining perfect silence, while humanity has failed time and again because of its compulsive need to speak.
At this point, the speaker poses the poem’s poignant question: If nature can keep divine secrets, why cannot human beings behave honorably, without constantly needing to speak and be heard?
The term “survive” suggests the strong need for listeners; it is not merely a preference but an existential need. The speaker thus implies that humans require witnesses to their thoughts to maintain their very existence.
Ultimately, the speaker is creating a sharp distinction between “nature” and “human nature.” Nature is capable of self-sufficient silence, while human nature has acquired the bad habit of constant verbal interaction just to function.
The question becomes philosophical as well as practical. The speaker wonders whether humanity’s need for an audience is weakness or simply part of its essential character as social beings.
The speaker implies that humanity’s inability to keep secrets stems from its fundamental need for connection. Human beings speak because they must be heard to feel that they are living.
The question rises to a note of near-pathetic bewilderment. The speaker remains genuinely baffled by humanity’s inability to match nature’s perfect discretion and self-contained silence.
Third Stanza: The Moral Lesson
Admonished by her buckled lips Let every babbler be The only secret people keep Is Immortality.
The speaker concludes with nature as an instructor of ethical and moral behavior. The image of nature’s “buckled lips,” clasped tightly, serves to castigate human compulsive loquaciousness.
The image of “buckled lips” is also mechanical as well as organic. The speaker suggests that while nature’s silence is instinctive, it is also deliberate, making it a disciplined choice.
The speaker chastises “every babbler,” shaming human beings for their inability to hold their tongues. Apparently, they cannot mirror the volcano’s patient discretion or even understand nature’s faithful, enduring silence.
The term “babbler” is especially damning, reducing human communication to meaningless chatter. Such constant talk lacks the dignity of nature’s meaningfully purposeful silence.
The speaker delivers the poem’s most devastating irony. The one secret that humans do manage to keep is “Immortality”—their silence about death and what lies beyond. This final revelation transforms the entire poem’s earlier criticisms.
In this final irony, the speaker both condemns and redeems humanity. Humans are babblers about everything except what matters most—their own eternal destiny and ultimate meaning.
But what does the speaker imply by claiming that humanity keeps secrets about Immortality? Merely the fact that most of humanity speaks and behaves without giving Immortality or what lies beyond the grave much thought.
The topic of “Immortality” is left up to poets, philosophers, and theologians. And although these groups have proffered tomes on the issue, their theories go largely unnoticed on the street.
The speaker would have talk about life beyond this life become more open to everyone. She seems to feel that the one secret that humanity continues to keep is the only one that truly matters.
She thus would have humanity keep some of its more chatty issues to itself, reorder its thinking, and begin producing volcanic force in conversations that would truly move the culture along to a more open sharing of eternal truths. But first, of course, she must try to influence humanity to take an interest in profundity instead of petty, chatty gossip.
The glow of moon sets me to musing On moving in the distance of surprise.
Fear cannot conquer itself, you might think, But how to know courage might also be A subject to muse on and to fuse then Your sorrow to the ilk of betrayal Not searching for the end but the stop.
The glow of moon sets me again to musing On moving surprise into the distance far.
Doing all I can to state what I mean In the space around divided worries I will not go beyond words to wield The sword of hatred that may blind Too many eyeballs blinkered by power.
The glow of moon musing sets me to wink At surprising moves that go the distance.
After I learn to see and feel and know My own will as it exerts itself strong I will never sit in the same seat Where wrong has overcome right— Where night has pretended day.
The glowing moon is musing on me, inspiring Distances with humble, intimate surprises.
I will question, I will inquire, I will query— As I meditate on the glowing light, Where I go to transcend, where I move And meet this flesh-housed treasure That glows louder and brighter than the moon.
Image: Emily Dickinson – Amherst College – Daguerrotype of the poet at age 17, circa 1847 – likely the only authentic, extant likeness of the poet
Emily Dickinson’s “The Only News I know”
In “The Only News I know,” Emily Dickinson creates a speaker whooffers a glimpse at the poet’s satisfying daily existence. She demonstrates how she keeps her consciousness focused only on things of the Divine Realm, thus, avoiding those of the mundane, vulgar, physical existence.
Introduction with Text of “The Only News I know”
The reality of “the news” automatically holds all manner of things that have gone wrong during ordinary life. Accidents, illness, murders, robberies, war, deceit, political intrigue all figure in the news reports that come to one daily.
While these topics tend to agitate, confuse, and sadden most folks who listen to “the news,” seldom does anyone offer an antidote to lessen the pain, frustration, confusion brought about by the bad news reports that accost the citizenry daily.
Although Emily Dickinson’s poem, “The Only News I know,” is obviously an exaggeration, it, nevertheless, dramatizes the most important topics with which the poet likes to engage: immortality, eternity, and God. She likes to engage and occupy her thinking and musing with ethereal places and events. And this creative thinking easily replaces the mundane and vulgar events that daily hem one round.
The physical world is such a cold and often desolate place for sensitive individuals and once those individuals acquire some inkling of a different world, a spiritual level of existence, or an astral world, they prefer it.
They inquire, read, and study about the possibility of a place where the soul lives on after it leaves the gross physical encasement. Such a place offers the individual the opportunity to live more abundantly and completely without the trammels and trappings of earthly existence.
The thought of a “heaven” or an astral existence gives one hope that all the unseemly events reported in “the news” are only temporary and feature only a passing blight that the pure soul must put up with but only for a while. While the physical reality is only temporary, the soul’s reality is permanent.
Emily Dickinson’s “The Only News I Know” consists of four tercets, or three-line stanzas that examine the glorious possibility of living in a world of everlasting beauty, with an always blissful feeling, and ever-new joy.
Each tercet adheres to its own rime scheme: ABC, ABA, AAB, ABC. Each line displays six syllables, except for the final line in the final tercet, which yields only four syllables. The four-syllable line gives the poem an abruptness that further enhances the meaning of the content: the speaker makes her claims in crispness and ends with a snap.
The Only News I know
The Only News I know Is Bulletins all Day From Immortality.
The Only Shows I see – Tomorrow and Today – Perchance Eternity –
The Only One I meet Is God – The Only Street – Existence – This traversed
If Other News there be – Or Admirabler Show – I’ll tell it You –
Commentary on “The Only News I know”
In this poem, Emily Dickinson has created a speaker who reports brief glimpses of what it is like to create a satisfying daily existence. Instead of “bulletins” from news reports on daily misery, her bulletins come from a mystical place where only joy permeates the soul.
First Tercet: Focus on the Spiritual
The Only News I know Is Bulletins all Day From Immortality.
In the first stanza, the speaker asserts that the only information she recognizes is that which comes from “Immortality.” She claims that she receives brief news headlines during the whole day, implying that these brief reports come to her even as she is working.
This speaker is more interested in mystical, that is, spiritual awareness than she is in mundane earthly things. Thus she can easily space out the mundane and fill it with ethereal blessings.
Second Tercet: A Permanent Frame of Mind
The Only Shows I see – Tomorrow and Today – Perchance Eternity –
The speaker then avers that the only programs or performances she watches are those that pertain similarly to things and events that are everlastingly entertaining. She then implies that the time frame in which she experiences these blessings is permanent. She leaves open some doubt by inserting the term “[p]erchance” likely only for the sake of skeptical listeners.
It becomes clear that this speaker entertains no doubt about her claims regarding the landscape of the soul—those topics that obtain for “Immortality” and “Eternity.” She is not so naïve as to believe that in the physical world these qualities hold fast.
If that were so, she would have no need to report on such beyond-earth loci. She could go about simply revealing all the blessings she detects from earthly pleasures. But because earthly paradise remains out of possibility, she has to report about mystical places with figurative language, including colorful images and metaphors.
Third Tercet: God Alone
The Only One I meet Is God – The Only Street – Existence –This traversed
The speaker then reveals her startling claim, as Dickinson speakers are often wont to do: “The Only One I meet / Is God.” And instead of further drama or explication on meeting God, she rushes on mid-line to claim that the only path she travels is that of “Existence.” This “street” is the one that she “traverse[s]” freely.
Her interest focuses only on being. She leaves the idea of becoming to others. While she experiences this great eternal present of being, she remains in a state of blissful confidence.
Fourth Tercet: No Other News
If Other News there be – Or Admirabler Show – I’ll tell it You –
Then the speaker declares that if, in fact, she ever acquires any other significant information, she will let her listeners know about it. But her matter-of-fact declamations have made it quite clear that she does not expect such “Other News” to assail her consciousness.
She is aware that she is creating her own garden of verse into which she has the ability to place anything she wishes. In her garden of creation, she can remain in her mystical state of awareness, meeting only angels and other eternal beings.
Every flower, every bird, every blade of grass has become endowed with the grace of the Heavenly Father, the Ultimate Reality, the Divine Being that is God. The speaker’s dedication to such bliss becomes so full that she is urged to share her state with her audience, and she gladly complies with that urge.
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