Emily Dickinson’s ‘Form Letters’ to Grieving Relations

You think I jest, but seriously. In 1883, apparently, there were some deaths and, enough being enough, Dickinson may have single-handedly invented the form letter. There was an awful lot of death in those days and, after a point, wants the point? These poems were very late in her career. She had already written close to 1800—the majority touching on death—and maybe had had enough. The particular lines she repeats in each letter—are peculiar. They’re not exactly comforting. Gone are her twenty-something bromides. She essentially writes: Sorry about the death of [insert name here], but damned if I know where they’ve gone.

  Adversity if it shall be
  Or wild prosperity
  The Rumor's Gate was shut so tight
  Before my Mind was born —
  Not even a Prognostic's push
  Could make a Dent thereon —

This, according to Volume 3 of Franklin’s complete poems, is the version ED sent to Maria Whitney, in the summer of 1883 (immediately after discussing her—ED’s—mother’s death). The earliest version of this, written in March of 1883, was to Elizabeth Holland, in which she writes:

  This me that walks and works must die
  Some fair or stormy Day
  Adversity if it may be
  Or wild prosperity
  The Rumor's Gate was shut so tight
  Before my mind was born
  That even a Prognostic's push
  Can make no Crease thereon

Between lines 4 & 5, ED experimentally wrote, Beyond my power to sight or deem. She then made a fair copy in which she changed the last two lines:

  Not even a Prognostic's push
  Can Could make a Dent thereon—

Then, in October of 1883, Susan Dickinson’s son Gilbert died (an especially grievous death for the Dickinson clan) and Dickinson wrote:

Moving on in the Dark like Loaded Boats at Night, though there is no Course, there is Boundlessness—

  Expanse cannot be lost—
  Not Joy, but a Decree
  Is Deity—
  His Scene, Infinity—
  Whose rumor's Gate was shut so tight
  Before my Beam was sown,
  Not even a Prognostic's push
  Could make a Dent thereon—

  The World that thou has opened
  Shuts for thee,
  But not alone,
  We all have followed thee—
  Escape more slowly
  To thy Tracts of Sheen—
  The Tent is listening,
  But the Troops are gone!

Immediately after this poem, numbered 1627, comes 1628 (in Franklin’s varorium edition)—another poem sent to Susan Dickinson as regards Gilbert’s death . ED wrote:

  Immured in Heaven!
  What a Cell!
  Let every Bondage be,
  Thou sweetest of the Universe,
  Like that which ravished thee!

This is so different in tone and temperament from the other poem that one wonders: If it came afterward, did Dickinson feel some remorse? In which poem was she honestly expressing her thoughts? Was this shorter poem, offering conventional Christian sympathy, written solely to comfort both Austin and Susan? It almost belongs on a Hallmark Card with a soft-focus bouquet.

And then, during the same month, Dickinson was corresponding with Charles Clark after the death of Charles Wadsworth, and she returned to from, writing:

These thoughts disquiet me, and the great friend is gone, who could solace them—Do they disturb you?

  The Spirit lasts—but in what mode—
  Below, the Body speaks,
  But as the Spirit furnishes—
  Apart, it never talks—
  The Music in the Violin
  Does not emerge alone
  But Arm in Arm with Touch, yet Touch
  Alone—is not a Tune—
  The Spirit lurks within the Flesh
  Like Tides within the Sea
  That makes the Water live, estranged
  What would the Either be?
  Does that know—now—or does it cease—
  That which to this is done,
  Resuming at a mutual date
  With every future one?
  Instinct pursues the Adamant,
  Exacting this Reply,
  Adversity if it may be, or wild Prosperity,
  The Rumor's Gate was shut so tight
  Before my Mind was sown,
  Not even a Prognosticator's Push
  Could make a Dent thereon— 

So, let’s just take the core message:

  
  Adversity if it may be, or wild Prosperity,
  The Rumor's Gate was shut so tight
  Before my Mind was sown,
  Not even a Prognosticator's Push
  Could make a Dent thereon— 

By Adversity vs. Prosperity, is she describing her time of death or what comes after? I don’t think we can say with certainty, but there might be some clues. In her earliest use of these lines, they were preceded by “This me… must die/Some fair or stormy Day”. This suggests that Adversity and Prosperity are a restatement of a stormy Day/Adversity or a fair Day/Prosperity. On the other hand, she could be contrasting the conditions at the time of her death with what might come after. It could be a stormy or sunny day when she dies, and what follows death could be adversarial or prosperous. The lines that follow aren’t any help. Rumor’s Gate, after all, could refer to the day of her death (which would be the Gate) or to what his behind the Gate. Not even the scratched out, Beyond my power to sight or deem is a help in this regard. Again, she could be referring to her inability to foresee the day and conditions of her death, or her inability to foresee what comes after death. Unless some skeleton key turns up (and perhaps I don’t know about it) either interpretation is available. Having written that, I’ll put my hand on the scales and say that I think she’s not characterizing what might come after death, otherwise Adversity suggests Hell and Prosperity suggests Heaven. Why on earth would she include a poem, in her condolences, suggesting that Austin’s son, Gilbert, might go to Heaven or might go to Hell. Who knows? Not Emily. So, Adversity probably refers to her bodily state, physical and mental, on the day she dies. Either that or, having suggested that Gilbert might be in Hell, her little poem “Immured in Heaven” was a hasty afterthought.

In her next poem, she precedes these lines with:

  Expanse cannot be lost—
  Not Joy, but a Decree
  Is Deity—
  His Scene, Infinity—
  Whose rumor's Gate was shut so tight
  Before my Beam was sown,
  Not even a Prognostic's push
  Could make a Dent thereon—

Here, perhaps, is a further hint that by adversity or prosperity, she’s not describing the expectation of heaven or hell. (It’s not clear that Dickinson ever seriously entertained the concept of Hell.) She dispenses with both those lines altogether, and replaces them with four lines that seem to more clearly state her beliefs. Based on the poem she writes next, I’m going to interpret “Expanse” as the “spirit”. She’s saying that the spirit cannot be lost. What does she mean by “Not Joy”? This may be a metonym for heaven. In other words. The Deity’s decree that we die is not the promise of “Joy/Heaven”, as understood by Christian doctrine, but Infinity. His scene is infinite, containing all—and not just the curtailed, authoritarian/totalitarian vision offered by Christian dogma. The Deity’s decree, in a sense, is that we must depart life, the way a child outgrows their home, to become a part of an unbounded creation. I could be entirely mistaken, but if this is where Dickinson’s spirituality arrived, then it’s a far more potent and positive vision. In my view.

 
  The World that thou has opened
  Shuts for thee,
  But not alone,
  We all have followed thee—
  Escape more slowly
  To thy Tracts of Sheen—
  The Tent is listening,
  But the Troops are gone!

The closing quatrain seems to assume a timeless posture, spoken from the perspective of the living and the dead. “We all have followed thee—” she writes, and from our perspective, all of them have. They “escaped” more slowly, but escaped nonetheless. “The Tent” is possibly a metonym for the world. In other words, Dickinson continues to speak both from the present and the future, the world listens for Gilbert but also for the Dickinson’s (the Troops) who have all gone ahead of us (the readers).

Dickinson’s, possibly, final stab at these lines, I think, is what makes clear the meaning of “Expanse cannot be lost—”. She writes, “The Spirit lasts”. And there, I think, we have it—here, close to the end of Dickinson’s life and poetry, we hear her clearly state her spiritual convictions. It’s why I would argue that Dickinson is not an atheist. She may be an Abrahamic Atheist (as I am), meaning that she doesn’t believe in the God of Abraham—the mythical God of Christians, Muslims or Jews. She refers to a “Deity”, perhaps understood as life’s greater organizing principle, but speculates no further. She asserts that the spirit lasts and that the spirit shares the infinite with the Deity. What form does that take? Will she still be Emily Dickinson? She doesn’t know. The Spirit lasts—but in what mode?

  Below, the Body speaks,
  But as the Spirit furnishes—
  Apart, it never talks—
  The Music in the Violin
  Does not emerge alone
  But Arm in Arm with Touch, yet Touch
  Alone—is not a Tune—
  The Spirit lurks within the Flesh
  Like Tides within the Sea
  That makes the Water live, estranged
  What would the Either be?
  

The body is not the spirit but is like the violin, something the spirit plays upon. The spirit is like the tide that stirs the sea, and yet, she asks (and has asked before), what is the spirit without the body? What would either be without the other? What point is there to awareness—to consciousness and identity—if it is not experienced in the body?

  Does that know—now—or does it cease—
  That which to this is done,
  Resuming at a mutual date
  With every future one?
  Instinct pursues the Adamant,
  Exacting this Reply,
  Adversity if it may be, or wild Prosperity,
  The Rumor's Gate was shut so tight
  Before my Mind was sown,
  Not even a Prognosticator's Push
  Could make a Dent thereon— 

Is the answer in resurrection? Are the body and soul of every future one meant to be reunited at a mutual date? The Deity’s realm is infinite. Still, her instinctive desire to know, asks “the Adamant”—an impossible and unyielding refusal to answer. Yet the reply will come and it will be exacting. The day of her death may be fair or stormy —if it may be— but Rumor’s Gate, which remained shut tight to her (not even the prognosticator could crack that gate) opened on the day of Dickinson’s death—and she finally received the answer she’d spent a lifetime yearning for.

For Austin and Susan Dickinson’s sake, she wrote a little poem of comfort, knowing that there’s a place for Heaven in the grieving heart.

  
  Immured in Heaven!
  What a Cell!
  Let every Bondage be,
  Thou sweetest of the Universe,
  Like that which ravished thee!

upinVermont | June 19th 2024

What You’ve been Listening To | June 10th-16th

Thought I might post, every Sunday, what poems, at my blog, people have been reading and listening to, going from the most frequently downloaded, to the least:

• Duni’s Song
• Duni’s Song | A Cold October Wind
• Beatified
• Together or Apart
• Mr William Logan’s Sonnet
• I Go to You
• A February Bat
• For Once then Something by Robert Frost
• If I should ever look for Faëries
• November

These poems are all read hundreds of times a month. Beatified and A February Bat, along with Mr William Logan’s Sonnet seem to be favorites.

Duni’s Song | A cold October Wind

The cold October wind comes by
And better close the door and windows.
There’s left the rattling of a fly—
The strident cricket in the winrows.

  We all must dance to that old ground
  As all the while the world goes round.

Bring in the alder for the fire—
The kindling withered to the root,
For so must all of our desire
Be someday burned to ash and soot.

  We all must dance to that old ground
  As all the while the world goes round.

But let us mull the winter’s wine
And drink to every breath we’ve taken,
To days of grapes plucked from the vine—
To love requited and forsaken.

  We all must dance to that old ground
  As all the while the world goes round.

       June 14th 2024

Another of Duni’s songs from the novel WistThistle: Along the Way.

(I thought I might should probably add that a ground is a “A composition in which the bass, consisting of a few bars of independent notes, is continually repeated to a varying melody.“

A few of Bach’s Canons on the Goldberg Ground (Spotify Link)

Two shades of “Faithful to the end” amended

"Faithful to the end" amended
From the Heavenly clause -
Lucrative indeed the offer
But the Heart withdraws -

"I will give" the base Proviso -
Spare Your "Crown of Life" -
Those it fits, too fair to wear it -
Try it on Yourself -

—

"Faithful to the end" amended
From the Heavenly clause -
Constancy with a Proviso
Constancy abhors -

"Crowns of Life" are servile Prizes
To the stately Heart,
Given for the Giving, solely,
No Emolument.

   [FR 1386]

So, trying to sort out these two poems (or one revised) has been enjoyable. And the answer to the question is: I don’t know. These poems are Dickinson writing by analogy, and she doesn’t reveal the context. The best that we can do is to understand the point she is making (the thrust of her analogy) then maybe make some not-unreasonable guesses as to what she might have been talking about. To give a fascinating example of what one means by analogy without context, I found the following passage in Sewall’s biography that likely, by contrast, gives context to a poem that we might otherwise interpret entirely differently. And fascinatingly, it also hinges on the word faith:

Dear Mr Bowles.
Thank you.

"Faith" is a fine invention
When Gentlemen can see—
But Microscopes are prudent
In an Emergency

You spoke of the “East.” I have thought about it this winter.
Dont you think you and I should be shrewder, to take the Mountain Road?
That Bareheaded life — under the grass — worries one like a Wasp.
The Rose is for Mary.

Emily

Sewall precedes this letter by writing:

The problems this letter raises are a prelude to the more complicated problems of several subsequent and apparently crucial letters and poems to Bowles. In these the interchangeability of the frames of reference [context] is far more baffling. For instance, the language of marriage that permeates many of the poems—”wife,” “bride,” “husband”—can be read with credibility as pointing either up or down, to a celestial relationship or to a human. And the human fulfillment for which she years may be either one of erotic passion or the joy of “greatness” as a published poet (this last in spite of her protests to the two editors).

Sewall concludes by analyzing the letter above:

This, indeed, is a test case, and as such worth dwelling on. Every sentence except the last needs explication, including the quatrain. “Thank you”—for what? The quatrain itself—from the 1891 edition of the Poems onward, it is printed quite apart from the letter—has usually been taken as her tiny critique of a theology that neglected the evidence of science, perhaps a bow to Hitchcock and her early training in Amherst Academy and Mount Holyoke. But other and more immediate implications arise when it is viewed in the context of the letter. If the letter is seen as part of Emily’s dialogue with Bowles about publishing her poems, it becomes an appeal to read her poems with more perception. In this reading, she cannot live on the “faith” that somehow, someday, some editor will see her work for what it is and publish it. She has run out of patience; this is an “Emergency.” Get a microscope! The “East,” about which Bowles had spoken to her, may be the world of the Boston and New York publishers. But she urges Bowles not to wait for them. Would it not be “prudent,” “shrewder,” for her poems to take the “Mountain Road” the pass between the range of hills that separates Amherst and Springfield) for publication in the Republican? Time is running out. There may be a sense of urgency because of Bowle’s health, which had been precarious for several years. “That Bareheaded life—under the grass—worries one like a Wasp.” [pp 478-479]

Sewall presents this as a possible interpretation, then follows that up with a theological interpretation of the letter and the quatrain, referencing words that were shared with other poems.

We just don’t know. Given that the imagery, language and stories of Christian mythology were a shared language, it can feel like a coin toss as to whether Dickinson was making a theological statement or using theological paradigms to make secular arguments.

This is what one confronts when reading the two versions Faithful to the end. The phrases Faithful to the end and Crown of Life are both drawn from the Bible and have specific doctrinal meanings, but Dickinson may have simply been using these commonly understood concepts as shorthand.

So there’s that. Secondly, there are two versions. The question arises: Are both these versions making the same point, or is the revision also revising the argument? I’m inclined to think that both poems are making the same point and that Dickinson preserved them because they compliment each other. This allows the reader of both poems to use each to interpret and inform the other. If, by contrast, she’s making different arguments in each poem, then they’re different poems in the sense that one can’t reliably inform the other.

What do they mean? There’s enough non-recoverable deletions and ellision that one can read these poems in two mutually exclusive ways. And once you see the poem one way, it’s hard to unsee it. (Many of Dickinson’s poems are like this, reminding me of those classic illusions that can’t be seen both ways at once.)

For example, one can interpret these poems as a rejection of unwavering faithfulness demanded by the “Heavenly Clause”. The speaker “rejects this offer, suggesting that true loyalty is not conditional upon reward or recognition.” The argument of the poems, in this case, is between loyalty and true loyalty. One reads Dickinson’s argument in the second version as saying that what is “given” by the heart is done solely “for the Giving” and not for any heavenly “Emolument”. This interprets the first version as claiming that “I will give” is the base/foundational law, full stop, and not: I will give with the proviso that I get something in return—a crown of life. Spare me that, she writes. And once you’ve seen the poem this way, it’s hard to unsee. The trouble with this interpretation, to me, is that it’s not the simplest interpretation. It violates Occam’s Quill in that, in my opinion, it requires us make an awful lot of undeletions. “Crowns of Life” are servile Prizes/ To the stately Heart/Because what is Given is given for the sake of Giving, solely, and for No [not for any] Emolument.” Further, this interpretation doesn’t wholly make sense given that the Christian doctrine she ostensibly rejects is offering precisely what she presents as the preferred alternative—nothing. The Crown of Life is a heavenly reward for good behavior—not anything for the living. In life, you give for the sake of giving with no expectation of earthly reward. Dickinson’s difference, read this way, is really a distinction without a difference. This strikes me as a somewhat fussy, moralistic argument compared to Dickinson’s usual fare.

I interpret the poem in the totally opposite sense.

She is, in fact, entirely rejecting the idea that one should give without the expectation of reward. I think the poems hinge on how we imagine the context and whether we think her use of the word faith might be similar to Sewall’s proposed use of the word in her letter to Bowles. Let’s say that Dickinson (as she’s done more transparently in other poems) is writing about her poetry. The impatience that Sewall reads into the letter,

If the letter is seen as part of Emily’s dialogue with Bowles about publishing her poems, it becomes an appeal to read her poems with more perception. In this reading, she cannot live on the “faith” that somehow, someday, some editor will see her work for what it is and publish it. She has run out of patience; this is an “Emergency.”

Is made explicit in Faithful to the End. To wit:

    "Faithful to the end" amended
    From the Heavenly clause -
    Lucrative indeed the offer
    But the Heart withdraws -

    "I will give" the base Proviso -
    Spare Your "Crown of Life" -
    Those it fits, too fair to wear it -
    Try it on Yourself -

I hereby amend/omit “Faithful to the end” from the Heavenly clause (the putative agreement she made to God in being born). While the offer may be lucrative, in a doctrinal sense, her heart’s not in it. She’s lost patience. In this reading, she rejects “faith” just as she may have in the earlier poem. I read “base” in the opposite sense that most probably read it, not as a foundational moral principle but as a mean or wretched principle. She has already written how many poems? She has given and given and gotten what in return? Spare me your posthumous rewards, your “Crown of Life”. I want something while I live. The last two lines sarcastically dismiss the “Crown of Life” as any kind of consolation. Those it fits, she writes, are too “fair” (which I interpret as a Dickinsonian metonym for dead) to wear it. They are insubstantial now—made fair and beautiful in heaven. How is any crown going to sit on their heads? After all their do-gooding, they can’t even wear the crown! And that makes sense of the biting last line. If you think working for nothing is so great, try it yourself. As my grandmother used to say: “You’ll get your bale of hay in heaven, you Jack-ass.”

In the second version (according to Franklin), Dickinson leaves off the sarcasm along with the more personal sense of grievance, to more succinctly argue her objection.

 
    "Faithful to the end" amended
    From the Heavenly clause -
    Constancy with a Proviso
    Constancy abhors -

    "Crowns of Life" are servile Prizes
    To the stately Heart,
    Given for the Giving, solely,
    No Emolument.

I hereby amend/omit “Faithful to the end” from the Heavenly clause (the putative agreement she made to God in being born). Constant giving/working with the proviso (the stipulation that giving be done without expectation of reward) is something that any conscientious, constant and consistent worker would abhor. “Crowns of Life”, posthumous reward and/or fame (literary or religious), is a servile prize or reward to the stately, self-respecting, Heart. It is a servile Prize “given for the Giving, solely” (for the feel-good benefit of the giver) and is no Emolument (compensation received by virtue of holding an office or having employment — usually in the form of wages or fees). And there’s our Occam’s Quill. This understanding of the verse requires far less substitution and “undeletion” of missing words. The syntax makes sense, as is.

If we choose not to read these stanzas as Dickinson losing patience with her lack of literary recognition, we might also read them as her rejection of a platonic relationship. One could read the poems as her warning to a correspondent with whom she’d like a more committed relationship (read committed how you will). In this case she’s drawing an analogy between the Christian notion of ‘giving’ without expectation of reward (in ones lifetime), to ‘giving’ in a relationship that isn’t reciprocated. In either case, her core argument is that she expects, longs for, and is impatient for reciprocity.

June 6 2024 | up in Vermont

Duni’s Song

For where the ocean speaks to me
  The corals are my grave;
Eternity spent undersea
  Beneath the violet waves.

Yet let a thousand years go by,
For together we loved the cerulean sky.

For where the field still speaks of you
   Her roots drink from my mouth
And where her sleep collects the dew
   I lie in endless drouth.

Yet let a thousand years go by,
For together we loved the cerulean sky.

For where the desert sands go on
  And on, I go no more.
I’ve gone to where the winds have gone
  To what I was before.

Yet let a thousand years go by,
For together we loved the cerulean sky.

For where the stars still give their light
  We stood—we watched them fall.
That night I spent with you — that night
  I understood the all.

  WistThistle
  June 2nd 2024

This little song is written for my second novel in the Isles of Erþe Quartet, WistThistle: Along the Way. Éhto, Ímah and Duni are journeying south through the Dunes of Pen, and Éhto’s drinking of the hoko’s water, a water suffused with the dreaming of the cacti, has given life to the hokoi—giants of stone blocks assembled as though by some living magic. At first threatened, Duni sings the first quatrain of the song above, famous in the Isles of Erþe, and to the surprise of all, the hokoi, with voices like giant pipes of stone, harmonize the refrains.