The same pageant

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POMPLESS no life can pass away;
The lowliest career
To the same pageant wends its way
As that exalted here.
How cordial is the mystery!
The hospitable pall
A “this way” beckons spaciously,—
A miracle for all!

~emily dickinson

For some reason, this one immediately sparked the memory of some of Shakespeare’s lines–the ending of Cymbeline. I don’t know why reading Dickinson’s insistence that every lie ends in some glory instantly reminded me of Shakespeare’s assertion that no glory lasts. Perhaps because, in their own ways, both poets present their differing conclusions about the end of this earthly life as a kind of comfort. What do you think?

Fear no more the heat o’ the sun,
Nor the furious winter’s rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages:
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.


Fear no more the frown o’ the great;
Thou art past the tyrant’s stroke;
Care no more to clothe and eat;
To thee the reed is as the oak:
The scepter, learning, physic, must
All follow this, and come to dust.


Fear no more the lightning flash,
Nor the all-dreaded thunder stone;
Fear not slander, censure rash;
Thou hast finished joy and moan:
All lovers young, all lovers must
Consign to thee, and come to dust.


No exorciser harm thee!
Nor no witchcraft charm thee!
Ghost unlaid forbear thee!
Nothing ill come near thee!
Quiet consummation have;
And renownèd be thy grave!

~william shakespeare

An oldie, but a goodie

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Much Madness is divinest Sense –
To a discerning Eye –
Much Sense – the starkest Madness –
’Tis the Majority
In this, as all, prevail –
Assent – and you are sane –
Demur – you’re straightway dangerous –
And handled with a Chain –

~emily dickinson

This will never not be true. Enough said.

Far ends of tired days

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UNTO my books so good to turn
Far ends of tired days;
It half endears the abstinence,
And pain is missed in praise.


As flavors cheer retarded guests
With banquetings to be,
So spices stimulate the time
Till my small library.


It may be wilderness without,
Far feet of failing men,
But holiday excludes the night,
And it is bells within.


I thank these kinsmen of the shelf;
Their countenances bland
Enamour in prospective,
And satisfy, obtained.

~emily dickinson

Lately I’ve felt at the far end of one very long, very tired day. The weird thing is that I haven’t been seeking solace in books, as I usually do. I haven’t read a book in months. This feels deeply out of character–I keep wondering what’s wrong with me. It’s not that I don’t have a few minutes at the end of most days. It’s not necessarily that I’m too tired to read. I just haven’t felt the need to, the compulsion I normally feel, and I can’t figure this out.

Maybe I don’t need to figure it out. This is, after all, just one of many seasons. My kinsmen of the shelf will be there waiting when the time comes round again.

Resurrection

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’T WAS a long parting, but the time
For interview had come;
Before the judgment-seat of God,
The last and second time


These fleshless lovers met,
A heaven in a gaze,
A heaven of heavens, the privilege
Of one another’s eyes.


No lifetime set on them,
Apparelled as the new
Unborn, except they had beheld,
Born everlasting now.


Was bridal e’er like this?
A paradise, the host,
And cherubim and seraphim
The most familiar guest.

~Emily dickinson

This one is titled “Resurrection” in my copy of Dickinson’s poems. “Perfect for Easter!” I thought, and then, “Oh, come on, Emily,” when I read it and saw that it is actually a love poem. Just when you think she can only write about death (or orioles) she takes death and turns it into a poem about undying love.

But then, when you think about it, isn’t that what Easter is–a love story?

Oriole, Part 2

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ONE of the ones that Midas touched,
Who failed to touch us all,
Was that confiding prodigal,
The blissful oriole.


So drunk, he disavows it
With badinage divine;
So dazzling, we mistake him
For an alighting mine.


A pleader, a dissembler,
An epicure, a thief,—
Betimes an oratorio,
An ecstasy in chief;


The Jesuit of orchards,
He cheats as he enchants
Of an entire attar
For his decamping wants.


The splendor of a Burmah,
The meteor of birds,
Departing like a pageant
Of ballads and of bards.


I never thought that Jason sought
For any golden fleece;
But then I am a rural man,
With thoughts that make for peace.


But if there were a Jason,
Tradition suffer me
Behold his lost emolument
Upon the apple-tree.

~Emily dickinson

There is a lot happening in this poem–so much that I don’t know where to begin. I chose it to follow up yesterday’s oriole poem–it seemed like a good idea at the time. But I don’t know what to do with this one. It’s crammed with classical allusions, bizarre and gorgeous metaphors and similes, maybe a zing aimed at Jesuits, and Emily writing as a “rural man.”

Did Midas touch the oriole? Is it Midas or the oriole who failed to touch us all? What the heck is “an alighting mine”? “The meteor of birds,/Departing like a pageant” is a shimmeringly lovely description. But then what’s up with the golden fleece business, and what does that have to do with being “a rural man,/With thoughts that make for peace?” And the word “emolument” is one I can’t read without a certain modern cringing at current events.

I think she’s saying that the oriole’s music is like gold, but that’s about all I’ve got. I wonder if Dickinson is throwing words at paper in a sort of poetic stream of consciousness and seeing what sticks. I like the poem, but I don’t know exactly what to make of it. What do you think?

Oriole, Part 1

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TO hear an oriole sing
May be a common thing,
Or only a divine.


It is not of the bird
Who sings the same, unheard,
As unto crowd.


The fashion of the ear
Attireth that it hear
In dun or fair.


So whether it be rune,
Or whether it be none,
Is of within;


The “tune is in the tree,”
The sceptic showeth me;
“No, sir! In thee!”

~emily dickinson

This is a weird and wonderful poem. Structurally it’s very different from most Dickinson poems, with its three-line stanzas. The last line of each is markedly shorter than the first two. There is an abrupt, revelatory feel to these short lines, as if Dickinson is demanding that we sit up straight and pay attention because something important is about to be unfolded. The whole thing reads like some obscure ancient riddle.

I think what she’s saying is that the music of birdsong is within each of us–that is, the perception of the song as music. The “only” in the first stanza is interesting. “Or only a divine” sounded to me on the first few readings as if the poet was saying “only” in the sense of “merely,” which feels odd and yet somehow perfectly Dickinsonian, minimizing the divine for some kind of effect. But on about the third reading I wonder if she means “only” in the sense of “purely” or “exclusively.”

This whole poem is like a riddle, the answer of which is different for each person because it is buried deep within ourselves, like our perception of the oriole’s song.

Anodyne

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HEART not so heavy as mine,
Wending late home,
As it passed my window
Whistled itself a tune,—


A careless snatch, a ballad,
A ditty of the street;
Yet to my irritated ear
An anodyne so sweet,


It was as if a bobolink,
Sauntering this way,
Carolled and mused and carolled,
Then bubbled slow away.


It was as if a chirping brook
Upon a toilsome way
Set bleeding feet to minuets
Without the knowing why.


To-morrow, night will come again,
Weary, perhaps, and sore.
Ah, bugle, by my window,
I pray you stroll once more!

~Emily dickinson

Life has felt heavy lately–heavy and overwhelming. It’s crammed full of things–obligations, challenges, setbacks, disappointments, unpleasant surprises. This poem captures beautifully the heaviness of the soul without going into specifics–we know that the speaker is weighed down. But the point of it all is the moment of sweetness, the unexpected beauty of a song sung by a passerby. Even at its heaviest, life offers us these moments, scattered like seafoam, glittering against the somber background of the everyday.

No matter how busy you are, how distracted, how overwhelmed, how overburdened, may you find your anodyne today.

“Take care, for God is here. That’s all.”

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THE MURMUR of a bee
A witchcraft yieldeth me.
If any ask me why,
’T were easier to die
Than tell.


The red upon the hill
Taketh away my will;
If anybody sneer,
Take care, for God is here,
That ’s all.


The breaking of the day
Addeth to my degree;
If any ask me how,
Artist, who drew me so,
Must tell!

~Emily dickinson

Yesterday, an errant honeybee found her way into my kitchen. I caught her in a glass jar and set her free. I wonder where home is for her. Redbuds haze the wooded hillsides with their purple gauze, and dogwood buds have unfurled into white-green blossoms. The other morning, when I went out just before sunrise to let out the chickens, the Alleghenies to the west blazed momentarily red with the light of the dawning sun. Spring is full of such moments, fleeting and peerless. “Take care, for God is here. That’s all.”

A faded meat

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MINE enemy is growing old,—
I have at last revenge.
The palate of the hate departs;
If any would avenge,—


Let him be quick, the viand flits,
It is a faded meat.
Anger as soon as fed is dead;
’T is starving makes it fat.

~Emily Dickinson

Sometimes Emily is weird and obscure, and sometimes she is crystal-clear and spot-on. This is one of those latter times. There’s nothing vague here, nothing coy or perplexing, and the sustained metaphor of revenge as meat is vivid and visceral. It calls to mind the proverb “Revenge is a dish best served cold,” while flipping it on its head. According to Dickinson, revenge is inherently cold–by the time you get it, it is already faded.

It’s interesting that she begins with her enemy growing old–the way she’s set up the poem suggests that it is simply the fact of her enemy’s age/mortality that gives her revenge. But the speaker as well as the reader know full well that someone else’s aging isn’t revenge–it’s simply part of the natural order of things. If the object of the speaker’s anger is aging, then so is the speaker herself. And with that aging, “The palate of the hate departs.”

You could read this poem as the speaker advocating speedy revenge–“Let him be quick, the viand flits”–but that’s not really what Dickinson is getting at. As soon as we feed our anger it is dead. We feed it by starving it, by not seeking resolution.