The heart asks pleasure first,
And then, excuse from pain;
And then, those little anodynes
That deaden suffering;~Emily Dickinson
And then, to go to sleep;
And then, if it should be
The will of its Inquisitor,
The liberty to die.
My first experience of this poem was not as a poem, but as a piece of music. It’s arguably the most well-known tune in the film The Piano.
When I first saw the film, I loved the music and hated the story. I complained about it to my then-boyfriend.
“This is the worst love story ever. The woman is trapped in this horrible life and her husband is a jerk and so is the guy she falls in love with, and her kid is creepy, and this movie is horrible.”
After politely listening to my rant, my now-husband, who has still to this day never seen the film, said, “The love story isn’t about the guys. It’s about the piano.”
BOOM.
As an English major, I felt incredibly sheepish. How had I missed this?
“Oh,” I said. “Okay. This is an amazing movie.”
I can’t read this poem without its namesake song from The Piano playing on repeat in my head. The tune fits the poem beautifully. Often, song versions of Dickinson’s songs sound too sweet to me. This one, however, seems to perfectly capture the mood not only of the film, but the poem.
The Emily Project 