The Clouds their Backs together laid

The Clouds their Backs together laid
The North began to push
The Forests galloped till they fell
The Lightening played like mice

The Thunder crumbled like a stuff
How good to be in Tombs
Where nature's Temper cannot reach
Nor missle ever comes
(F 1246)

Started 10/19 and continued 10/20...
This poem vividly depicts the wild forces of nature unleashed upon the earth. There is a sense of opposition as the clouds stand "their backs together laid" and the north "began to push". Immediately Dickinson creates struggle as the powers of nature build and unleash themselves upon the world below. The forests "fell" and the lightening wreaks its danger "like mice." There is a powerful carelessness in the abilities of nature. Nature does not care about damage that might be done, nor about the panic it induces upon anything below. It is self-centered and self-pleasing in its abandon.

And yet, nature cannot touch the speaker. He or she is safe "in Tombs / Where nature's temper cannot reach." There is a large sense of irony in this statement from the speaker, because while he or she is safe from the wild danger of nature and its fury, it remains that the speaker is dead. One theme that can be derived from this poem is that safety has its sacrifices. To be safe from the looming clouds and the pouring rain and careless thunder, one also gives up the chance to see the glory of a sunset or the hallowed morning of fresh fallen snow or the riotous splendor of first spring or the fiery blaze of autumn harvest. There is a sense of give and take, and while there is security from the unpredictable forces above, the tomb is for the dead.

My Wars are laid away in Books

My Wars are laid away in Books--
I have one Battle more--
A Foe whom I have never seen
But oft has scanned me o'er--
And hesitated me between
And others at my side,

But chose the best-- Neglecting me-- till
All the rest have died--
How sweet if I am not forgot
By Chums that passed away--
Since Playmates at threescore and ten
Are such a scarcity--
(F 1578)

This poem is a good example of the unexpected reversals found in Dickinson's work. The poem begins rather vaguely, about wars "laid away in books," using the enigmatic language that either has the reader intrigued or utterly confused (or both). The reader is told that this final war is between the speaker and a foe that chose others while leaving her behind. All signs point to death as this foe, a sort of grim reaper in contrast to other poems which personify death as a gentleman. Death in this poem is random or calculating, a separating force. There is a sense of respect for death, for the speaker claims that death has previously "chose best" in selecting others to take.

The unexpected reversal comes in the second part of this poem, when the persona claims in lines 9-12 that it will be "sweet" if s/he is not forgotten by those who have already passed away because playmates are so hard to find in older age. Typically the reader would think of the person still living, such as the speaker, as the person who would remember those who have passed on. In the second half of this poem Dickinson inverts this expectation. Here, the speaker longs for the dead playmates to remember him or her.

Dickinson, through her speaker, expresses the loneliness of being the survivor. Rather than feeling that the deceased are lonely in their graves or perhaps missing the companionship of a lost friend, this speaker feels personal loneliness and expressed a desire to be united in friendship beyond death again. Perhaps Dickinson is implying that this final war the speaker must face-- the war with death-- is already won because there is no fear or regret in the speaker's mind?

Did We abolish Frost

Did We abolish Frost
The Summer would not cease--
If Seasons perish or prevail
Is optional with Us--
(F 1024)

Yet another of Dickinson's briefest of poems, and one that doesn't really rhyme. This particular poem can be interpreted as the desire to control nature, and by proxy the passage or progression of time. If people were to do away with the cold frost, the summer could linger on. There is a desire for control, to dominate that which people cannot rule-- seasons and time. Dickinson draws on this universal desire, the desire to control what is beyond controlling, to create a point at which her audience can connect with the poem. People do not care about the seasons, they don't care for change. They certainly don't care for the things which the frost represents, namely the archetype of death. The frost may also represent an entombment, isolation and a prison keeping one from contact with the outside world.

Ironically, the endurance or end of a season is not optional for anyone. The poem unveils the fallacy of thinking that control is possible. In the first two lines Dickinson uses the familiar desire to resist change as the familiar point for her reader. In the last lines, however, a careful reading reveals the unexpected reversal-- people have no option but to accept the seasons. The speaker does not overtly state this, but rather uses a fallacy to set up the reader into suddenly remembering that the seaons will never be controlled by humans, and therefore humans are forever subject to its fullness, both in life and light of summer and the dark, death, and isolation of winter.

An Hour is a Sea

An Hour is a Sea
Between a few, and me--
With them would Harbor be--
(F 898)


Emily Dickinson never fails in her ability to capture in a few words, even in about a sentence and a half or three small lines-- to capture an experience. It's not quite a miniature experience, because the full impact of emotion lies in these lines, rich and overwhelming. Her compression of language is superb, and I feel like I'm gushing as I write this, but her poetry is so rich in expression.


This speaker is full of longing and fear, isolation and maybe even a tinge of depression, yet there is an underlying hope. This "hour of sea" may seem unending. One could liken it to the experience of Santiago in Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, when the giant fish has dragged Santiago out into the waves, much farther than he ever expected. There is no land in sight, only the swell of waves and the stars as a guide at night. In ways, the speaker in this poem seems to use the hope of the friends as a map to guide into the harbor, much as Santiago used the starts to navigate until he could see the lights of Havannah.


The moment of safety is not played out in the poem, however. And this lack of a real conclusion casts a little shadow of uncertainty upon the poem. The speaker is aware the harbor exists, but whether he or she will make whatever effort is necessary to reach the harbor-- that is another matter that Dickinson does not answer. Will the persona fall short of the harbor and sink or die at sea? Will he or she even try to reach the harbor? The answer must come from the reader, and the reader's answer will reveal far more about himself or herself than it will reveal about the speaker or the poet.

I'm sorry for the Dead-- Today

Emily Dickinson has so much amazing empathy, and her seemingly limitless imagination allows her to reach into ideas that other writers could never begin to consider. Many writers might miss the dead or think of how a coffin might seem during the afterlife. And yet few can craft a poem like Dickinson who not only imagines what the coffin and eternity therein might be like, but she goes a step further to the idea of living dead or conscious thoughts of the dead, aware of a world above that they have no way of reaching.

On some level, I also wonder if this poem might be intended, at least subconsciously, to be a commentary on Dickinson's mother, Emily Norcross Dickinson. Her mother spent a great deal of time sick and Dickinson was frequently the one to care for her. Or perhaps this could be hint of reflection on Dickinson's own isolation, though she did warn not to mistake her poetry for autobiography. At any rate, this poem displays Dickinsons craft with language, her use of voice, and her vast empathetic abilities. Interestingly enough, I wonder if Robert Frost's poem about fences makes me curious if he might have been influenced to write it from reading Dickinson's poetry.

I'm sorry for the Dead-- Today--
It's such congenial times
Old neighbors have at fences--
It's time o' year for Hay,

And Broad-- Sunburned Acquiantance
Discourse between the Toil--
And laugh, a homely species
That makes the Fences smile--

It seems so straight to lie away
From all the noise of Fields--
The Busy Carts-- the fragrant Cocks--
The Mower's metre--Steals

A Trouble lest they're homesick--
Those Farmers-- and their Wives--
Set spearate from the Farming--
And all the Neighbor's lives--

A Wonder if the Sepulchre
Dont feel a lonesome way--
When Men-- and Boys-- and Cars-- and June,
Go down the Fields to "Hay"--
(F 582)