Dan’s Reviews > Emily Dickinson’s Poems: As She Preserved Them > Status Update

No Rose, yet felt myself a'bloom,

This comes at the end of one of the Master letters in which she asks the mysterious Master to come visit her in Amherst ("[this summer - could]"). She very much wants to spend time with Master, so perhaps this poem is saying that even without her having a token of love, "Rose", she still feels herself 'a'bloom', and she soars "in Ether" though she is not a bird.

A letter is a joy of Earth

I love what she's saying about us mortals being surprised with "joy" by a letter with news from somewhere and someone we've been awaiting news from. The "Gods" are omnipotent so they don't need to send a "Letter," but our mortal ignorance "is a joy" because a "Letter" says someone has thought of us and when we learn this it makes us happy.

Her sweet Weight on my Heart a Night

I love the idea that even dreams have their own reality in that, as Emily believes, they are sent by God which makes them real, in a way. So perhaps that experience we all have when a dream feels so real that we expect it to still be there when we wake up is an experience worth putting more faith in?

All the letters I can write

Emily was an avid letter writer and this poem was part of a letter to her cousin Eudocia Flynt which included a rose, both an actual rose and this poem describing a rose. I think it's a stretch to attach an overt sexual connotation to this poem (I mean you can, but that simplifies the poem too much). Rather, she is also describing how the parts of language can be used to multiple effects.

Why make it doubt - it hurts it so

This is a heartbreaking poem, made harder in now knowing who "Master" is and what she has done to "Offend the Vision". But perhaps it is the work "Vision" which is a clue since she often writes about the world revealed to her through imagination, so perhaps she upset with herself for not paying attention to her imagination and thus she lost a "Vision" which she can't now recover?

He showed me Heights I never saw

After being shown the highest point revealing the secrets of the world, she still hesitates to agree to put her faith in "He". Perhaps having to be shown something rather than discovering it herself is what she is taking issue with, or perhaps her imagination is so rich she doesn't trust it to reveal the real truth? Either way, her "face withdrew" and could she "further "No"' (know).

The Mountains - grow unnoticed

Emily could be writing about herself as a poet who every day will "grow unnoticed" and she writes only because she must, not for fame or "applause". Yet she also describes "fellowship" in contrast to the lonely work of building a mountain but who is it she desires "fellowship" with? Is she suggesting that the light of the sun (inspiration) spends each night with her in dreams?

The Sunrise runs for Both

Stunning beautiful poem, especially because she is able to capture the expanse between horizons as if she holds her arms up and outstretched to the glory of the heavens in celebration of all this beauty. And there is an intimacy here in that we share this moment of a day alone, there is no body to bother us, only us and the rotation of the earth through the sky.

Pain - has an Element of Blank

Whereas "Pain" is all consuming of itself, it's interesting how she describes it has having an "Element of Blank", as if there are other elements which make up "Pain". And what is this "Blank" - usually it's an absence which is unusual in that "Pain" is made up of a lack of something, a lack of some "Element" which is "Infinite".

A little Road - not made of Man

I love her use of the word "Thill" because it's so close to 'thrill' as in the 'thrill "of Bee"'. She creates a sense of excitement and fantasy in this first stanza which she then contrasts to her disappointment (perhaps?) that "no Curricle" bears her in that "Town" (or if that "Town" even exists).