Besides the Autumn poets sing
A few prosaic days
A little this side of the snow
And that side of the Haze –
A few incisive mornings –
A few Ascetic eves –
Gone – Mr. Bryant's "Golden Rod" –
And Mr. Thomson's "sheaves."
Still, is the bustle in the Brook –
Sealed are the spicy valves –
Mesmeric fingers softly touch
The eyes of many Elves –
Perhaps a squirrel may remain –
My sentiments to share –
Grant me, Oh Lord, a sunny mind –
Thy windy will to bear!
The mood of this poem depicts the changes from fall to winter. Emily Dickinson writes about how there are still a few warm days mixed with a day or two of snow falling. The brook does not trickle and flow as it did when it was warmer and the colors are all fading to grays. She asks God for a "sunny mind" and "thy windy will to bear" to help her make it through a cold, and desolate winter. This poem is about both a figurative and literal view of November.
Domnall Mitchell said in The International Reception of Emily Dickinson; "Oakes’s poems, much like her title, are written in a simple, unpretentious way; you receive what you are promised, and yet you end up with more than you expected." This certainly holds true in Besides the Autumn Poet Sings because of how descriptive she writes. Dickinson even references other poets poems to tie together other perspectives of the season change. This helps the reader to to use more senses to feel as though they are truly watching the change.
Stuart, Maria, and Domhnall Mitchell. The International Reception Of Emily Dickinson. London: Continuum, 2009. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 6 Nov. 2013.
A drop fell on the apple tree
Another on the roof;
A half a dozen kissed the eaves,
And made the gables laugh.
A few went out to help the brook,
That went to help the sea.
Myself conjectured, Were they pearls,
What necklaces could be!
The dust replaced in hoisted roa
The birds jocoser sung;
The sunshine threw his hat away,
The orchards spangles hung.
The breezes brought dejected
And bathed them in the glee;
The East put out a single flag,
And signed the fete away
In Emily Dikinson's Gardens by Marta McDowell, McDowell discusses how "Emily Dickinson records an everyday encounter with nature that reveals insights into both the act of human perception and the power of poetry to transcend the limitations of language to accurately represent the natural world". Emily Dickinson is able to capture how the rain so beautifully falls and mingles with everything it lands on. Something like rain which is usually considered to be dreary and unattractive, Emily is able to make beautiful.
McDowell, Marta. Emily Dickinson's Gardens : A Celebration Of A Poet And Gardener. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2005. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 6 Nov. 2013.
I heard a fly buzz when I died;
The stillness round my form
Was like the stillness in the air
Between the heaves of storm.
The stillness round my form
Was like the stillness in the air
Between the heaves of storm.
The eyes beside had wrung them dry,
And breaths were gathering sure
For that last onset, when the king
Be witnessed in his power.
And breaths were gathering sure
For that last onset, when the king
Be witnessed in his power.
I willed my keepsakes, signed away
What portion of me I
Could make assignable,-and then
There interposed a fly,
What portion of me I
Could make assignable,-and then
There interposed a fly,
With blue, uncertain, stumbling buzz,
Between the light and me;
And then the windows failed, and then
I could not see to see.
Between the light and me;
And then the windows failed, and then
I could not see to see.
Emily also writes about things that are not so beautiful, such as death. While reading this the reader pictures the struggle of the author for their one last gasp of air and how the only sound they can hear is a fly buzzing. Christopher Nesmith discusses this poem in Dickinson's I HEARD A FLY BUZZ WHEN I DIED. "Many of Emily Dickinson’s poems are enigmatic, but perhaps none baffles its readers more than “I Heard a Fly Buzz—When I Died.” Though there are several areas of interpretive contention in the poem, one’s understanding of the whole seems to hinge upon the meaning of the sudden appearance of the fly, with its “Blue—uncertain stumbling Buzz". This poem clearly strikes curiosity into everyone who reads it. Death is something no ordinary person can experience at some time in their life and discuss it with others. Therefore, the very realistic description of a person dying makes us all wonder if that is what it is truly like.
Apparently with no surprise,To any happy flower,
The frost beheads it at its play,
In accidental power.
The blond assassin passes on.
The sun proceeds unmoved,
To measure off another day,
For an approving God
Emily also wrote many poems referring to God. Emily herself seemed to be religious girl and often expressed her thoughts on religion and God throughout many of her poems. This particular poem is described by Patrick J. Kean in Emily Dickinsons Appriving God. "the poem itself seems something
other than meditative. Simultaneously violent and detached, brutal yet coldly understated, its terse narrative recounts, though in the present tense at each stage, the course of a day". It is clear that this poem means more than what is originally read. Emily Dickinson seems to be questioning why God allows for bad things to happen to innocent or good people. This is a common question through out society and Emily describes the thoughts through the imagery of a flower.
No comments:
Post a Comment