Parting
Emily Dickinson
Listen
My life closed twice before its close;
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me
So huge, so hopeless to conceive,
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.
Just realised (to my horror) that we've got through some 50 + posts on this blog without including a single Dickinson. This will not do.
Parting (also called 'My life closed twice before its close') is quintessential Dickinson - the short, swift lines a miracle of perfection, that unforgettable sentence that the poem closes with. Dickinson's poems are like diamonds - melted to translucent hardness by an eternity of fire her voice has a beauty that is at once exact and timeless - one feels the urge to hold her lines in one's hand and watch the light reflect off them in a million planes.
Listen
My life closed twice before its close;
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me
So huge, so hopeless to conceive,
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.
Just realised (to my horror) that we've got through some 50 + posts on this blog without including a single Dickinson. This will not do.
Parting (also called 'My life closed twice before its close') is quintessential Dickinson - the short, swift lines a miracle of perfection, that unforgettable sentence that the poem closes with. Dickinson's poems are like diamonds - melted to translucent hardness by an eternity of fire her voice has a beauty that is at once exact and timeless - one feels the urge to hold her lines in one's hand and watch the light reflect off them in a million planes.
posted by Falstaff at 3/22/2006 04:48:00 PM
4 Comments:
Very Nice. Two things.
The last two lines remind me of Frost's Fire and Ice.
Thinking of Frost and Dickinson, in turn, reminds me of "The Dangling Conversation"? (Am not sure if that is a crime?!)
twice before its close= here dickenson implies
Her fathers death
And her marriage
BM: :-). Hmmm...hadn't thought of that connection before. The poem of hers I always associate with Fire and Ice is the 'It was not death for I stood up" one.
Ah well. "Can analysis be worthwhile?" Being reminded of S&G first thing in the morning feels so good it's definitely at least somewhat criminal.
nice voice falstaff
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