The Soul’s Superior instants
Occur to Her — alone –
When friend — and Earth’s occasion
Have infinite withdrawn –

Or She — Herself — ascended
To too remote a Height
For lower Recognition
Than Her Omnipotent –

This Mortal Abolition
Is seldom — but as fair
As Apparition — subject
To Autocratic Air –

Eternity’s disclosure
To favorites — a few –
Of the Colossal substance
Of Immortality

Unto like Story — Trouble has enticed me –
How Kinsmen fell –
Brothers and Sister — who preferred the Glory –
And their young will
Bent to the Scaffold, or in Dungeons — chanted –
Till God’s full time –
When they let go the ignominy — smiling –
And Shame went still –

Unto guessed Crests, my moaning fancy, leads me,
Worn fair
By Heads rejected — in the lower country –
Of honors there –
Such spirit makes her perpetual mention,
That I — grown bold –
Step martial — at my Crucifixion –
As Trumpets — rolled –

Feet, small as mine — have marched in Revolution
Firm to the Drum –
Hands — not so stout — hoisted them — in witness –
When Speech went numb –
Let me not shame their sublime deportments –
Drilled bright –
Beckoning — Etruscan invitation –
Toward Light –

He forgot — and I — remembered –
‘Twas an everyday affair –
Long ago as Christ and Peter –
“Warmed them” at the “Temple fire.”

“Thou wert with him” — quoth “the Damsel”?
“No” — said Peter, ’twasn’t me –
Jesus merely “looked” at Peter –
Could I do aught else — to Thee?

She bore it till the simple veins
Traced azure on her hand –
Til pleading, round her quiet eyes
The purple Crayons stand.

Till Daffodils had come and gone
I cannot tell the sum,
And then she ceased to bear it –
And with the Saints sat down.

No more her patient figure
At twilight soft to meet –
No more her timid bonnet
Upon the village street –

But Crowns instead, and Courtiers –
And in the midst so fair,
Whose but her shy — immortal face
Of whom we’re whispering here?

Some Rainbow — coming from the Fair!
Some Vision of the World Cashmere –
I confidently see!
Or else a Peacock’s purple Train
Feather by feather — on the plain
Fritters itself away!

The dreamy Butterflies bestir!
Lethargic pools resume the whir
Of last year’s sundered tune!
From some old Fortress on the sun
Baronial Bees — march — one by one –
In murmuring platoon!

The Robins stand as thick today
As flakes of snow stood yesterday –
On fence — and Roof — and Twig!
The Orchis binds her feather on
For her old lover – Don the Sun!
Revisiting the Bog!

Without Commander! Countless! Still!
The Regiments of Wood and Hill
In bright detachment stand!
Behold! Whose Multitudes are these?
The children of whose turbaned seas –
Or what Circassian Land?

I never told the buried gold
Upon the hill — that lies –
I saw the sun — his plunder done
Crouch low to guard his prize.

He stood as near
As stood you here –
A pace had been between –
Did but a snake bisect the brake
My life had forfeit been.

That was a wondrous booty –
I hope ’twas honest gained.
Those were the fairest ingots
That ever kissed the spade!

Whether to keep the secret –
Whether to reveal –
Whether as I ponder
Kidd will sudden sail –

Could a shrewd advise me
We might e’en divide –
Should a shrewd betray me –
Atropos decide!

There is another sky,
Ever serene and fair,
And there is another sunshine,
Though it be darkness there;
Never mind faded forests, Austin,
Never mind silent fields -
Here is a little forest,
Whose leaf is ever green;
Here is a brighter garden,
Where not a frost has been;
In its unfading flowers
I hear the bright bee hum:
Prithee, my brother,
Into my garden come!

Awake ye muses nine, sing me a strain divine,
Unwind the solemn twine, and tie my Valentine!

Oh the Earth was made for lovers, for damsel, and hopeless swain,
For sighing, and gentle whispering, and unity made of twain.
All things do go a courting, in earth, or sea, or air,
God hath made nothing single but thee in His world so fair!
The bride, and then the bridegroom, the two, and then the one,
Adam, and Eve, his consort, the moon, and then the sun;
The life doth prove the precept, who obey shall happy be,
Who will not serve the sovereign, be hanged on fatal tree.
The high do seek the lowly, the great do seek the small,
None cannot find who seeketh, on this terrestrial ball;
The bee doth court the flower, the flower his suit receives,
And they make merry wedding, whose guests are hundred leaves;
The wind doth woo the branches, the branches they are won,
And the father fond demandeth the maiden for his son.
The storm doth walk the seashore humming a mournful tune,
The wave with eye so pensive, looketh to see the moon,
Their spirits meet together, they make their solemn vows,
No more he singeth mournful, her sadness she doth lose.
The worm doth woo the mortal, death claims a living bride,
Night unto day is married, morn unto eventide;
Earth is a merry damsel, and heaven a knight so true,
And Earth is quite coquettish, and beseemeth in vain to sue.
Now to the application, to the reading of the roll,
To bringing thee to justice, and marshalling thy soul:
Thou art a human solo, a being cold, and lone,
Wilt have no kind companion, thou reap’st what thou hast sown.
Hast never silent hours, and minutes all too long,
And a deal of sad reflection, and wailing instead of song?
There’s Sarah, and Eliza, and Emeline so fair,
And Harriet, and Susan, and she with curling hair!
Thine eyes are sadly blinded, but yet thou mayest see
Six true, and comely maidens sitting upon the tree;
Approach that tree with caution, then up it boldly climb,
And seize the one thou lovest, nor care for space, or time!
Then bear her to the greenwood, and build for her a bower,
And give her what she asketh, jewel, or bird, or flower –
And bring the fife, and trumpet, and beat upon the drum –
And bid the world Goodmorrow, and go to glory home!

At the intersection of family history and literary scholarship, Carol Damon Andrews has found what may be the secret source of much of Emily Dickinson’s most interesting and passionate poetry: a doomed love affair with George Gould.

Gould was a student at Amherst College at the time, and a friend of Dickinson’s brother Austin. He worked on the Dickinson farm before going west to work on the railroads, and returned to Amherst to follow a career as a respected clergyman. And, according to the journal of Andews’ ancestor Ann Eliza Houghton Penniman, he was briefly engaged to Emily Dickinson, before her father “vetoed the whole affair, . . . and poor Emily’s heart was broken.”

Andrews is not the first to have proposed the Gould engagement theory; Genevieve Taggard explored the possibility in The Life and Mind of Emily Dickinson in 1930, presenting the “purloined valentine” that Taggard argued was intended for Gould. 1930, though, was a bit too close still to 1886, and Taggard’s search for Dickinson’s doomed love affair was quashed by the Dickinson family and the scholarly world. Dickinson as lovelorn spinster remains the received image of her, rather than Dickinson the passionate young woman.

Published in the June issue of The New England Quarterly, Andrews’ article discloses not only the sketch of this doomed affair but also Dickinson’s early musical education. Both revelations are of interest to Dickinson scholars and readers: that the musicality of her poetry has its roots at an earlier age than previously suspected (she was eight years old in the Penniman journal), and that her aching, longing love poetry is grounded in an all-too-real disappointment, enrich our understanding of her poetry, and add a human dimension to the “Belle of Amherst” prism through which we too often see her life.

That there was a flesh and blood source for Dickinson’s love poems–often bitter, frequently playful, sometimes passionate–should not come as a surprise to those who’ve spent some time reading them. And should come, too, as a relief to those who have shared with Dickinson “the kind of early romantic entanglement and disappointment that so many young people have,” as Christopher Benfey has it in Slate, that she made something so extraordinary from such ordinary sources.

Is bliss, then, such abyss
I must not put my foot amiss
For fear I spoil my shoe?

I’d rather suit my foot
Than save my boot,
For yet to buy another pair
Is possible
At any fair.

But bliss is sold just once;
The patent lost
None buy it any more.