I’ve been posting ten of my favorites of Dickinson’s poems about death and grief, and my eighth offering is “Safe in their Alabaster chambers,” an eerie poem about where “the meek members of the Resurrection” sleep – aye, the very sleep contemplated by Shakespeare’s Hamlet, HERE.
This poem has an interesting history as there are two well-known versions – both of which are published in Johnson’s 1955 edition of Dickinson’s “complete poems” – and other extant versions as well. The Franklin edition includes only the “version of 1861” from the Johnson compilation. Miller’s 2016 edition of “complete poems” includes both of the recognized versions with the “version of 1859” in Fascicle Six and the “version of 1861” in Fascicle Ten.
This poem has an interesting history as there are two well-known versions – both of which are published in Johnson’s 1955 edition of Dickinson’s “complete poems” – and other extant versions as well. The Franklin edition includes only the “version of 1861” from the Johnson compilation. Miller’s 2016 edition of “complete poems” includes both of the recognized versions with the “version of 1859” in Fascicle Six and the “version of 1861” in Fascicle Ten.
At some point, Dickinson sent the 1859 version to her sister-in-law, Sue. Sue must have indicated some dissatisfaction with the poem, and Dickinson sent the 1861 version to her with the note, “Perhaps this verse would please you better – Sue –”
Sue returned a lengthier letter that began, “I am not suited dear Emily with the second verse – It is remarkable as the chain lightening (sic) that blinds us hot nights in the Southern Sky but it does not go with the ghostly shimmer of the first verse as well as the other one. It just occurs to me that the first verse is complete in itself it needs no other, and can’t be coupled…”
Dickinson responded with an alternate ending – the one above which concludes “Staples of Ages – have buckled there” – and asked, “is this frostier?”
Information related to all of this isHERE.
Dickinson also included one of the versions of the poem in her first letter to Thomas Wentworth Higginson when she responded to his article “Letter to a Young Contributor” in the April 1862 Atlantic Monthly – the well known letter where she began,, “Mr. Higginson, Are you too deeply occupied, to say if my Verse is alive?”
That complete letter is HERE.
Sue returned a lengthier letter that began, “I am not suited dear Emily with the second verse – It is remarkable as the chain lightening (sic) that blinds us hot nights in the Southern Sky but it does not go with the ghostly shimmer of the first verse as well as the other one. It just occurs to me that the first verse is complete in itself it needs no other, and can’t be coupled…”
Dickinson responded with an alternate ending – the one above which concludes “Staples of Ages – have buckled there” – and asked, “is this frostier?”
Information related to all of this is
Dickinson also included one of the versions of the poem in her first letter to Thomas Wentworth Higginson when she responded to his article “Letter to a Young Contributor” in the April 1862 Atlantic Monthly – the well known letter where she began,, “Mr. Higginson, Are you too deeply occupied, to say if my Verse is alive?”
That complete letter is HERE.
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