Mechanical Engineering

From Jim Asher, the world's leading authority on Emmett Lee Dickinson (Emily Dickinson's third cousin, twice removed -- at her request):

Recently I attended an Emily Dickinson birthday observance at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC.  At the event, literary critic and poet Sandra Gilbert discussed and recited some of Dickinson’s poetry on death and grief.  Information and pictures are HERE and HERE.
 
Gilbert’s first selection was Dickinson’s “There’s been a Death, in the Opposite House,” and during her recitation, the word “mechanically” jumped out at me.  It reminded me of the use of “mechanical” in “After great pain, a formal feeling comes.”  I commented on the connection HERE.
 
That observation made me wonder -- in how many poems did Dickinson use the word “mechanical” (to include “mechanically” and “mechanic”)? 

What’s your prediction?  

I turned to the Emily Dickinson Archive (HERE) to find out.  The answer is below. 
 

According to the archive, Dickinson used some form of the word “mechanical” – to mean, “acting by the laws of motion, without intelligence or design” – in four poems.  Well, maybe three depending upon how you count one of them.
 
The four poems are “There’s been a Death, in the Opposite House,” “After great pain, a formal feeling comes,” “From Blank to Blank,” and “She laid her docile Crescent down.”

Of course, I already discussed "There's been a Death, in the Opposite House" and "After great pain, a formal feeling comes" in previous posts.

Below on the left  is "From Blank to Blank," and in both the 1955 Johnson edition of Dickinson's poetry and the 1998 Franklin edition, the poem is the same.  However, the Dickinson archive included a version of the poem that showed 
​alternative word choices that Dickinson considered (below on the right). 
​

From Blank to Blank –
A Threadless Way
I pushed Mechanic feet –
To stop – or perish – or advance –
Alike indifferent –

If end I gained  
It ends beyond
Indefinite disclosed –
I shut my eyes – and groped as well
'Twas lighter – to be Blind –
​

From Blank to Blank –
A Threadless Way
I pushed Mechanic feet –
To stop – or perish – or advance –
Alike indifferent –

If end I (reached)
It ends beyond
Indefinite disclosed –
I shut my eyes – and groped as well
'Twas (firmer) – to be Blind –
​

​When it came to "She laid her docile Crescent down," the Johnson edition version of the poem differed from the Franklin edition, and neither included the word "mechanic," "mechanical" or "mechanically."

JOHNSON EDITION:

She laid her docile Crescent down
And this confiding Stone
Still states to Dates that have forgot
The News that she is gone –

So constant to its stolid trust,
The Shaft that never knew –
It shames the Constancy that fled
Before its emblem flew –
​

FRANKLIN EDITION:

She laid her docile Crescent down
And this subjunctive Stone
Still states to Dates that have forgot
The News that she is gone –

So constant to its stolid trust,
The Shaft that never knew –
It shames the Constancy that fled
Before its emblem flew –
​

The Dickinson archive, though, included yet another version of the poem -- with the title "THE MONUMENT" -- and that version included the word "mechanic" (as wall as some alternative punctuation and capitalization).  The "Publication History" in the archive stated, "Poems (1896), 157, as two quatrains, from the draft (A); in Poems (1930), 202, the text of line 2 became composite with the adoption of a variant ("confiding") from Higginson's copy" (if that makes any sense to you).  
​

ARCHIVE VARIANT…entitled “THE MONUMENT”
 
She laid her docile Crescent down
And this mechanic Stone
Still states to Dates that have forgot
The News that she is gone –
 
So constant to it's stolid Trust
The shaft that never knew
It shames the Constancy that fled
Before it's Emblem flew –

So there you have it -- some "mechanical" engineering by Emily Dickinson.  How do you think the word and/or the substitutes effect the meaning of the poems?