Come What May

The month is almost over, and I’ve not discussed any of Dickinson’s poems which mention the month of May!

Imma be honest, though – when you search the online Dickinson archive for “May,” 330 entries pop up – and that represents about 100 poems.  However, in most cases, Dickinson didn’t use the word “May” to mean the month.  In most instances she used “may” as a verb, as in “Mother, may I.”

From what I could tell, after sifting through all of this, “May” the month was used in ten different poems. 

At first look, one poem, “There are two Mays,” called to mind poems like “Summer has two beginnings,” “There are two ripenings,” and “There is a June when Corn is cut“ with it’s stanza “Two Seasons, it is said, exist – / The Summer of the Just, And this of Our's, diversified / With Prospect, and with Frost.”

However, “There are two Mays” is not about the month of May at all:

There are two Mays
And then a Must
And after that a Shall.
How infinite the compromise
That indicates I will!

But wait!  Check out the poem “Besides this May”:

Besides this May
We know
There is Another --
How fair
Our Speculations of the Foreigner!

Some know Him whom We knew --
Sweet Wonder --
A Nature be
Where Saints, and our plain going Neighbor
Keep May!

Oh, so there are two Mays – the one we know, and the other experienced by those “We knew” as eternal springtime.

Another poem that mentions the month of May, “Pink – small – and punctual,” was given the title “May-Flower” by Mabel Loomis Todd when it was first published in 1890:
​
Pink – small – and punctual – 
Aromatic – low – 
Covert – in April – 
Candid – in May – 
Dear to the Moss – 
Known to the Knoll – 
Next to the Robin
In every human Soul – 
Bold little Beauty
Bedecked with thee
Nature forswears
Antiquity – 

Tomorrow, one other poem which mentions the month of May.