A couple of days ago I shared two Dickinson poems for which I composed original music, and I compared the cadences I used at the end of each song, specifically the chord progressions that either gave a sense of finality or not. For the number with the more uncertain ending, “After great pain, a formal feeling comes,” I wrote this:
“For this song, I attempted to end with what is known as an ‘imperfect cadence,’ a series of chords to suggest a sense of incompletion. Is there more to come? Afterall, the poem does not end with a death – or does it?”
(Just FYI: The concluding stanza in that poem reads, “This is the Hour of Lead / Remembered, if outlived, / As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow / First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go” – followed by a cryptic em dash.)
Dickinson wrote this in 1862, and then later in the year, she wrote another, “It ceased to hurt me, though so slow,” which seems to answer the question, “What next?” The first establishes that “This is the Hour of Lead,” and the latter poem confirms that solace finally came – “though so slow.”
“For this song, I attempted to end with what is known as an ‘imperfect cadence,’ a series of chords to suggest a sense of incompletion. Is there more to come? Afterall, the poem does not end with a death – or does it?”
(Just FYI: The concluding stanza in that poem reads, “This is the Hour of Lead / Remembered, if outlived, / As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow / First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go” – followed by a cryptic em dash.)
Dickinson wrote this in 1862, and then later in the year, she wrote another, “It ceased to hurt me, though so slow,” which seems to answer the question, “What next?” The first establishes that “This is the Hour of Lead,” and the latter poem confirms that solace finally came – “though so slow.”
| The image in the newer poem of her experience as a frock worn every day is ingenious, as is that fourth stanza, where she divulged how the grief “nestled close / as Needles” in a pin cushion. I love that sartorial connection to the ladies’ needles and her frock in that opening of the second stanza, “Nor when it altered.” I always found the structure of this poem to be a bit odd, though, in that there are three perfectly iambic quatrains followed by a final stanza of three lines that shift the pattern at the end. Actually, on closer inspection, the structure of the poem has one other quirk – in the third stanza. |  |
The first two stanzas include four lines of eight syllables each, but the third stanza has two lines of eight syllables followed by two lines of four syllables each – or the equivalent of three lines of eight syllables (as if the stanza is missing a line).
The final stanza then opens with the established pattern, two lines of eight syllables each, but shifts to a jolting line of six syllables – with an anapestic foot to end the poem suddenly, followed by yet another puzzling dash. Will this peace persist?
This play with the rhythm has always struck me as a bit unusual because so many of Dickinson’s poems are balanced and proportional.
Interestingly, Franklin’s Variorum edition includes this note:
“PUBLICATION: “Atlantic Monthly”, 143 (February 1929), 186, and FP (“Further Poems”) (1929), 189, with stanza 3 omitted and the rest as three stanzas of 6, 4, and 4 lines; in later collections, as three quatrains. The entire poem, arranged as three quatrins and a final couplet, was published in Bingham, New England Quarterly, 20 (March 1947), 36, from a transcript of A (Amherst College).”
I’ll explore today and see if I can find any of those adaptations.
Stay tuned.
The final stanza then opens with the established pattern, two lines of eight syllables each, but shifts to a jolting line of six syllables – with an anapestic foot to end the poem suddenly, followed by yet another puzzling dash. Will this peace persist?
This play with the rhythm has always struck me as a bit unusual because so many of Dickinson’s poems are balanced and proportional.
Interestingly, Franklin’s Variorum edition includes this note:
“PUBLICATION: “Atlantic Monthly”, 143 (February 1929), 186, and FP (“Further Poems”) (1929), 189, with stanza 3 omitted and the rest as three stanzas of 6, 4, and 4 lines; in later collections, as three quatrains. The entire poem, arranged as three quatrins and a final couplet, was published in Bingham, New England Quarterly, 20 (March 1947), 36, from a transcript of A (Amherst College).”
I’ll explore today and see if I can find any of those adaptations.
Stay tuned.
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