In yesterday's post, I shared two of Dickinson’s poems which use the word “nature,” “The Color of a Queen, is this,” (one of a handful of poems where Dickinson actually provided a title, “Purple”) and “Were natural mortal lady.”
One of my favorite poems by Dickinson which includes the word “nature” is “The last Night that she lived” – maybe because I composed a rather bluesy number based on this poem, and I gotta say, I rather like my own song. However, the poem is not so much about nature as it is a doleful account of one woman’s passing as family and friends go “out and in / Between Her final Room / And Rooms where Those to be alive / Tomorrow were”; and it is certainly a sly commentary of faithful expectation shrouded in a mantel of doubt as those mourning – preoccupied with a “great light upon our Minds” (to the point of “jealousy”) – adjusted the dead woman’s hair and were then met with “an awful leisure,” with “Belief to regulate.” Belief in having to accept the fact that she has died? Or something much more than that?
One of my favorite poems by Dickinson which includes the word “nature” is “The last Night that she lived” – maybe because I composed a rather bluesy number based on this poem, and I gotta say, I rather like my own song. However, the poem is not so much about nature as it is a doleful account of one woman’s passing as family and friends go “out and in / Between Her final Room / And Rooms where Those to be alive / Tomorrow were”; and it is certainly a sly commentary of faithful expectation shrouded in a mantel of doubt as those mourning – preoccupied with a “great light upon our Minds” (to the point of “jealousy”) – adjusted the dead woman’s hair and were then met with “an awful leisure,” with “Belief to regulate.” Belief in having to accept the fact that she has died? Or something much more than that?
I saw this poem described on one site as “a fairly simple poem,” but I think it is much more than that beneath the surface. This poem’s grief-stricken scenario invites intense soul-searching centered on one’s beliefs, and for me, it calls to mind “I heard a Fly buzz – when I died,” when mourners gather “firm” at the deathbed of another, waiting “For that last Onset - when the King / Be witnessed - in the Room” – and all that appears is a fly.
 | I love that image in the 18th line, “It was a narrow time.” TBH, I’m always awe-struck by Dickinson’s representation of time. One of my favorites is “This is the hour of lead” from “After great pain, a formal feeling comes.” Another brilliant – and paradoxical – take is found in “Consulting summer’s clock”: “The second half of joy / Is shorter than the first.” Finally, the image in the penultimate stanza of “The last Night that She lived” is particularly poingnent: “Then lightly as a Reed / Bent to the Water, struggled scarce – / Consented, and was dead –” How utterly graceful – yet grim. What strikes you about this poem? |
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