This week I’ve been posting two poems per day: one in which Dickinson mentioned the month of March, and then a second poem with which to draw some comparison or contrast.
Yesterday I chose two poems for some of the obscure vocabulary used in the poems. One of today’s poems, “Bees are black with gilt surcingles,” also uses a pretty obscure word – “surcingle” – but that is a word that would have been used often in the mid-1800s. A surcingle is a strap that runs over the back and under the belly of a horse, used to keep a blanket or other equipment in place – and since horseback or actual horse power was the most common mode of transportation in Dickinson’s day, I suspect everyone would have understood her use of the word.
Anyway, the two poems today are “Bees are black with gilt surcingles” and “Some rainbow coming from the fair” – which, when it was first published in 1890, the publishers gave the poem the title, “Summer’s Armies.”
Yesterday I chose two poems for some of the obscure vocabulary used in the poems. One of today’s poems, “Bees are black with gilt surcingles,” also uses a pretty obscure word – “surcingle” – but that is a word that would have been used often in the mid-1800s. A surcingle is a strap that runs over the back and under the belly of a horse, used to keep a blanket or other equipment in place – and since horseback or actual horse power was the most common mode of transportation in Dickinson’s day, I suspect everyone would have understood her use of the word.
Anyway, the two poems today are “Bees are black with gilt surcingles” and “Some rainbow coming from the fair” – which, when it was first published in 1890, the publishers gave the poem the title, “Summer’s Armies.”
 |  “Some rainbow coming from the fair!” is one of the 19 poems by Dickinson that uses the word March; however, in this poem, she doesn’t mention the month of March. Instead, she uses the term as a verb – in line 11 of the poem the bees “march.” I suppose it’s interesting that they don’t fly, flit, float or flutter, but in this poem they march – and not only do they march, but they do it “one by one / In murmuring platoon. |
To top it off, she describes the bees as “Baronial,” and it is this high-ranking and regal description that then reminded me of her characterization of bees in the second poem, “Bees are black with gilt surcingles.” In that poem, she dubs the bees as “Buccaneers of Buzz.”
How great is that?
And to be honest – that description of bees (in this case, bumble bees) as “black with gilt surcingles” is just perfect!
How great is that?
And to be honest – that description of bees (in this case, bumble bees) as “black with gilt surcingles” is just perfect!
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