Owed to Joy?

Yesterday I shared Dickinson’s poem “Many a phrase has the English language,” in some ways the counter to “To my quick ear the Leaves – conferred,” the poem I’d shared the day before.
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In “Many a phrase,” I love Dickinson’s striking contrast of the modulated volume of the cosmic message through the use of similes from nature, accented with effective personification (“Low as the laughter of the Cricket, / Loud, as the Thunder's Tongue”). Additionally, I love that fourth stanza, when the “bright Orthography” stirs the speaker from her “simple sleep,” and she weeps – not for sorrow, but for the “push of joy.” 

That, and the birds thundering their “Prospective” in line 11, called to mind the force of birds’ voices in “The Birds begun at Four o clock,” resonance which created “A Music numerous as space” – and why? For no reason “But independent Ecstasy.” 

The “joy” and “ecstasy” in these poems are similar to other of Dickinson’s poems I wrote about recently, HERE. 

The birds in these poems  sing “Extrinsic to Attention / Too intimate with Joy.”  Dang,  what a positive and exuberant outlook!  I love it!  
Indulge me a bit, for this positivity, this joyous perspective, calls to mind “When I have seen the Sun emerge,” another poem where the speaker stirs “for the push of joy”:

Back to “Many a phrase has the English language” where the speaker is familiar with all “but one.” It seems that she has received these cosmic messages through Nature’s messengers, and the physiological response has been joy.  Still something is missing. Is this a joyful poem?  

Look at this analysis I found:  “Among Dickinson’s less-anthologized poems, it stands out for the imperative directed to Saxton (sic) and for staging language as a synaptic shock that rewires feeling; joy arrives not as consolation but as violence that demands to be repeated and silenced.” 

Hmm…I think I need to mull that over for a while. Whadaya think?

I’ll share one other odd little detail about this poem tomorrow when I tie up some loose ends for this and some other recent posts.  For now, my brain has shifted a bit to thinking about joy and happiness.  I subbed at a school this week where in separate conversations, I spoke with three people who are struggling with sustaining joy in their lives. Well, the stress they conveyed was definitely job-related, so I can’t say they experience little joy in their lives — it’s just that one’s work encompasses such a significant portion of one’s daily life, that work-related pressure and anxiety can saturate one’s well being.

Interestingly, one of the three was relatively new to the profession, one was a fifteen-year veteran, and one was a well-established leader – and again, these were separate conversations; two of the three seemed hopeful for advice, the third seemed more cathartic. 

Well, I have definitely veered off track from where I began.  Let me take a cleansing breath and refocus.  ; )

I hope the laughter of the cricket or the thunder’s tongue brings you joy today.