In my post about a week ago (HERE), I shared Dickinson’s poem “An altered look about the hills,” a poem which editor Mable Loomis Todd gave the titled “APRIL.” In that post, I reported that I came across the poem when “I was searching for poems by Dickinson with the word ‘twilight.’” I added, “I'll explain why in a future post.”
Ta-da! This is that future post!
So why was I searching poems with the word “twilight”?
Earlier this year, I wrote an article with the rather lengthy title “The Poetry of Thomas Bailey Aldrich, His Secret Tribute to Emily Dickinson, and The Case of The Missing Line from His Sonnet ‘At Stratford-Upon-Avon.”
Thomas Bailey Aldrich was once an editor at “The Atlantic,” and in the late 1890s, just after the first posthumous edition of Dickinson’s Poems hit the bookstores, he wrote scathing reviews. He called her works “poetic chaos”; he proclaimed, “An eccentric, dreamy, half-educated recluse in an out-of-the-way New England village (or anywhere else) cannot with impunity set at defiance the laws of gravitation and grammar”; he concluded one review with this pontifical prediction: “Miss Dickinson’s versicles have a queerness and a quaintness that have stirred a momentary curiosity in emotional bosoms. Oblivion lingers in the immediate neighborhood.”
You read that right. Aldrich foresaw oblivion for the Belle of Amherst.
However, while I was exploring Aldrich’s own poetry, I discovered a work by him which I am certain is a secret tribute to Dickinson, a poem called “Broken Music.” Of that work, I said this:
“Thomas Bailey Aldrich, who had faulted Dickinson so harshly for her broken poetry, wrote this deferential ballad about Dickinson. I’m convinced. Oh, he tried to throw off the scent with the title and with one small detail in line 7, ‘the London skies,’ but every other aspect of this poem speaks of Dickinson.”
I thought back to that bit of my article recently, about the red herring planted in line 7, and I figured I’d do a bit more sleuthing. For one thing, I wondered if Dickinson ever use the word “London” in any of her poems, and if so – was it something about the city’s skies? I rushed to the online archive and ran a quick search. At first, my heart skipped a beat. Forty-two entries popped up representing twenty-one different poems. Maybe I was on to something.
Alas, no – “London” was never used in any Dickinson’s poems. The forty-two uses of “London” in my search appeared in notes about various publications of Dickinson’s poetry. One example is below (click the images to enlarge).
Ta-da! This is that future post!
So why was I searching poems with the word “twilight”?
Earlier this year, I wrote an article with the rather lengthy title “The Poetry of Thomas Bailey Aldrich, His Secret Tribute to Emily Dickinson, and The Case of The Missing Line from His Sonnet ‘At Stratford-Upon-Avon.”
Thomas Bailey Aldrich was once an editor at “The Atlantic,” and in the late 1890s, just after the first posthumous edition of Dickinson’s Poems hit the bookstores, he wrote scathing reviews. He called her works “poetic chaos”; he proclaimed, “An eccentric, dreamy, half-educated recluse in an out-of-the-way New England village (or anywhere else) cannot with impunity set at defiance the laws of gravitation and grammar”; he concluded one review with this pontifical prediction: “Miss Dickinson’s versicles have a queerness and a quaintness that have stirred a momentary curiosity in emotional bosoms. Oblivion lingers in the immediate neighborhood.”
You read that right. Aldrich foresaw oblivion for the Belle of Amherst.
However, while I was exploring Aldrich’s own poetry, I discovered a work by him which I am certain is a secret tribute to Dickinson, a poem called “Broken Music.” Of that work, I said this:
“Thomas Bailey Aldrich, who had faulted Dickinson so harshly for her broken poetry, wrote this deferential ballad about Dickinson. I’m convinced. Oh, he tried to throw off the scent with the title and with one small detail in line 7, ‘the London skies,’ but every other aspect of this poem speaks of Dickinson.”
I thought back to that bit of my article recently, about the red herring planted in line 7, and I figured I’d do a bit more sleuthing. For one thing, I wondered if Dickinson ever use the word “London” in any of her poems, and if so – was it something about the city’s skies? I rushed to the online archive and ran a quick search. At first, my heart skipped a beat. Forty-two entries popped up representing twenty-one different poems. Maybe I was on to something.
Alas, no – “London” was never used in any Dickinson’s poems. The forty-two uses of “London” in my search appeared in notes about various publications of Dickinson’s poetry. One example is below (click the images to enlarge).
 |  |
My next step was to go back to Aldrich’s poem to take another look at the “London skies.” The words appear in the second stanza:
I picture her with sorrowful vague eyes,
Illumed with such strange gleams of inner light
As linger in the drift of London skies
Ere twilight turns to night.
That’s when I had my aha moment with a 100-watt lightbulb radiating above my head.
All along my brain had told me that Aldrich had set his poem in London, and that he did so purposely to throw readers off the scent of Dickinson. However, he never really gives the poem a specific location. No – so the “she” in the poem, the one “Illumed with such strange gleams of inner light,” could be anywhere, say, London or Lisbon or Amsterdam – or Amherst.
Below: The Belle of Amherst in the London twilight.
I picture her with sorrowful vague eyes,
Illumed with such strange gleams of inner light
As linger in the drift of London skies
Ere twilight turns to night.
That’s when I had my aha moment with a 100-watt lightbulb radiating above my head.
All along my brain had told me that Aldrich had set his poem in London, and that he did so purposely to throw readers off the scent of Dickinson. However, he never really gives the poem a specific location. No – so the “she” in the poem, the one “Illumed with such strange gleams of inner light,” could be anywhere, say, London or Lisbon or Amsterdam – or Amherst.
Below: The Belle of Amherst in the London twilight.
“London” only appears in line 7 as part of a simile to symbolize the “strange gleams of inner light,” but I made the erroneous assumption that the setting of the poem was London. That Aldrich was one sly dude! Now I’m even more convinced the work is a tribute to Dickinson from a man too stubborn to acknowledge and admit her genius.
Before I close, though, let me share one of Dickinson’s “twilight” poems I encountered when I was “sleuthing” for what “evidence” I might find concerning Aldrich’s use of “London skies,” and that poem is “The Crickets sang,” about the onset of night:
Before I close, though, let me share one of Dickinson’s “twilight” poems I encountered when I was “sleuthing” for what “evidence” I might find concerning Aldrich’s use of “London skies,” and that poem is “The Crickets sang,” about the onset of night:
 | There is so much I love about this poem, but that simile in the second stanza where Twilight stands “as Stranger do / With Hat in Hand, polite and new / To stay as if, of go” – **Chef’s Kiss** The final stanza too – illumed with such strange gleams as twilight turns to night – just brilliant, Emily. Just brilliant. BONUS: Click the pic below (or HERE) to listen to the Platters sing "Twilight Time," written by songwriter Buck Ram (lyrics) along with Morty Nevins, Al Nevins, and Artie Dunn of The Three Suns (music) -- and tell me -- don't you just love that name, "Buck Ram"? |
| Heavenly shades of night are falling It's twilight time Out of the mist, your voice is calling 'Tis twilight time When purple-colored curtains Mark the end of the day I'll hear you, my dear, at twilight time |  |
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