Subscribe: by Email | in Reader

Further in Summer than the Birds -- Emily Dickinson

Guest poem submitted by Mac Robb:
(Poem #1761) Further in Summer than the Birds
 Further in Summer than the Birds
 Pathetic from the Grass
 A minor Nation celebrates
 Its unobtrusive Mass.

 No Ordinance be seen
 So gradual the Grace
 A pensive Custom it becomes
 Enlarging Loneliness.

 Antiquest felt at Noon
 When August burning low
 Arise this spectral Canticle
 Repose to typify

 Remit as yet no Grace
 No Furrow on the Glow
 Yet a Druidic Difference
 Enhances Nature now
-- Emily Dickinson
It is a compliment to the Wondering Minstrels when a standard of the canon
has not yet appeared, but so it is and I here remedy the default, provoked
by the recent other Dickinson offerings.

It is easy to patronise "Emily," as her academic critics invariably rather
astonishingly call her - not "Dickinson"; not even "Miss Dickinson" or
"Emily Dickinson" - does one ever hear of "Twain" or "Whitman"? Nope: they
are always "Mark Twain" and "Walt Whitman"; fair enough, but why is Emily
Dickinson always "Emily"? Well, she had a rather sheltered sequestered small
town Old Maid Yankee existence. And her poems are all in 86 86 Common Metre,
like the 19th century hymns that would have been familiar to her at Sunday
Congregational church meetings. One wonders just how wide her reading could
have been, not to speak of her acquaintance: she might, after all, be simply
an astonishingly sensitive and acute original. Certainly her real life
experience was extremely straitened; she took her reclusiveness very
seriously - her poetry was mostly found after her death sewn up in
"fascicles," as she called them; in 20th century terms she would doubtless
be regarded as a pathological case and have been locked up like Robert
Lowell; and in, say, 4th century terms she would undoubtedly be in the canon
of saints.

But in her poetry - it is most certainly not mere "verse" - she pushes CM to
its outermost limits: she makes me think of William Cowper and John Newton
with their very fine CM hymns a hundred years earlier ("God moves in a
mysterious way/his wonders to perform"; "Glorious things of thee are
spoken/Zion, city of our God"; "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound/that
saved a wretch like me"), and Wordsworth's reverie on the disciplining
confines of the sonnet form in "Nuns fret not at their convent's narrow
room."

The thing that's so amazing about her poetry is, continuingly, "How did she
know?! How COULD she know?!" A queer old maid Yankee just couldn't have
known about Catholic liturgical and exegetical niceties but yet,
astonishingly, she did. (T.S. Eliot and Gerard Manley Hopkins, with
backgrounds not wholly dissimilar to hers, went whole hog into small- and
large-C catholicism, respectively, but Emily Dickinson seems to have grasped
everything they did and found that route unnecessary.)

And so the hum of grasshoppers on a hot, dry August afternoon is the
celebration both of insubstantial quiddity and a sacramental rite. The
"Grace" that is imparted to faithful (well, say, to Boston Irish Catholics
in Emily Dickinson's world) in the Mass, some time after the "gradual" (ie
not just slowly-slowly, but also the scriptural tract recited or sung
between the epistle and the gospel) - in the case of the August insect
liturgies isolates and excludes rather than gathering and including. But HOW
did she know all this? An "antiquest"? It's perhaps an antiphon - the
responsory chanted by a monastic choir, but it's also a vain endeavour to
find involvement in nature and obviate loneliness and isolation. A
"canticle"? It's the liturgical term for the biblical hymns chanted in the
monastic office - magnificat, nunc dimitis, benedictus, benedicite and so
on; but again, how did she know? And they typify repose: they represent
rest; but "typology" is the hermeneutical term for supposed Old Testament
anticipations of New Testament fulfilments, such as the rod carried aloft
before the Israelites in the wilderness and the cross of Jesus. And yet
again, how DID she know? But clearly she did, for her closing reference to a
"Druidic difference" means, certainly, that she has considered all these
liturgical resonances before rejecting them as the appropriate metaphor;
nature is certainly sacramental, but the appropriate sacerdotalism is pagan.
And exclusionary.

"Further in summer than the birds," it seems to me, is a companion to, an
amplification of, that splendid other nature poem of hers, "A narrow fellow
in the grass," and its arresting concluding image of feeling "zero at the
bone" comes to mind here - as Wordsworth (to return to the opening of this
little discussion) with his sentimentality about nature most certainly does
not.

Mac Robb.
Brisbane, Australia.

39 comments: ( or Leave a comment )

Ideas de negocios said...

Thanks for taking the time to discuss this, but I am firmly convinced of this and love to learn more about the subject. If possible, acquire knowledge, would you update your blog with more information? It is very helpful to me

Anonymous said...

Keep on writing, great job!

Feel free to visit my website; enchant him now reviews

Unknown said...

JSolusi yang tepat untuk mengobati penyakit wasir tanpa harus operasi, menggunakan obat wasir  Paling ampuh dari De Nature dan terbaik ada hanya di http://obatwasirme.blogspot.com untuk mendapatkan informasi yang lebih jelas mengenai pengobatan wasir silahkan kontak langsung di nomer 0852 808 77 999 atau 0859 7373 5656 Bagaimana mengobati Ambeien itu sendiri. pengobatan yang terbaik untuk Ambeien adalah dari luar dan dalam sehingga Ambeien benar benar tuntas dan tidak akan kambuh lagi. obat Ambeien terbaik "Ambeclear dari De Nature" Adalah obat Ambeien herbal yang memang terbaik untuk mengobati Ambeien, dan sudah terdaftar di badan obat dan makanan (BPOM) dengan nomer registrasi POM TR: 133 374 041. terbuat dari bahan alami antara lain terdiri Daung Ungu, Mahkota Dewa dan Kunyit Putih.

Anonymous said...

Penyakit ini umumnya muncul karena penderita mengejan terlalu keras pada saat buang air besar. Dengan mengejan terlalu keras, maka pembuluh darah di sekitar anus dapat melebar dan pecah menimbulkan infeksi dan pembengkakan yang berakhir pada masalah wasir atau ambeien tersebut.

Unknown said...

Kutil pada alat kelamin luar bisa diangkat melalui laser, krioterapi (pembekuan) atau pembedahan dengan bius lokal. Pengobatan kimiawi, seperti podofilum resin atau racun yang dimurnikan atau asam trikloroasetat, bisa dioleskan langsung pada kutil. Tetapi pengobatan ini memerlukan waktu beberapa minggu sampai beberapa bulan, bisa melukai kulit di sekelilingnya dan sering gatal.

Geral said...

Thanks for information...
VIMAX

blogku said...

Pengobatan Alami Kutil Kelamin Kutil kelamin atau jengger ayam adalah pertumbuhan kulit yang tidak wajar berbentuk kecil dan keras yang disebabkan oleh infeksi virus di lapisan atas kulit atau di selaput lendir Baca Selengkapnya
Obat Ambeien Herbal Penyebab penyakit ambeien adalah akan mengalami susah buang air besar. Susah bab ini bisa terjadi karena kurang memakan makanan yang berserat. Jenis penyebab inilah yang bisa memicu terjadinya penyakit ini datang dan muncul Baca Selengkapnya
Obat Wasir Tanpa Operasi Jika pada penyakit wasir, pendarahan yang terjadi masih secara terus menerus dan tidak berhentu maka biasanya akan diberikan jenis obat-obatan. Namun jika obat-obatan sudah diberikan namun tidak mengurangi gejalanya maka cara yang dilakukan a dalah dengan melakukan tindakan pembedahan. Baca Selengkapnya
Keluar Nanah dari Kemaluan Wanita Penyakit ini berbeda dengan penyakit sipilis. Sipilis terjadi tidak disertai dengan gejala keluarnya nanah dari saluran kencing laki-laki atau vagina perempuan. Baca Selengkapnya
Obat Sipilis Ampuh Penularan sifilis biasanya melalui kontak seksual, tetapi ada beberapa contoh lain seperti penularan melalui ibu ke anak dalam uterus. Ketika Treponema Pallidum menginfeksi maka bakteri akan sampai ke kelenjar getah bening terdekat, lalu menyebar keseluruh tubuh melalui aliran darah Baca Selengkapnya
Mengobati Kemaluan Bernanah _ Bahaya gonore atau kemaluan bernanah pada pria dan wanita bila tidak diobati segera: Pasien gonore atau kemaluan bernanah memiliki disuria ringan, uretra terasa terbakar ketika berkemih atau hanya kesemutan ringan, sering terlihat terminal hematuria. Kemaluan Bernanah
Artikel Obat Kanker Serviks Stadium Lanjut _ Setelah pengobatan kanker serviks, sangat penting untuk menerima pemeriksaan lanjutan, terutama pada vagina dan leher rahim diperlukan jika kanker belum diangkat. Obat Kanker Serviks Stadium Lanjut
Beli Obat Kanker Usus Besar _ Kanker usus besar (kolon) adalah kanker bagian terbawah dari sistem pencernaan. Kanker usus besar (kolon) dapat terjadi ketika sel-sel sehat dalam usus besar berubah menjadi abnormal. Obat Kanker Usus Besar

Post a Comment