Lovely and mysterious, as so much of her work. I wonder if she might be asking if the "frock [she] wept in" is appropriate for the "wonders" that "will arrive"? Winter, the season of death (but also Christmas) is coming, but there are wonders to arrive before then . . . There has been that which was barely grasped or only intuited -- the hem of a garment, what is walking "just a bridge away," the song, the speech "where there's no one here" . . . Are these the wonders that will arrive, knowledge of them? Just wandering and wondering through the lines here. I don't recall this poem from my study of Dickinson way back when; thanks so much for your explication and the context of its timing.
As with your reading, I have read this as exploring a meeting with death coming before winter comes, another of her explorations of what that passage means ("Just a bridge away") -- and that meeting with the figure whose hem is summer (will the frames we grieved in here bear so much joy?). I love the details you explored.
This is a very good, persuasive reading of this oblique poem, and perhaps explains one of the puzzles I have always had with it, the "cheek" reference in line 3. A person might go out in the winter snow, and snow might accumulate upon them, but surely not upon their cheek: on their shoulders, or the top of their head, rather. But now I'm wondering if this isn't an allusion, complexly positioned in terms of night and winter, to Judas's "tarnishing" kiss on the cheek of Jesus: an intimation of coming death.
As to where the skaters go, I'd always read this as: they go to the pools, because they're now iced over and the skaters can skate. That is, both the skaters and the ice are the after, in relation to the before of the poem.
Yes, I also thought that that "tarnishing" was very strange --- the snow not whitening a cheek, or stinging it in to rosiness, but darkening it and spoiling it.
And yes, my first thought was that of course the skaters are going skating on the pools, but the thought's left rather open-ended, which again is strange.
ETA: Also, if we begin with the pools and locate ourselves there, then it would seem that the skaters would "come" to the pools. But the poem seems to dislocate us, line by line, so that among other things, we don't even really know where we're standing --- unless perhaps where we stand is in eternity itself, regarding the landscape from that perspective, so that we're simultaneously nowhere and everywhere, and everything in the poem is simultaneously here and there.
Great reflection, Sally. Wonderful poet. I took the poem to turn on ‘tarnished’ precisely because of its incongruity. As though ‘chapped’ is subbed to make way for the revelation that even snow is mucky against the poet’s bright mystic calling.
I do think that's such a significant image, coming as early as it does in the poem, with its real strangeness --- and I couldn't figure out how exactly to work it in with everything else, which I now regret. I hadn't thought about Judas's kiss, which Adam brings up, and I wish I had.
You could write a whole essay on any single weird image in this poem, and this one already felt too long. I'm really grateful to have good readers chime in to elaborate on what I did manage to say, because in every way it feels like too little. But the timeline, especially in connection to those "Master" letters, felt significant to me, with this period as a moment when a great poet is just beginning really to flex her powers and to reveal to herself the height and depth and breadth of her own vision.
Great analysis and wonderful comments!
A killer
Lovely and mysterious, as so much of her work. I wonder if she might be asking if the "frock [she] wept in" is appropriate for the "wonders" that "will arrive"? Winter, the season of death (but also Christmas) is coming, but there are wonders to arrive before then . . . There has been that which was barely grasped or only intuited -- the hem of a garment, what is walking "just a bridge away," the song, the speech "where there's no one here" . . . Are these the wonders that will arrive, knowledge of them? Just wandering and wondering through the lines here. I don't recall this poem from my study of Dickinson way back when; thanks so much for your explication and the context of its timing.
As with your reading, I have read this as exploring a meeting with death coming before winter comes, another of her explorations of what that passage means ("Just a bridge away") -- and that meeting with the figure whose hem is summer (will the frames we grieved in here bear so much joy?). I love the details you explored.
This is a very good, persuasive reading of this oblique poem, and perhaps explains one of the puzzles I have always had with it, the "cheek" reference in line 3. A person might go out in the winter snow, and snow might accumulate upon them, but surely not upon their cheek: on their shoulders, or the top of their head, rather. But now I'm wondering if this isn't an allusion, complexly positioned in terms of night and winter, to Judas's "tarnishing" kiss on the cheek of Jesus: an intimation of coming death.
As to where the skaters go, I'd always read this as: they go to the pools, because they're now iced over and the skaters can skate. That is, both the skaters and the ice are the after, in relation to the before of the poem.
Before the skaters go,
Or any cheek at nightfall
Is tarnished by the snow,
Yes, I also thought that that "tarnishing" was very strange --- the snow not whitening a cheek, or stinging it in to rosiness, but darkening it and spoiling it.
And yes, my first thought was that of course the skaters are going skating on the pools, but the thought's left rather open-ended, which again is strange.
ETA: Also, if we begin with the pools and locate ourselves there, then it would seem that the skaters would "come" to the pools. But the poem seems to dislocate us, line by line, so that among other things, we don't even really know where we're standing --- unless perhaps where we stand is in eternity itself, regarding the landscape from that perspective, so that we're simultaneously nowhere and everywhere, and everything in the poem is simultaneously here and there.
Great reflection, Sally. Wonderful poet. I took the poem to turn on ‘tarnished’ precisely because of its incongruity. As though ‘chapped’ is subbed to make way for the revelation that even snow is mucky against the poet’s bright mystic calling.
I do think that's such a significant image, coming as early as it does in the poem, with its real strangeness --- and I couldn't figure out how exactly to work it in with everything else, which I now regret. I hadn't thought about Judas's kiss, which Adam brings up, and I wish I had.
You could write a whole essay on any single weird image in this poem, and this one already felt too long. I'm really grateful to have good readers chime in to elaborate on what I did manage to say, because in every way it feels like too little. But the timeline, especially in connection to those "Master" letters, felt significant to me, with this period as a moment when a great poet is just beginning really to flex her powers and to reveal to herself the height and depth and breadth of her own vision.