GaryG48 wrote:I think there are several versions of this poem. One version has an additional stanza. When it is included it is the fourth:

Or rather he passed us [he = the sun]
The Dews draw quivering and chill
For only Gossamer my Gown
My Tippet only Tulle.

This stanza is three feet, four feet, four feet, three feet while all the other stanza are four feet, three feet, four feet, three feet. It also adds the "coldness of death" image to the poem which is otherwise "warm" to the idea of death. As we grow older, do we pass the sun (as we pass through the stages of life) or does the sun pass us? I guess it depends on which version of the poem we read. The version posted here, without the missing stanza, is happier.

I can't believe I missed this stanza! I knew it felt like something was missing.
The version I originally read and came to love included the stanza that I accidentally left out. Instead of checking for accuracy, I copied the first version of the poem I saw (from Bartleby.com) without checking a different site for any differences or mistakes. For that, I apologize, because you're right, the poem takes on a completely different meaning, overall, once this stanza is added back in.

Please continue to analyze the poem with the missing stanza back in its rightful place:

Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.

We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.

We passed the school where children played
At wrestling in a ring;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.

Or rather he passed us
The Dews draw quivering and chill
For only Gossamer my Gown
My Tippet only Tulle.

We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.

Since then ’t is centuries; but each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses’ heads
Were toward eternity.

bleachededen wrote: We passed the setting sun.
Or rather he passed us

Deletion of the stanza which ties the vision to the natural order looks like the sort of censorship that Christians have been renowned for, deleting any reference they could find which would indicate that eternity is found within nature.

Robert Tulip wrote:

bleachededen wrote: We passed the setting sun.
Or rather he passed us

Deletion of the stanza which ties the vision to the natural order looks like the sort of censorship that Christians have been renowned for, deleting any reference they could find which would indicate that eternity is found within nature.

That's an interesting correlation, Robert, although I certainly didn't use the censored version intentionally. I wasn't aware there were two separate versions, and it's been so long since I looked at the poem instead of just reciting the first two stanzas from memory that I didn't notice my mistake until Gary graciously pointed it out to me.

I agree that the lack of this stanza makes the idea of death and eternity seem much more "rosy," that the speaker is perfectly fine with being taken. The missing stanza adds the sense that while she understands that this is necessary, she is not completely comfortable with it and has not yet accepted it: her clothes are not enough to shield her from the cold, just as no belief can save her from death and an eternity not of Heaven, but of nothing. This changes the interpretation of the last stanza, as well, because while it still shows that no matter how much time passes, no time seems longer than the moment that she realized there was no going back, it has a darker feel with this added stanza, because even in eternity, she still finds the initial moment of realization to be the most painful, and one she remembers over and over for eternity.

It is interesting to think that this poem was intentionally censored by someone who clearly understood the meaning of the poem in an attempt to make her seem more accepting of death and possibly religion than she may have been. It saddens me to think that someone with a mind for interpreting poetry would manipulate it against the writer's wishes in an attempt to make the poem mean something else. I'd like to think that people who understand poetry accept the poetry (as we may accept art) because of its beauty, even if they don't agree with the message, because who has the right to do that, anyway?

I don't know for certain if it was a deliberate omission or a mistake, I would have to look into that, or perhaps we could ask Saffron, as I believe she knows quite a bit about Dickinson.

Again, thank you, Robert, for your insight. I always learn so much from you.

bleachededen wrote:I certainly didn't use the censored version intentionally. I wasn't aware there were two separate versions, and it's been so long since I looked at the poem instead of just reciting the first two stanzas from memory that I didn't notice my mistake until Gary graciously pointed it out to me.

You had mentioned that you just found it on the internet. This verse about the sun ties the poem together to indicate the uncertainty around death. My reading is that the censorious mind demands certainty, even if the certainty is 100% wrong. There is a pagan element in the verse about the sun, suggesting humans are primarily natural rather than spiritual beings, or at least that spirit emerges from nature. This idea is repugnant to dogmatic faith, which insists on an impossible miraculous story because confronting natural truth is too hard.

I agree that the lack of this stanza makes the idea of death and eternity seem much more "rosy," that the speaker is perfectly fine with being taken. The missing stanza adds the sense that while she understands that this is necessary, she is not completely comfortable with it and has not yet accepted it: her clothes are not enough to shield her from the cold, just as no belief can save her from death and an eternity not of Heaven, but of nothing. This changes the interpretation of the last stanza, as well, because while it still shows that no matter how much time passes, no time seems longer than the moment that she realized there was no going back, it has a darker feel with this added stanza, because even in eternity, she still finds the initial moment of realization to be the most painful, and one she remembers over and over for eternity.

I didn't see it as rosy, rather that the shock of facing immortality presented a vista of endless boredom. It seems rosier to me to imagine our energy returning to the earth to be expressed again in a different future natural incarnation.

It is interesting to think that this poem was intentionally censored by someone who clearly understood the meaning of the poem in an attempt to make her seem more accepting of death and possibly religion than she may have been. It saddens me to think that someone with a mind for interpreting poetry would manipulate it against the writer's wishes in an attempt to make the poem mean something else. I'd like to think that people who understand poetry accept the poetry (as we may accept art) because of its beauty, even if they don't agree with the message, because who has the right to do that, anyway? I don't know for certain if it was a deliberate omission or a mistake, I would have to look into that, or perhaps we could ask Saffron, as I believe she knows quite a bit about Dickinson. Again, thank you, Robert, for your insight. I always learn so much from you.

Such censorship was rife throughout Christian history. The sun verse would be regarded by pious faithful as uncomfortably resembling magic and witchcraft, and so unsuitable for readers who were steeped in belief in the transcendental Christian dogma of personal salvation.

bleachededen wrote:

GaryG48 wrote:I think there are several versions of this poem. One version has an additional stanza. When it is included it is the fourth:

This stanza is three feet, four feet, four feet, three feet while all the other stanza are four feet, three feet, four feet, three feet. It also adds the "coldness of death" image to the poem which is otherwise "warm" to the idea of death. As we grow older, do we pass the sun (as we pass through the stages of life) or does the sun pass us? I guess it depends on which version of the poem we read. The version posted here, without the missing stanza, is happier.

I can't believe I missed this stanza! I knew it felt like something was missing.
The version I originally read and came to love included the stanza that I accidentally left out. Instead of checking for accuracy, I copied the first version of the poem I saw (from Bartleby.com) without checking a different site for any differences or mistakes. For that, I apologize

bleachededen please don't apologize. The version you used may be as legitimate, or even more legitimate, than the six stanza version. I hope someone can tell us if Dickinson had a preference. I also find the six stanza version more interesting because the fourth stanza does significantly change the last stanza. Including both versions demonstrates part of the magic of poetry that four lines in the middle can make such a difference to the end.

Dickinson's readers were living in the 19th century age of science. I doubt that there is any religious significance to the addition or deletion of the fourth stanza. I do wonder about the mechanics though. What (if any) is the significance that this stanza has a different organization than any of the others? Was it a later addition? If it was part of the original, deleted by editors, were they only trying to present a more homogeneous poem without the shock of a rhythmically different part.

Having both versions here adds to the discussion and deepens the analysis. So, again, thank you for your insights and for starting this topic.

It is interesting that the 4th stanza in question has a different rhythm to it. When I turned 13 someone gave me Emily Dickinson's collected works as a birthday present. I never really liked Emily Dickinson, and the gifter didn't know me very well, but knew that I liked poetry, and so assumed that I would enjoy her poems. I tried to read it from the beginning on, and almost every single one of her poems has the same meter and rhyme scheme and most are untitled, so after several poems, I forgot which poems I had read or was reading and it all became one big poem to me, so I gave her up until I encountered her again in college.

This poem stood out for me, however, mostly because of the imagery in the first stanza and my own morbid sense of beauty that was developing even then, and it could also have been the change in meter in that 4th stanza. I can't be certain, as memory is faulty and self analysis doesn't always conclude with truth, but I do know that for some reason this poem stood out and remained my favorite of hers even after discussing others in various classes.

I do find the break in the rhythm to be an interesting thing to look at, and the reasons surrounding it just as interesting. It could have been added later, as you have mentioned, Gary, and an editor could have then removed it because it didn't seem to fit the rhythm scheme, or it could be that the poet actually wants us to place more emphasis on this stanza, and thus has manipulated it to be separate from the rest of the poem. I can't tell either way, but both are plausible, and I thank you for these suggestions.

I like the vision of her in gossamer and tulle. To me, it shows that the people who dressed her for her funeral and placed her in the coffin didn't realize she may be cold on her way to eternity. It gives me a feel of an Egyptian kind of burial ritual, where the living buried the dead with things they would need in the Afterlife, and that Christians don't see death this way and think she would be going to Heaven, and thus dressed her to be pretty but not warm. This is only a reading of course, and not an assertion that there is truth in either of those beliefs, but it is interesting to think about a possible Egyptian correlation here, where she really should have been dressed warmer to enter into eternity without the sun and the comforts of nature.

This poem really does bring up so many questions about nature and death and eternity. I hadn't even realized that when I decided to anaylize it, but I am glad it does because it has brought so many great viewpoints to the discussion.