Here, I'm going to read these poems
and talk about them a bit.
And I had to divide these into a few parts
to get them up for a size you could see them well.
And this is number 764.
"My Life had stood--
a Loaded Gun-- in Corners--
till a Day The Owner passed--
identified-- and carried Me away--
And now We roam in Sovereign Woods.
And now We hunt the Doe--
and every time I speak for Him, The Mountains straight reply--
And do I smile, such cordial light upon the Valley glow.
It is as a Vesuvian face had let its pleasure through--
And when at night Our good Day done--
I guard My Master's Head--
'Tis better than the Eider Duck's Deep Pillow--
to have shared--
To foe of His--
I'm deadly foe--
None stir the second time--
on whom I lay a Yellow Eye--
or an emphatic Thumb.
Though I than He--
may longer live--
He longer must-- than I--
For I have but the power to kill, without--
the power to die--"
This poet, like this poem, like many of hers
was written during the Civil War--
the time when many guns, some not frequently used,
were gathered up and taken into action--
a time of violence, a time of death.
And that Dickinson, as female, could not die in the same way
as soldiers were dying seems one thing at work here.
There's much else.
It should also be no secret that Dickinson-- this retiring,
possibly shy, poetic soul--
knew skills that were never far away from the life
in western Massachusetts.
There wasn't too many years removed
from being a sort of frontier--
i.e.
she knew how to keep wood fires going,
in the stove and outside.
She knew how to find things in the forest that
were helpful against sickness.
She knew how to care for the sick.
And she knew how to use a flintlock rifle.
And no, I'm not making that up.
But perhaps, the surprising thing
about a poem whose overriding image
is that of a gun, and a loaded gun, at that,
is that it's a love poem.
And that it is the female author herself who imagines herself
as the gun, bending ordinary conceptions of gender--
perhaps particularly of 19th century gender.
Here, the speaker is unused until the lover, my master,
identifies her power, picks up the gun, and carries her away.
And this poem is partly about being carried away
in the sense love does that to a human being.
But also, about protection and control.
In being carried away the dance is free.
Roaming the woods, hunting the doe,
speaking with the rifle's blast, listening to the mountains
echo.
It shifts subtly, though, for here the actor and tool
or subject and object shift.
So while he gave her meaning it is she who speaks for him.
And to her ecstasy the world lends echo.
The mountains straight reply.
And what, after the fireworks?
Well, the valley, a common female image,
glows with delight as if Vesuvius,
the mountain, the male and phallic image, has erupted--
has, in fact, let its pleasure through.
Afterward, the gun does duty as guard
and honor an even deeper pleasure than sleep--
ready to kill a foe in a second.
And deadly with the first shot--
jealous of any disturbance to his sleep, to their love,
emphatic in action.
It always aware that such experience,
such momentary bliss is temporary, for he may go on,
or he may die.
While I am just here, able to protect and kill,
but not, somehow, truly alive, not having the power to die.
The ending is a little bit undetermined here.
What does that mean?
Not having the power to die after what
this poem has been through?
But I think this indeterminacy is perhaps necessary
as one is finally not quite in control--
as the speaker of this poem, as the image in this poem
is not quite in control, not quite as
powerful as might be desired.
Here, again, the interruptions, the dashes' function.
So that one is fully relaxed in the experience, at first.
But then one is totally on guard, fierce, impulsive,
pulsing.
And it's primarily in that second stanza--
one of the only ones that-- and actually,
the second and third-- that aren't interrupted
in the middle of lines.
That you get kind of going with the flow,
or going with the pleasure.
And everywhere else you get a kind of tension,
as seems right in this situation.
There's no final rest in this poem
and no absolute resting rhythm in Dickinson's work,
in general.
I call this a love poem in that it thrills
as love does and forces us against a wall as love
sometimes does.