MADHU MALTI

O Captain ! My Captain : Walt Whitman : : Death Poems : :

**George C. Cox (1851–1903, photo) Adam Cuerden (1979-, restoration) Abraham Lincoln in 1887.**

Walt Whitman At the Age of 35. By Samuel Hollyer (1826-1919) from the frontispiece to Leaves of Grass, Fulton St., Brooklyn, N.Y., steel engraving by Samuel Hollyer from a lost daguerreotype by Gabriel Harrison.

**Walt Whitman photographed by Mathew Benjamin Brady (1822–1896) Description American photographer, war photographer, photojournalist.**

**Whitman ( ) spent his last years at his home in Camden, New Jersey. Today, it is open to the public as the Walt Whitman House.**

**Walt Whitman ( ) Portrait of Whitman by Thomas Eakins, 1887–88.**

**Whitman was honored on a ‘Famous Americans Series’ Postal issue, in 1940.**

Autographed fair copy of Whitman’s poem—signed and dated March 9, 1887—as published in 1881 : : In the late 1880s, Whitman earned money by selling autographed copies of “My Captain”—purchasers included John Hay, Charles Aldrich, and S. Weir Mitchell. The poem rhymes using an AABBCDED rhyme scheme,and is designed for recitation. It is written in nine quatrains, organized in three stanzas. Each stanza has two quatrains of four seven-beat lines, followed by a four-line refrain, which changes slightly from stanza to stanza, in a tetrameter/trimeter ballad beat. Historian Daniel Mark Epstein wrote in 2004 that he considers the structure of the poem to be “uncharacteristically mechanical, formulaic”. He goes on to describe the poem as a conventional ballad, comparable to Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s writing in “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and much of Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s work, especially “In Memoriam A.H.H. The poem was set to music by Kurt Weill as one of “Four Walt Whitman Songs” he composed in the 1940s.

Correggio’s 1525 Deposition : : In the second and third stanzas, according to Schöberlein, ( 2018 ) Whitman invokes religious imagery, making Lincoln a “messianic figure”. Schöberlein compares the imagery of “My Captain” to the Lamentation of Christ, specifically Correggio’s 1525 Deposition. The poem’s speaker places its “arm beneath [Lincoln’s] head” in the same way that “Mary cradled Jesus” after his crucifixion. With Lincoln’s death, “the sins of America are absolved into a religio-sentimental, national family”

Allegory : The Ship Of State : Artist : Franz Francken ( 1542 – 1616 ) : : allegorical painting, with a full-rigged ship curiously equipped with oars in the middle foreground, sails billowing as it moves through the water. The ship, on a green sea, steers its way through small islands of barren rock, where dangers threaten. To the right in the background is an island with a cave, wherein wolves lurk. In front to the right, a volcano spews out flames and rocks. The rock in the right foreground appears to be hit by a meteorite. In the centre foreground two mermaids (symbols of lasciviousness) with looking glasses are arranged, holding combs in their hands and resting on a rock. To the left is another rock and behind a giant, waist high, in the water. He brandishes a club with his right hand in the direction of the ship. In the left distance, two giants stand on another rock and they also brandish clubs. These represent the dangers to which the ship will succumb if she founders.The allegory alludes to the political disaffection between the Low Countries and Spain, and the Protestant revolt against the Roman Catholic Church, the state church of Spain; thus the ship can be equated with the Catholic Church, under Phillip II , son of Holy Roman Empire , Philip sent Spanish troops commanded by the Duke of Alva to the Netherlands but their excessively harsh policies resulted in open revolt. Two cardinals dressed in red stand in front of the last two figures in the stern. The man wears robes and a mitre, and holds the triple or papal cross denoting the Pope. The robed man beside him with a blue cloak and mitre holds the Latin cross.

Plato and the Ship Of Fools : : The image of a boat crowded with people cutting ocean waters without a certain destination is one of the (few) allegories Plato evokes in The Republic, an extensive dialogue in which he presents the utopia of an ideal society. sailing towards some desired, although uncertain, destination. Plato describes a ship whose captain is a strong man; however, his sight and hearing are bad, and he does not master the art of sailing. His sailors are equally ignorant, but despite the fact they fight to decide who will steer the helm. Meanwhile, the ship is adrift. In Plato’s allegory, the ship is equal to the governing system and, in it, the captain represents the ship’s owner, who is the people—it is worth mentioning that Plato’s Athens was a democracy. Due to the captain’s incapacity, the sailors fight for the control of the ship that, unfortunately for everyone on board, may crash and sink. The allegory of a vessel adrift should not be understood as an apology of democratic government, far from it. Plato champions the idea of a stratified society where rulers are philosophers, people who have been educated from their earlier years to direct their choices by reason and unbiased search of the common good. For Plato, ruling is for highly capacitated people who have been imbued by the concept of justice. Not unexpectedly, his model of society is a utopia, something unattainable at any time or place. Plato’s utopia has been revisited many times through history. Just like Plato, other philosophers such as Thomas More or Campanella have proposed utopias and were literally killed because of that. In the 20th Century, distorted interpretations of Platonic thought inspired political authoritarianism on both extremes of the ideological-political thought. John Alexander ( 2006 painting ,later) sees The Ship of Fools brimming over with masked or animal-like executives in the midst of a convulsing sea. In that scatological view, lethality is not a possible effect from bad government, but something that is necessary and concrete. There she is, at the top of the composition: Death, the passenger who is responsible for the story’s end . : : Thus , A mental image bound to emerge in various different contexts. : : For example, three different ships, there is a place for damnation—in all senses of the word. In Katherine Anne Porter’s The Ship of Fools novel—published in 1962 and adapted into film in 1965 by Stanley Kramer—damnation is a consequence of the passengers’ frivolous behavior on a transatlantic cruise from Mexico to Germany during a journey where their lives are superimposed and mixed together. The story happens in 1933 in the context of Nazism’s emergence, which is banally referred to by one of the main female characters. Trivialities seem to be a lesser evil, but they comprise harm caused by ignorance, by giving our backs to reason, by succumbing to unstoppable greed. The fools in Porter’s Ship are exposing themselves to disaster, but not everything is lost, the only thing they have to do is think: “The place here you’re going does not exist yet, you must build it when you get to the right **spot**.”**“. : :**

Promotional poster for Stanley Kramer’s film The Ship of Fools (1965). Based on a novel by the same title by Katherine Anne Porter, published in 1962 . : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : : “Ship of state” metaphor

The poem describes the United States as a ship, a metaphor that Whitman had previously used in “Death in the School-Room”. This metaphor of a ship of state has been often used by authors& film makers. Whitman himself had written a letter on March 19, 1863, that compared the head of state to a ship’s captain. Whitman had also likely read newspaper reports that Lincoln had dreamed of a ship under full sail the night before his assassination; the imagery was allegedly a recurring dream of Lincoln’s before significant moments in his life.

“My Captain” begins by describing Lincoln as the captain of the nation. By the end of the 1 St. stanza, Lincoln has become America’s “dear father” as his death is revealed (“fallen cold and dead”). Vendler writes that the poem is told from the point of view of a young Union recruit, a “sailor-boy” who considers Lincoln like a “dear father”. The American Civil War is almost over and “the prize we sought is almost won;/the port is almost near” with crowds awaiting the ship’s arrival. Then, Lincoln is shot and dies. Vendler notes that in the first Two Stanzas the narrator is speaking to the dead captain, addressing him as “you”. In the 3 Rd Stanza, he switches to reference Lincoln in the third person (“My captain does not answer”). : : Winwar describes the “roused voice of the people, incredulous at first, then tragically convinced that their Captain lay fallen”. Even as the poem mourns Lincoln, there is a sense of triumph that the ship of state has completed its journey. Whitman encapsulates grief over Lincoln’s death in one individual, the narrator of the poem.

Cohen argues that the metaphor serves to “mask the violence of the Civil War” and project “that concealment onto the exulting crowds”. He concluded that the poem “abstracted the war into social affect and collective sentiment, converting public violence into a memory of shared loss by remaking history in the shape of A Ballad”.

**Abraham Lincoln : “I Captain ! O Captain : : Extended Metaphor : : Read this Theme discussed hereinabove.**

O Captain! My Captain!
BY WALT WHITMAN
O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck,
You’ve fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
But I with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
— Walt Whitman (. )

Written on the occasion Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, “O Captain! My Captain!” was first published in the New York Saturday Press (November 1865) and was later included, along with “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d,” in a group of poems titled “Sequel” to Drum Taps (1865). While “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d” has become one of Whitman’s most critically acclaimed poems, Together with it and “Hush’d Be the Camps To-day”, and “This Dust was Once the Man”, it is one of four poems written by Whitman about the death of Lincoln. He later included it in the collection Leaves of Grass and recited the poem at several lectures on Lincoln’s death. Although he never met Lincoln, Whitman saw Abraham Lincoln several times between 1861 and 1865, sometimes at close quarters. Writing in October 1863, “I love the President personally.” He declared that “Lincoln gets almost nearer me than anybody else.”Whitman considered himself and Lincoln to be “afloat in the same stream” and “rooted in the same ground.” Whitman felt a connection to him and was greatly moved by Lincoln’s assassination. “O Captain..” turned the assassination of the President into a sort of martyrdom. Sincere expression of emotion in a “sing a song ” quality. As an elegy to Lincoln, the English professor Faith Barrett wrote in 2005 that the style makes it “timeless”, following in the tradition of elegies like “Lycidas” and “Adonais” : : : : “O Captain! My Captain!,” which incorporates more conventional rhyme and meter because of its rhyming, song-like flow, and simple “ship of state” metaphor. was by far the most popular of Whitman’s poems during his lifetime with many celebrating it as one of the greatest American works of poetry. Henry B. Rankin, a biographer of Lincoln, wrote that “My Captain” became “the nation’s—aye, the world’s—funeral dirge of our First American”.The Literary Digest in 1919 deemed it the “most likely to live forever” of Whitman’s poems, and the 1936 book American Life in Literature went further, describing it as the best American poem poet, C. K. Williams ( 2010 , Pg. 171 ) concluded that the poem was a “truly awful piece of near doggerel triteness” that deserved derisive criticism. Meanwhile, the 2004 Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature entry on Whitman suggests that critiques about the poem’s rhythm are unfair. As it never mentions Lincoln, it has been invoked upon the death of several other heads of state. It is famously featured in Dead Poets Society (1989) and is frequently associated with the star of that film, Robin Williams playing John Keating , a teacher at the Welton Academy boarding school As he introduces his students to the poem in their first class. Keating is later fired from the school. As Keating returns to collect his belongings, the students stand on their desks and address Keating as “O Captain! My Captain!” After Robin Williams’ suicide in 2014, the hashtag “#ocaptainmycaptain” began trending on Twitter and fans paid tribute to Williams by recreating the “O Captain! My Captain!” scene. The use of “My Captain” in the film was considered “ironic” by Cohen because the students are taking a stand against “repressive conformity” but using a poem intentionally written to be conventional. After Franklin D. Roosevelt died in 1945, actor Charles Laughton read “O Captain! My Captain!” during a memorial radio broadcast. When John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, “O Captain! My Captain!” was played on many radio stations, extending the ‘ship of state’ metaphor to Kennedy.Following the 1995 assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, the poem was translated into Hebrew and put to music by Naomi Shemer. : :

The 1 St Stanza describes how a ship has returned from a voyage that was ”fearful.” The voyage has been successful, with the speaker noting that a ”prize” has been won. However, the poetic speaker admits that there has been a tragedy. The Captain of the ship is dead, his bleeding body lying on the deck of the ship.

In the 2 Nd Stanza, the poem shifts to reactions to the captain’s death. The stanza mentions a ”swaying mass” of people mourning his death. The speaker describes the sounds and sights of mourning, including bouquets of flowers, pealing bells, waving flags, and bugle calls.

The 3 Rd Stanza returns to describing the Captain. In contrast to the noisy responses of the crowd, the Captain’s body is lifeless, ”pale and still,” with ”no pulse nor will.” Though the voyage is over and successful, the poetic speaker continues to mourn the death of the Captain.

”O Captain! My Captain!” An “Elegy” , A “Dirge”, a song for the dead and the powerful sense of mourning and loss. The ”keel” and ”deck,” parts of the ship which has returned to ”port.” The ship has ”weather’d” a difficult voyage, a symbol for the bloody Civil War. The elements of war journalism, such as “the bleeding drops of red” and “fallen cold and dead. imagery relating to the sea throughout. Genoways considers the best “turn of phrase” in the poem to be line 12, where Whitman describes a “swaying mass”, evocative of both a funeral and religious service. Schöberlein compares the Religious imagery of “My Captain” to the Lamentation of Christ, specifically Correggio’s 1525 Deposition. The poem’s speaker places its “arm beneath [Lincoln’s] head” in the same way that “Mary cradled Jesus” after his crucifixion. With Lincoln’s death, “the sins of America are absolved into a religio-sentimental, national family” : : : :

The poem’s nautical references allude to Admiral Nelson’s death at the Battle of Trafalgar. : : : :

Notes for Each Stanzas : Pending visit this post again later on to enjoy the appreciation of the poem. : : : : “O Captain ! O Captain !” Death Poem By Walt Whitman : Information Appreciation and poem Analysis Presented by V Jayaraj Pune India September 25 , 2022 : : : : ભાદરવા વદ અમાસ : : સર્વ પિતૃ તર્પણ અમાવાસ્યા : : : :

On the Death of Anne Bronte : Charlotte Bronte : : Death Poems : :

**An 1873 portrait of Charlotte Bronte by Duyckinick.(Cc, Wikipedia: : Born Thornton , Yorkshire England April 1816 – Died March 1855 , Aged 39 years.: During her pregnancy.**

There’s little joy in life for me,

And little terror in the grave ;

I ‘ve lived the parting hour to see

Of one I would have died to save. 4

Calmly to watch the failing breath,

Wishing each sigh might be the last ;

Longing to see the shade of death

O’er those belovèd features cast. 8

The cloud, the stillness that must part

The darling of my life from me ;

And then to thank God from my heart,

To thank Him well and fervently ; 12

Although I knew that we had lost

The hope and glory of our life ; 14

And now , benighted, tempest-tossed,

Must bear alone the weary strife. 16

— Charlotte Bronte

( Born April 1816 – Died March 1855 , Aged 39 years. )

Anne Brontë, sister to fellow writers Emily and Charlotte Brontë, died in May of 1849 of tuberculosis. Emily had died the year previously, also of tuberculosis, and Charlotte would only live for six more years, dying in March of 1855 of pneumonia. On the Death of Anne Bronte : Charlotte Bronte is about the poet’s grief and loss on the death of her beloved sisterand her relief that her sister’s sufferings have ended. In the last , she accepts that she will have to live in the world without her Sisters.

” There’s little joy in life for me,

And little terror in the grave;

I’ve lived the parting hour to see

Of one I would have died to save.” : : Stanza 1 : : Lines ( 1 To 4 ) : : : :

“Little joy” is left in life for the poet. She feels “terror in the grave”or “death”. She says in lines 3 &4 , “lived the parting hour to see
Of one I would have died to save” meaning she cares for the deceased ( gender, age, relationship not stated in the poem) deeply. And , she would have given her own life , if that could save the deceased. Since this is not possible , she is now left to mourn.

“Calmly to watch the failing breath,

Wishing each sigh might be the last; 6

Longing to see the shade of death

O’er those belovèd features cast.” 8 : : Stanza 2 : : lines ( 5 To 8 ) : : : :

She watched the failure in breathing. It was an expiration heavily audible, indicating tiredness , etc. which is expressed in a word each “sigh” to which she wished “it might be the last”( line 6 ): : She could feel seeing the beloved features and wish the one on the face yearning for the darkness (“shade” ) of “death” as only this chosen one as the last relief ( lines 7 & 8 ) : : : :

” The cloud, the stillness that must part

The darling of my life from me; 10

And then to thank God from my heart,

To thank Him well and fervently;” 12 : : Stanza 3 : : lines ( 9 To 12 ) : : : :

Here, it is God who disperse “The cloud” which are distributed loosely with its moving to everywhere. Hence , “the Stillness” or motionlessness or association with one place or persons is not possible. It is God’s choice that the cloud ☁️ must part from her, be the same for the deceased. As God is convinced in the longing/ yearning for the death. She “then (has) to thank God from” her “heart”. “To thank Him well and” with ‘passionate fervour (“fervently”) She expresses her feelings of ‘great warmth’ and ‘favour’ from God in a ’cause’ of the deceased beloved , her “darling”who has moved on to a better desirable place.

“Although I knew that we had lost

The hope and glory of our life;

And now, benighted, tempest-tossed,

Must bear alone the weary strife.” : : : : Stanza 4 : : : : lines ( 13 To 16 ) : : : :

Although she knew it was a great loss, and ” The hope and glory of ( their ) life;” is also lost; she still must thank God. The grounds for feeling hopeful about the future is lost. There is nothing more to see any honour. No more rejoicing proudly for anything glorified in their life. Because , her “darling” is not with them to share any such hope and glory. ‘Overtaken’ By the ‘night’ or ‘darkness‘‘, hence ” benighted”. It will be difficult to perceive an enlightenment. And they are ‘troubled’ being “alone”; “tempest-tossed”meaning ” ‘hit repeatedly’ by ‘storm’ or ‘adversities’: : She has nobody to share with about all these troubles to come in future. Her companion : her “darling” was the last hope. She is now all “alone”to put up with unpleasant future without support of her “darling”.There will be bitter conflicting situations in dealing with the people in the world around : the exhausting “strife” that can be tiring. ‘Wearily’but walk around and “Must bear alone”she makes up her mindset in the last.

“On the Death of Anne Bronte” : Charlotte Bronte : Death Poem : : Information Appreciation and poem Analysis Presented by V Jayaraj Pune India September 24 , 2022 : : ભાદરવા વદ ચતુર્દશી : : : : : : : :

First Death In Nova Scotia : Elizabeth Bishop : : Death Poems : :

Elizabeth Bishop was born on February 8, 1911, in Worcester, Massachusetts. She is A metaphysical Poet and was also known for her translator’s Works. : : Related poets : W S Merwin, Robert Fitzgerald, Stephen Mitchell,Salvatore Quasi modo, Edith Grossman, Allan s **Trueblood. : : The Titles of the Poetry with publications date are noteworthy : : : : : 2011**
**The Fish**
**2006**
**Suicide of a Moderate Dictator**
**1993**
**Little Exercise (audio only)**
**1997**
**Over 2,000 Illustrations and a Complete Concordance (audio only)**
**1979**
**At the Fishhouses**
**1979**
**Visits to St. Elizabeths**
**1979**
**In the Waiting Room**
**1979**
**One Art**
**1979 The Armadillo , 1979 The Moose**

First Death in Nova Scotia by Elizabeth Bishop : (1911 – 1979)Question of Travel ’65: In the cold, cold parlor
my mother laid out Arthur
beneath the chromographs:
Edward, Prince of Wales,
with Princess Alexandra,
and King George with Queen Mary.
Below them on the table
stood a stuffed loon
shot and stuffed by Uncle
Arthur, Arthur’s father.

Since Uncle Arthur fired
a bullet into him,
he hadn’t said a word.
He kept his own counsel
on his white, frozen lake,
the marble-topped table.
His breast was deep and white,
cold and caressable;
his eyes were red glass,
much to be desired.

“Come,” said my mother,
“Come and say good-bye
to your little cousin Arthur.”
I was lifted up and given
one lily of the valley
to put in Arthur’s hand.
Arthur’s coffin was
a little frosted cake,
and the red-eyed loon eyed it
from his white, frozen lake.

Arthur was very small.
He was all white, like a doll
that hadn’t been painted yet.
Jack Frost had started to paint him
the way he always painted
the Maple Leaf (Forever).
He had just begun on his hair,
a few red strokes, and then
Jack Frost had dropped the brush
and left him white, forever.

The gracious royal couples
were warm in red and ermine;
their feet were well wrapped up
in the ladies’ ermine trains.
They invited Arthur to be
the smallest page at court.
But how could Arthur go,
clutching his tiny lily,
with his eyes shut up so tight
and the roads deep in snow?

“First Death in Nova Scotia” is a short poem by Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979) published in “Questions of Travel” (1965). The poem tells of a child’s first experience of death in the context of a relative’s wake. A young child is taken into a parlor on a winter day to view her deceased cousin Arthur who is laid out in a coffin resembling a “little frosted cake”. The child notes a stuffed loon standing on a marble-topped table eyeing the casket and chromolithographs of British royalty in ermine trains hung above the deceased. The child is given a lily of the valley and lifted by her mother to place the flower in dead Arthur’s hand. The child notes, and makes an allusion to Jack Frost, who has painted Arthur’s red hair with a bit of “white paint”. The child also tells us that the royals have invited Arthur to be “the smallest page at court”. The child wonders how Arthur will ever go to court because “his eyes are shut up so tight” and the roads are “deep in snow”. ( Summary : From Wikipedia ) : : : :

Jack Coulehan writes in ‘ The Writer’s Almanac that “First Death” has its source in Bishop’s childhood years on Nova Scotia with relatives and that “[t]he imaginative perception here is exquisite”. Coulehan explains in ‘Literature Annotations , Elizabeth Bishop’ that the child reconciles her perceptions of a fantastic ‘afterlife’ ( dwelling at court as a page ) with the reality of the dead child and the dead loon before her: “Maybe the dead don’t go anywhere,” Coulehan writes, “Maybe the dead are just dead.” : : : :

The poem examines a child’s first experience with death, capturing the way in which childhood innocence might comprehend such a devastation. It’s also an exquisite portrait of the vanished Canada of her youth. The child’s mind work by association. She repeats ideas and makes unusual connections between things. There is a fairytale element to the end of the poem as the child imagines royal couples welcoming Arthur into their Kingdom. In the child’s mind, young Arthur will be surrounded by people and perhaps this consoles her now that she has thought about his death. The confused child tries with fear to empathise with Arthur’s feelings. We are left with a tragic image of a young boy, vulnerable and afraid, surrounded by the dead. : :

Notes for 5 Stanzas : Pending visit this post again later on to enjoy the appreciation of the poem. V Jayaraj Pune India September 23 , 2022 : : ભાદરવા વદ તેરસ : : : : : : : :

Unlike Are We, Unlike O Princely Heart ! : Elizabeth Barrett Browning : : Death Poems : :

**Elizabeth Barrett Browning**

**Sir William Charles Ross R.A., n.d. – Browning Library – Baylor University**

**Elizabeth Barrett Browning**

**Library of Congress, USA**

**Elizabeth Barrett Browning & Robert Browning: Two Lover Poets**

Sonnet 3: “Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart!” : Elizabeth Barrett Browning : : ( )

Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart!
Unlike our uses and our destinies.
Our ministering two angels look surprise
On one another, as they strike athwart
Their wings in passing (4) Thou, bethink thee, art 5
A guest for queens to social pageantries, 6
With gages from a hundred brighter eyes 7
Than tears even can make mine, to play thy part
Of chief musician. (8) / /First Tercet : 9 -11 :: What hast thou to do 9
With looking from the lattice-lights at me, 10
A poor, tired, wandering singer, singing through 11 / / : : : : Second Tercet : 12 – 14 : :
The dark, and leaning up a cypress tree? 12
The chrism is on thine head,—on mine, the dew,— 13
And Death must dig the level where these agree. 14

Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnet iii : : :: “Unlike Are We Unlike O Princely Heart! ” Is a voice of masterpiece correcting speaker as well as reader with a lovely relief that the poem is about ‘ Not Death , But Love ‘ : : We find an Author/ Poetess present in the poem whereas Her Beloved is absent.

“Unlike are we, unlike, O princely Heart!
Unlike our uses and our destinies.
Our ministering two angels look surprise
On one another, as they strike athwart Their wings in passing ” : : Quatrain 1 : : lines 1 To 4 : :

Here , A word ” (U)unlike ” stresses ( 3 times in the first 2 lines ) up on ‘distance’ and ‘ difference ‘ which expresses her ‘doubts’ as well as ‘sadness’. A ‘distance’ between the two lovers in (“our uses and our destinies” line 2 ) : : By the phrase ” O princely Heart ! ” We learn that her ‘beloved’ is either sumptuous ( rich ) or a grand splendid personality and the speaker has perhaps a contrasting personality by nature. Now , each one of the oddish pair of lovers have curious ‘Guardian Angel’ : Attending ministrants who “look surprise on one another”: wondering how she can come to pair up with her beloved prince and then how they would flourish together. : : By a word athwart ( u’thwort ) , we find that the ‘couple’ would go at right / oblique angle to one another. ‘Over and across’ in leading ( to different directions ) and be unwelcomely affecting their respective line of life. : : Both the ‘en passant’ guardian angels make such remarks hastily / hurriedly “in passing” . : : : :

” Thou, bethink thee, art
A guest for queens to social pageantries,
With gages from a hundred brighter eyes
Than tears even can make mine, to play thy part Of chief musicians” : : : : Quatrain 2 : : lines ( 5 To 8 ) : :

Her beloved “prince” is very talented and a man with nobility and is ” A guest for queens to social pageantries,” : He attends the rich and spectacular ceremony elaborately represented by highly placed renowned guests in to gatherings and scenes in rich surroundings and luxury. When he visits such royal meets, no doubt, the guests look at him with “a hundred brighter eyes” than her own. Her tears even cannot be enough ( impossible for her to reach there ) to turn in her eyes as bright as what he must experience at such splendid affairs at queen’s courts/ palaces. The concept of ‘distance’and ‘difference’ is portrayed in this way to highlight her position. She is a wandering singer (line 9) in contrast to his “part Of chief musicians”: : : : At the time of writing this Sonnet , she was facing some health issues and was 6 years older than her suitor “prince”. Hence, her narration is hesitant. And she wouldn’t accept the courtship extended by her suitor who should , as she feels, weigh up with gages she has put forth with her feelings. : : : :

” What hast thou to do
With looking from the lattice-lights at me,
A poor, tired, wandering singer, singing through / / The dark, and leaning up a cypress tree ? ” : : 12 : : First Tercet : : lines ( 9 To 11 / / + line 12 first line of Second Tercet )

She is “A poor , tired , wandering singer singing through the dark” meaning she is unsettled having no fixed home or a course. These are some references of her mood of darkness represented in this poem with many images alike, elsewhere, too ; so also but differently, in “the lattice lights” for her suitor. The same central purpose for ‘distance’and ‘difference’ are again illustrated here.: : : : “A cypress tree” is a symbol of her ‘mourning’ which has a reference to her very close brother , Edward who died before as well as her own mood of darkness and sadness, as she seemingly, faces, her own feeling of nearness to death. Her health and moods have caused her being ‘lean’ or to lean to the side ( inclined) instead of sustaining uprightness. : : She draws his attention to become informed as to why someone like him should be “looking from the lattice-lights” that is through an opening like a ‘small window’ at ‘lowly positioned’ herself. She wants to know why he should incline for commonality as he also will have to “lean[s] up to a cypress tree,” while searchingly look up at her , through her murkey -window.. : : : :

“The dark,and leaning up a cypress tree?12
The chrism is on thine head,—on mine, the dew,— 13
And Death must dig the level where these agree. 14 : : : : Second Tercet : : lines ( 12 To 14 ) : : : :

We have already tried above para to elaborately locate the meaning in line 12 of the Second Tercet. The last two lines 13 & 14 , is about EBB’s very famous couplet. “The chrism” ( kri- zum ), also called ‘chrisom’, is a consecrated ointment consisting of a mixture of oil and balsam ( fragrant resin ): : Her beloved keeps up “chrism” on his head, but she possesses only “dew.” ( Nevermind , dew is plain , but pure , and divinely ‘sky element’ in poetry ) : : His earthly ‘precious oil’ coming together with her skyward, only ‘plain dew’ startles her mind with amazement and deeply penetrated fear. : : Thus, her flabbergasted ( stupified/ dumbfounded ) image : “Death must dig the level where these agree.”meaning, Only in “death” their ‘leaningly existence’ can make the lovely couple an ‘equal-some’. : : : : The poetess plays up with a scheme that might prevent her beloved “prince” from pairing her by drawing negative, tragically ending pictures of upcoming ‘proximo’ ( future ) so that their UNION in LOVE becomes impossible. Speaking ‘not in unison’. The speaker exemplifies before her suitor “prince” with ‘Gloom’ positilions between them so as to lead him, to ‘separation’ in their , relationship. Also , she doubts her own capacity to return her affection for him in the same way she receives from him. : : : :

In an earthbound peculiar class based society, the speaker cannot overcome the ‘distance’ and ‘difference’ between ‘herself’ and her beloved “prince”. So, she allows even “Death” to establish its purpose. She has a ‘weird’ and ‘unconventional’ approach, but she believes in ‘both happy’ – happening in such darker colour, soon to be created by digging (only) for her to turn up with the underground earthen soil. Surprisingly , Then, ‘The Sonnet’ is About ‘Not Death, But LOVE’ : : Unlike Are We, Unlike O Princely Heart ! : Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Love Poem , of balsamy fragrance with womanly gentleness and compassion. We come to believe that ‘Human Sensitivity’ in Love, sometimes, creates anxiousness and unstableness , May it be desirably temporary. This Sonnet is a work out ( ‘Gem’ in to the English Poetry ) over the ‘Romanticism’ maintaining ‘Victorian Love’ form that is ‘Universal’ and applicable even to the ‘Modern Day Poetry’. : : : : : : : : : : :

Information Appreciation and poem Analysis Presented by V Jayaraj Pune India September 22 , 2022 : : ભાદરવા વદ બારસ : : : : : :

Mother and Poet : ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING : : Death Poems : :

Elizabeth Barrett Browning ( 1806 – 1861 ) : School / Movement : Romanticism : Related Poets : Walt Whitman , Léonie Adams , Edgar Allan Poe , Robert Louis Stevenson, Emily Dickinson , Ralph Waldo Emerson : :

**Born on March 6, 1806, at Coxhoe Hall, Durham, England — died in Florence on June 29, 1861. : Elizabeth Barrett Browning**

Mother and Poet
BY ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
I.
Dead ! One of them shot by the sea in the east,
And one of them shot in the west by the sea.
Dead ! both my boys ! When you sit at the feast
And are wanting a great song for Italy free,
Let none look at me !

II.
Yet I was a poetess only last year,
And good at my art, for a woman, men said ;
But this woman, this, who is agonized here,
— The east sea and west sea rhyme on in her head
For ever instead.

III.
What art can a woman be good at ? Oh, vain !
What art is she good at, but hurting her breast
With the milk-teeth of babes, and a smile at the pain ?
Ah boys, how you hurt ! you were strong as you pressed,
And I proud, by that test.

IV.
What art’s for a woman ? To hold on her knees
Both darlings ! to feel all their arms round her throat,
Cling, strangle a little ! to sew by degrees
And ‘broider the long-clothes and neat little coat ;
To dream and to doat.

V.
To teach them … It stings there ! I made them indeed
Speak plain the word country. I taught them, no doubt,
That a country’s a thing men should die for at need.
I prated of liberty, rights, and about
The tyrant cast out.

VI.
And when their eyes flashed … O my beautiful eyes ! …
I exulted ; nay, let them go forth at the wheels
Of the guns, and denied not. But then the surprise
When one sits quite alone ! Then one weeps, then one kneels !
God, how the house feels !

VII.
At first, happy news came, in gay letters moiled
With my kisses, — of camp-life and glory, and how
They both loved me ; and, soon coming home to be spoiled
In return would fan off every fly from my brow
With their green laurel-bough.

VIII.
Then was triumph at Turin : Ancona was free !’
And some one came out of the cheers in the street,
With a face pale as stone, to say something to me.
My Guido was dead ! I fell down at his feet,
While they cheered in the street.

IX.
I bore it ; friends soothed me ; my grief looked sublime
As the ransom of Italy. One boy remained
To be leant on and walked with, recalling the time
When the first grew immortal, while both of us strained
To the height he had gained.

X.
And letters still came, shorter, sadder, more strong,
Writ now but in one hand, I was not to faint, —
One loved me for two — would be with me ere long :
And Viva l’ Italia ! — he died for, our saint,
Who forbids our complaint.”

XI.
My Nanni would add, he was safe, and aware
Of a presence that turned off the balls, — was imprest
It was Guido himself, who knew what I could bear,
And how ’twas impossible, quite dispossessed,
To live on for the rest.”

XII.
On which, without pause, up the telegraph line
Swept smoothly the next news from Gaeta : — Shot.
Tell his mother. Ah, ah, his, ‘ their ‘ mother, — not mine, ‘
No voice says “My mother” again to me. What !
You think Guido forgot ?

XIII.
Are souls straight so happy that, dizzy with Heaven,
They drop earth’s affections, conceive not of woe ?
I think not. Themselves were too lately forgiven
Through THAT Love and Sorrow which reconciled so
The Above and Below.

XIV.
O Christ of the five wounds, who look’dst through the dark
To the face of Thy mother ! consider, I pray,
How we common mothers stand desolate, mark,
Whose sons, not being Christs, die with eyes turned away,
And no last word to say !

XV.
Both boys dead ? but that’s out of nature. We all
Have been patriots, yet each house must always keep one.
‘Twere imbecile, hewing out roads to a wall ;
And, when Italy ‘s made, for what end is it done
If we have not a son ?

XVI.
Ah, ah, ah ! when Gaeta’s taken, what then ?
When the fair wicked queen sits no more at her sport
Of the fire-balls of death crashing souls out of men ?
When the guns of Cavalli with final retort
Have cut the game short ?

XVII.
When Venice and Rome keep their new jubilee,
When your flag takes all heaven for its white, green, and red,
When you have your country from mountain to sea,
When King Victor has Italy’s crown on his head,
(And I have my Dead) —

XVIII.
What then ? Do not mock me. Ah, ring your bells low,
And burn your lights faintly ! My country is there,
Above the star pricked by the last peak of snow :
My Italy ‘s THERE, with my brave civic Pair,
To disfranchise despair !

XIX.
Forgive me. Some women bear children in strength,
And bite back the cry of their pain in self-scorn ;
But the birth-pangs of nations will wring us at length
Into wail such as this — and we sit on forlorn
When the man-child is born.

XX.
Dead ! One of them shot by the sea in the east,
And one of them shot in the west by the sea.
Both ! both my boys ! If in keeping the feast
You want a great song for your Italy free,
Let none look at me !

‘Mother and Poet’ by Elizabeth Barrett Browning talks about a mother who had lost both of her sons in the war. Two brave soldiers who were eventually brothers fought till their last for the country. it is a great example of patriotism? But, for a mother, it is much more than that, something deep and scorching like the sun in the arid desert. The speaker’s pain goes through an avatar in E.B. Browning’s “Mother and Poet”.: : What is paining her deep, is that her two boys won’t ever return. The picture of their childhood still surrounds her mind-set. She made them aware of the values a man. And this early education of loving one’s country, is the sole cause of their death. It might have freed Italy but confined a mother in deep sadness through a womb – to – tomb. That’s why the poem says in the end that everyone in the country was happy for their nation’s achievement. But, sadly the speaker says, “I have my Dead”. In such a condition, if the country demands some celebratory verse, she can’t give any except this elegiac piece of hers.

Notes for Each of the 20 Stanzas , pending visit this post again later on to enjoy the appreciation of the poem : : : : V Jayaraj Pune India September 21 , 2022 : : ભાદરવા વદ અગિયારસ : : : : : : : :

I died for beauty — but was scarce : Emily Dickinson : : Death Poems : :

I died for beauty — but was scarce
I died for beauty — but was scarce
Adjusted in the Tomb
When One who died for Truth, was lain
In an adjoining Room —

He questioned softly “Why I failed?”
“For Beauty,” I replied —
“And I — for Truth — Themselves are One —
We Brethren, are,” He said —

And so, as Kinsmen, met a Night —
We talked between the Rooms —
Until the Moss had reached our lips —
And covered up — Our names —
F448 (1862) J449

Emily Dickinson’s ” I Died For Beauty — But Was Scarce”, is a Death Poem presenting the cause of death in “truth ” and “beauty”, through the dialogues between the two corpses “Untill the Moss reaches (their) lips And covers up — (their) names –” : The poem concludes sadly that all aspects of existence including lifetime memories attached with the names of dying persons alongside an identity are removed by death just like the Moss covers up the names on the tombstones. The “Beauty” and “Truth” for which the two persons died symbolize perfection, whereas, the “Death” symbolizes failure. The “Moss” reaches their lips and covers up both lips and names ( identify ) means that For a death everything is equal.

Notes for the 3 Stanzas : : Pending visit this post again later on to enjoy the appreciation of the poem V Jayaraj Pune India September 20 , 2022 : : ભાદરવા વદ દશમી :

I Heard A Fly Buzz When I Died : Emily Dickinson : : Death Poems : :

Emily Dickinson : : : : I Heard A Fly Buzz When I died : : : : 591 : : Written in 1862 : : : : I heard a Fly buzz – when I died –
The Stillness in the Room
Was like the Stillness in the Air –
Between the Heaves of Storm –. 4

The Eyes around – had wrung them dry –
And Breaths were gathering firm
For that last Onset – when the King
Be witnessed – in the Room -. 8

I willed my Keepsakes – Signed away
What portion of me be
Assignable – and then it was
There interposed a Fly -. 12

With Blue – uncertain – stumbling Buzz –
Between the light – and me –
And then the Windows failed – and then
I could not see to see – 16

Emily Dickinson’s : ” I Heard A Fly Buzz , When I Died ” : is a death poem about deathbed scene, final experience and sensations before the moments of death. The hearing “Fly Buzz”signifies like a connecting chain between the speaker on a deathbed and the physical earthly world. Here the speaker is a Poetess herself and an animal lover as we know of Emily Dickinson. She can imagine this last event of her life. We should not go into the dead man’s flesh being Fly’s eatery as well as habit of putting her eggs in the mouth , nose or ears after a death because then its annoying noise would be bombinating abuzz over cruelty.

” I heard a Fly buzz—when I died—
The Stillness in the Room
Was like the Stillness in the Air—
Between the Heaves of Storm— “:: Stanza 1 lines ( 1 To 4 ) : : : :

Here , She is already dead and looks back to her dying. The lasting memory she can perceive and repeat immediately is : : “I heard a Fly buzz — when I died — ” And “The Stillness in the Room .. was like the Stillness in the Air — ” which is her feelings ” Between the Heaves of Storm — ” : : 1.The raising and 2. falling movement ( Hence plural in “Heaves” ) of ‘calm’ and ‘quiet’ found at the centre of “Storm” / Cyclone / Hurricane in its circular area called ‘Eye’ of the ‘Hurricane’ : : : :

” The Eyes around—had wrung them dry— And Breaths were gathering firm
For that last Onset—When the King
Be witnessed—in the Room— ” : : : Stanza 2 lines ( 5 To 8 ) : : : :

Here , “Eyes around” mean the Visiting’ friends and relatives / later: mourners gathered around the ‘deathbed’. Their Eyes ” — wrung them dry — ” means that their crying has extracted all the ‘tears’ from their ” Eyes”. They could not save up ‘tears’ anymore. : : “Breaths” are the breathing of all these visitors who “were gathering firm” with settled understanding in common that She would definitely die that day. They wouldn’t even show up any sign of jerk or jolt. No yielding of pressure. Only a sureness with firm standing “in the Room” : : This ‘firmness’ is in their 19 th Century American Protestant belief that Jesus Christ , the King is “coming in the Room” where they have firmly gathered and will become witness to His Coming in to take her in to His Arms ” For that last Onset” : : : :

” I willed my Keepsakes—Signed away
What portion of me be 10
Assignable—and then it was
There interposed a Fly— ” : : : : Stanza 3 : : lines ( 9 To 12 ) : : : :

Here , “keepsake” is a relic or memento , an artefact survived from the past which the Poetess has “– signed away .. What portion” of her distant past .. . ” be .. Assignable — ( among her loved ones ) : : She willed for its sentimental values. These are not necessities for her as she is dying. But , the memorial ceremony and rituals of death and dying is performed at the ‘death chamber’ called upon in the 19 th Century New England American house of a dead man. Here, ” There interposed a Fly — ” means that the Fly buzz is inserted which would hinder the death ceremony. : : : :

“With Blue—uncertain stumbling Buzz—
Between the light—and me—
And then the Windows failed—and then
I could not see to see— ” : : : : Stanza 4 : : lines ( 13 To 16 ) : : : :

“Blue” And/ Or Purple are the Dickinson’s colour she always chooses to describe immortality / Eternity. Here , it is ” Blue– uncertain stumbling Buzz of Fly” which is a symbol for the ‘Mortality’ of living being. Its buzzing sound can move in and out of human consciousness. Here , it has come between the poetess and the “light”. So “Fly Buzz” is interrupting the aforesaid consciousness. Her visual Sense doesn’t catch any sight on her death. ( Is it quizzical then , how she could write her experience of hearing “Fly buzz when she died”!? ) She losses sight of the visitors too, gathered around her and , also of the lights of ‘Jesus Christ’ and or the lights from ‘His Kingdom’ or any ‘spirituality.’ : : : :

“the Windows” a metaphor for the “Eyes” which “failed” in a way is suggestive of the ‘spiritual blindness’ meaning No Vision of ‘afterlife’ after ‘death’ : : Dickinson has categorically stated in the last line : ” — and then I could not see to see — ” : : : : That is ” Nothingness ” : : : :

Dickinson’s concern for life and death is tied up with “Stillness”. In the “Room” like a death chamber. she tells her readers “The Windows” and “Eyes” failing for which she intends to establish that death keeps us to our seats for a show atleast with our own sensitivity if we have possessed that can be interrupted by a lifelike Fly buzz be- speaking non – verbally in our ears, on our dying face and its vision ; but we REMAIN ALIVE ! Till an AFFERENT IMPULSES ! !

Inder Nath Kher in his book “The Landscape of Absence: Emily Dickinson’s Poetry” , writes that ” the sound of the fly represents ‘the last conscious link with reality’. The poem ‘lacks any hint of a life after death.’ The buzz of the fly described as “Blue”, is Dickinson’s symbol for eternity which suggests that in this poem it becomes ‘the symbol of complete extinction.’ : : : :

” I Heard A Fly Buzz—When I Died— “ Emily Dickinson’s “death poem about life” : : : : Information Appreciation and poem Analysis Presented by V Jayaraj Pune India September 19 , 2022 : : ભાદરવા વદ નોમ : :

I Will Tell You How The Sun Rose : Emily Dickinson : : Death Poems : :

Emily Dickinson

I’ll tell you how the Sun rose (204)
I’ll tell you how the Sun rose –
A Ribbon at a time –
The Steeples swam in Amethyst –
The news, like Squirrels, ran –
The Hills untied their Bonnets –
The Bobolinks – begun –
Then I said softly to myself –
“That must have been the Sun”!
But how he set – I know not –
There seemed a purple stile
That little Yellow boys and girls
Were climbing all the while –
Till when they reached the other side –
A Dominie in Gray –
Put gently up the evening Bars –
And led the flock away –

Emily Dickinson’s “I’ll tell you how the Sun rose” , is in a very impressive manner ponders ‘Sunrise’ and then ‘Sunset‘. The sun’s rays are like ” A 🎀 ribbon at a time — is released alongside with colours of other such ribbons; which waver the water up to a place where the super structure of the Church tapering to the top swam in chromatic purple colour ( in “Amethyst–” ) : “The news” of this ‘Sunrise’ “ran” fast “like squirrels,” : : There is a hurry in upcoming of ‘A Day’ : :

The unlaced ( “untied”) cover of “Bonnets” of “The hills” ( of newly looking car ) are set free to come to be mindful of the presence of the spreading lights in the morning. ” The Bobolinks” black birds “–begun–” have begun to sing. “That must have been the Sun”! : An extraordinary observation and reporting appears. Only a child exclaims about the aforesaid phenomenon of morning and rise of the day. The child is confident of an event.

Soon , there is a decrease in phase as the evening approaches. (S)he does not know much about ‘Sunset’. Dickinson intends to show the changeover of Sun from a system of morning to an evening ; metaphorically a transition from ‘life’ To ‘death’. Talking over an exciting scene is easier for a child but the fearful scene of an event occuring naturally would displease him/ her and keep back his/ her expression. (S)he can see “ That little Yellow boys and girls
Were climbing all the while –” and she can see an empurpling “stile” which is a set of steps over a sky with sun setting down in the west with yellow- skinned Chinese ( perhaps ) “boys and girls climbing all the while”as a day of school has ended. They are now homeward just like sheeps are inclined to go away from the area of scene as driven by a Churchman/ shepherd in the dark purplish evening approaching very fast.

“Till when they reached the other side,

A Dominie in Gray –

Put gently up the evening Bars –

And led the flock away – ” Stanza 4 : lines (13 To 16 ) : :

Here “flock” and “Dominie in gray” signifies the thoughts about death. Where a “Dominie in gray” means “God”, and “flock” means human beings, The school / The children signify the colourful morning in human life ; whereas “evening Bars” are an obstructions placed at the top of the ‘Goal’: : chromatic dark purple colour of the ‘afterlife’ unbars the last “evening Bars” to go away from the mortal place of life on the earth. : : Dickinson believes God unbars all the obstructions in reaching higher Goal of immortal eternity we as a reader forcefully can imagine this Scenario occuring in Nature. God leads human souls wherever after they die. : : : :

Emily Dickinson’s
A Day (I’ll Tell You How The Sun Rose) : : Information Appreciation and poem Analysis Presented by V Jayaraj Pune India September 18 , 2022 : : ભાદરવા વદ આઠમ : : : : ::

My Life Closed Twice Before Its Close — : Emily Dickinson : : Death Poems : :

My life closed twice before its close—
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me 4

So huge, so hopeless to conceive 5
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven.
And all we need of hell 8 — Emily Dickinson: : : : : : : :

” My Life Closed Twice Before It’s Close” By Emily Dickinson : reflects on Immortality and afterlife with a mysterious riddle.

Her “life closed” involved the deaths of her two loved ones , thus two occasions have surpassed ; and she is now waiting for “A third event to me”: : ‘Before she has died herself, she has known the deaths of two people who meant so much to her that their deaths led, in a small way, to her own. That’s why she says in the opening line of the poem ” My life closed twice before its close – ” : : Whether there is an afterlife , ” It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me” ( As in lines 2 , 3 & 4 ) It is meaningless to try to understand it’s extent and scope in any Human contemplation. ” Parting is all we know of heaven out of becoming a witness to the death of our loved ones and the only way we can learn of hell, until we ourselves die , whether good or bad, might be like. Otherwise, we cannot conceive of such a thing : : The word “closed” chew over both the ‘hearbreak’ and ‘death’ at a time which produce a ‘void’ that can be filled with her own ‘death’ And she is waiting for the “immortality” to come to her as she says in lines 3 & 4 that will remove the cover of mystery and make a third event of ‘closure’ : : The 3 Rd time that heart will break and perhaps it will be her actual ‘death’ : :

Emily Dickinson’s ‘My life closed twice before its close’ : : information Appreciation and poem Analysis Presented by V Jayaraj Pune India September 17 , 2022 : : ભાદરવા વદ સાતમ : : : : : : : :

Because I Could Not Stop For Death : Emily Dickinson : : Death Poems : :

“Because I Could Not Stop For Death” (479) : : By Emily Dickinson: ( ) Because I could not stop for Death –
He kindly stopped for me –
The Carriage held but just Ourselves –
And Immortality. 4

We slowly drove – He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility – 8

We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess – in the Ring –
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain –
We passed the Setting Sun – 12

Or rather – He passed Us –
The Dews drew quivering and Chill –
For only Gossamer, my Gown –
My Tippet – only Tulle – 16

We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground –
The Roof was scarcely visible –
The Cornice – in the Ground – 20

Since then – ’tis Centuries – and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses’ Heads
Were toward Eternity – 24

“I Could Not Stop For Death” By Emily Dickinson is her best-known poem, and is about her speaker’s leisurely journey into the ‘afterlife’ with personified Mortal “Death” leading the way , “Death”and “Immortality”:Mirror (opposite to death) image ; being living characters giving a feel of ‘ease’ as familiar, and also ‘cruel’ and ‘evil’ on shifting a ‘tone’ in the poem. The ( taxi – like ) carriage stopped as if a ride for the passenger (s) driven by Male ‘driver’ held ” just ourselves and Immortality”, and its “ Horses” Heads”pointed ” towards eternity–” They pass a school, fields, and the setting sun (a very obvious symbol of death). The three stages of human life: childhood (the school), our prime (embodied by the fertile ‘Gazing Grain’, suggesting the idea of cultivating a field and planting crops and working for one’s living), and then our decline into old age (the setting sun) passed them. They paused before a house that seems to rise naturally out of the earth, with its roof barely visible and its cornice (an ornamental moulding round the wall of a room, found just below the ceiling) in the ground. This is a house of earth, like a dolmen or earthwork built for a tomb The poem concludes with the speaker saying that it has been centuries since all this occurred. The poem’s speaker, and Death, dwelt in this ‘House’ (a house of death) for many centuries. Yet all that time has passed more quickly than a single day,What begins in the simple past ends in Eternity, endless life after death where time has no consequence. Mortality faces Eternity. : : : :

*I Could Not Stop For Death” By Emily Dickinson : : Information Appreciation and poem Analysis Presented by V Jayaraj Pune India September 16 , 2022 : : ભાદરવા વદ છઠ : ::