ArticleIP_3411.txt

   
   
      
         
            443 (

            By Emily
Dickinson (1830-1886)

            
               (posted Wednesday, Jan.
28 )
            

            To hear Robert Pinsky read
"443," click .

            Emily Dickinson is a stern,
maybe even a harsh poet. The richness of language, image, and imagination all
contrast with her austerities and stringencies: Nothing could be further from
the beloved middlebrow notion of Dickinson as a charmingly dotty, fey spinster
or wistful girl, all eccentricity and repression.

            The homely
domestic details of this poem, the shawl and the vase, convey a dire, steely
perception: that life's sweetness may run out long before the duties. Here is
no benign affirmation of redemption. On the other hand, there is something in
her clarity on this point, her ferocity of truth, and her firm sense that it is
her duty to carry on, that I find exhilarating. Even the dashes, with their
suspended, rising quality, suggest the vitality of endurance.

            -- Robert Pinsky
            

            I tie my Hat--I crease my
Shawl--Life's little duties do--precisely--As the very least Were infinite--to
me--

            I put new Blossoms in the
Glass--And throw the old--away--I push a petal from my GownThat anchored
there--I weighThe time 'twill be till six o'clockI have so much to do--And
yet--Existence--some way back--Stopped--struck--my ticking--through--We cannot
put Ourself awayAs a completed ManOr Woman--When the Errand's doneWe came to
Flesh--upon--There may be--Miles on Miles of Nought--Of Action--sicker far--To
simulate--is stinging work--To cover what we areFrom Science--and from
Surgery--Too Telescopic EyesTo beat on us unshaded--For their--sake--not for
Ours--'Twould start them--We--could tremble--But since we got a Bomb--And held
it in our Bosom--Nay--Hold it--it is calm--

            Therefore--we do life's
labor--Though life's Reward--be done--With scrupulous exactness--To hold our
Senses--on--