[Christopher Mulrooney]

This is poem 67 in the Laurel Poetry Series edition (General Editor, Richard Wilbur), the introduction (wherein John Malcolm Brinnin states the Dickinson/Sappho comparison) and the purchase of which I discussed in another thread. Because that thread was closed at the request of one of its participants, I was unable to add:

A) The Emily Dickinson lovefest is without end.
B) I was reminded of the Oxford student who, upon hearing the Latin prayer in the refectory, asked what it meant and was told it was thanks for the food. He looked down at his plate and said, for this? A tablemate leaned over and said, "Spiritual food".
C) The number of great poets abused in that slender thread would have astounded Bob Southey—and now we'll have a defense of Bob Southey, I calculate ("he really wasn't that bad"), and maybe a discussion thread, Bob Southey & his times.

If there exists another version of this poem with Dickinson's vastly superior punctuation, I would very much like to see it.


The robin is the one
That interrupts the morn
With hurried, few, express reports
When March is scarcely on.

The robin is the one
That overflows the noon
With her cherubic quantity,
An April but begun.

The robin is the one
That speechless from her nest
Submits that home and certainty
And sanctity are best.


The charm of this is rescuing "home and certainty and sanctity" from meaninglessness; the man that hath no music in him will interpret the meter as that of "The farmer in the dell", but that cannot be helped. The rhymes do not present the problem perceived in "side" and "beside" which was discussed on the closed thread, but those are not identities, and are prepared by anticipation (Mallarmé in "Cantique de Saint Jean" rhymes "triomphaux" and "faux", and "désaccords" and "corps"). Since the "major" contender for a bone here has been her punctuation, I will reserve discussion of it until a variant is located, if one exists. Otherwise, if this board will indulge me, I shall do so in relation to "The Soul selects her own society", which is given by Brinnin in both the Todd & Higginson and the Johnson texts, as best I may. For the nonce, it ought to be sufficient to point out in the second stanza of the latter poem, Dickinson's dashes not only allow dramatic isolation of words and phrases, they enrich her resources by imbuing them with ambiguity, or better say two-sidedness:

Unmoved—she notes the Chariots—pausing—
At her low Gate—
Unmoved—an Emperor be kneeling
Upon her Mat—

The loss of activity in the editorial revision is striking, but is not likely to be noticed by readers who wish, for some reason, that Emily Dickinson was somebody else:

Unmoved, she notes the chariot's pausing
At her low gate;
Unmoved, an emperor is kneeling
Upon her mat.

Such a splendid instrument. Her other broodlings have Cummings in their number:


love is more thicker

love is more thicker than forget
more thinner than recall
more seldom than a wave is wet
more frequent than to fail

it is most mad and moonly
and less it shall unbe
than all the sea which only
is deeper than the sea

love is less always than to win
less never than alive
less bigger than the least begin
less littler than forgive

it is most sane and sunly
and more it cannot die
than all the sky which only
is higher than the sky



[This message has been edited by Christopher Mulrooney (edited February 26, 2001).]

[Alan Sullivan]

This is how the text appears in my Complete Poems of E.D., edited by Johnson, where it is # 828. Forgive my double dashing; I'm not sure how to Java an em-dash, and not sure I would want do it, if I knew the code. The comma in the last line is a bit surprising.

The Robin is the One
That interrupts the Morn
With hurried--few--express reports
When March is scarcely on--

The Robin is the One
That overflows the Noon
With her cherubic quantity--
An April but begun--

The Robin is the One
That speechless from her Nest
Submits that Home--and Certainty
And Sanctity, are best.

As for the cummings poem you posted, Christopher: to my simple mind that edges over the border of subtlety into nonsense. Perhaps this is the peril of seeking to emulate Miss D. But I completely agree about her punctuation. It should be honored, not emasculated

Alan Sullivan

[Christopher Mulrooney]

Thank you very much, Alan. This illustrates a considerable part of Dickinson's technique with punctuation.

With hurried—few—express reports

Mere commas would make this a list, instead of an idea in modification. This is almost a compound word, or one cinematically moving, made of three expressions brought together in this way to spare a ton of verbiage.

With —An April but begun— Dickinson forces an easy expression into something like an aphorism or Japanese poetry. Notice also this very distinctive effect in the second stanza of "The Soul selects her own society", cited in my previous posting, in which the difficulty does not occur I pointed out in these lines:

Submits that Home--and Certainty
And Sanctity, are best.

"Home" is the robin's nest—here again, the dash represents her three nouns as not equalities, necessarily.

It will be seen that Brinnin's assessment of the revisions by Mrs. Todd and Mrs. Bianchi ("and especially under the keen eye of Mrs. Todd, much in the way of clarity, appositeness and visual felicity has been gained") is arrant nonsense and the sort of argument used for centuries to mutilate Shakespeare.

As for the Cummings, Alan, "to your simple mind that edges over the border of subtlety into nonsense" what? That is the peril of seeking to dismiss Cummings: you tend to trail off into an unfortunate aposiopesis. I know a man of fine intellectual qualities, learned in his field, who thinks Picasso is a nut. Fortunately, this great and good man does not paint, and that is the way of contradictions: Dalí recognized Picasso's eminence, but did not hesitate to dispraise his paintings as "not that beautiful" in relation to those of Bouguereau, for example, which he said are "not that ugly". As Abe Lincoln said when asked about certain unfavorable newspaper editorials, it's like the man who let his wife beat on his head every evening, because it did him no harm at all and did her a power of good. It's an odd story, but as Dickinson says:

Much madness is divinest sense
To a discerning eye;
Much sense the starkest madness.
'Tis the majority
In this, as all, prevails.
Assent, and you are sane;
Demur,—you're straightway dangerous,
And handled with a chain.

Let's consider the Cummings. It's a little thing built of contradictions and seeming contradictions, and the technique is Dickinson minus her apparatus, if you'll pardon the expression (everyone knows how difficult it is to write true nonsense, and what's in that for Cummings?).

love is [intensifier] thicker

love is [intensifier] thicker than the fog of forgetfulness
[intensifier] thinner than a mere recollection
less frequent than a wave can be tautologically defined as wet
more frequent than failure

it is most mad and moonly
and less it shall perish
than all the sea which only
the sea is deeper than [i.e., nothing is deeper than the sea, except, if you will, the sea of love]

love is less [intensifier] than to win
less [negative] than alive
less bigger than the least begin*
less little than forgiveness

it is most sane and sunly
and it cannot die any more
than all the sky which only
the sky is higher than [see above]

*An irreducible line, perhaps, or not by me, this recalls Browning's famous adjuration to young writers that they should make a start, howsoever "infinitesimal" it should be.



[This message has been edited by Christopher Mulrooney (edited February 23, 2001).]

[robert mezey]

Well, it may just be that I have no music in my soul,
but Dickinson's little robin lyric strikes me as one
of her more perfunctory jingles. Sometimes she can
do some fine things with her limited range of meter
(like the trochaics of "There's a certain slant of
light") but on the whole she is seldom much more than
adequate in her handling of sound, I think, even in
some of her greatest lyrics. (Compared to Frost, say,
she is an amateur of prosody.)

[Alan Sullivan]

Yes, Robert, I agree. This one is merely a homily, repeated almost by rote. No sign of that alarming mind at work.

I also agree about her use of sounds. Pretty limited. But sometimes her mind takes flight, and she achieves something like slant rhyme with her expositions. Slant thought, if you will.

Alan Sullivan

[Christopher Mulrooney]

"The robin is the One" is a miracle of conciseness. The keys of its construction are "hurried—few—express reports", which mirrors the structure, and the characteristic invention of "cherubic quantity", which is "Home", analyzed as "Certainty/And Sanctity".

The rhymes are functional in that they are modulated cunningly and humorously from "one" through "Morn" and "reports" to "on" with an interplay of resonances that prepare the ear for "one" and "Noon" and "quantity" and "begun", resolved as "one", "Nest", "Certainty" and "best", which leaves "reports" as an echo of "Morn".

On another level, the crucial sonorities of "March" and "April" are matched by "Sanctity" in the same position (Rimbaud was writing, "What are the seasons to us, who seek the divine light everywhere?" Note also the Haydnesque symmetry of "Morn" and "Noon" and "Nest").

On still another level, the mots justes "interrupts", "overflows" and "speechless" carry the poem in their place.

And on yet another level, "scarcely" rings and "but" resounds to endow "are" with a soft luster (a very Mahlerian way of proceeding, to my way of thinking).

Finally, the adroit placement of "Submits" brings all this to a close like reining in a horse-team at the gallop.

In short, a poem "practically perfect in every way", which suggests her reticence to write lengthier works and also to promulgate them is akin to Webern, who anticipated being "misunderstood" in his intentions.



[This message has been edited by Christopher Mulrooney (edited February 26, 2001).]

[Alan Sullivan]

It's as close to perfect as a poem can be. But perfection isn't everything. This is a throw-away, in comparison with E.D.'s serious work. She did not take a homiletic view of the universe, when she spoke on her own behalf.

Alan Sullivan

[Christopher Mulrooney]

You no doubt remember the telegram Stravinsky received from Billy Rose: YOUR BALLET GREAT SUCCESS STOP COULD BE GREATER IF ALLOW ROBERT RUSSELL BENNETT RE-ORCHESTRATE STOP BENNETT HAS ORCHESTRATED COLE PORTER STOP, to which Stravinsky replied, SATISFIED WITH GREAT SUCCESS.

"The robin is the One" is no more homiletic, or, if you prefer, no less so than Mallarmé's "Cantique de Saint Jean", which goes something like this:

Canticle of Saint John

The sun which its halt
Supernatural exalts
As soon redescends
BANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTIncandescent

I feel as at the backbone
Spread out shadows
All in a tremble
BANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTTogether

And my head up-cropped
Solitary lookout
In the triumphant flights
BANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTOf this scythe

As frank rupture
Rather repels or cuts
Ancient discords
BANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTWith the corpse

Than it from fastings mellow
Obstinates to follow
In some leap haggard
BANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTIts pure regard

On high where the chill
Eternal stands not still
For your surpassing
BANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTAll o glaciers

But according to a baptism
Illuminated with the same
Principle that elected me
BANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTInclines a greeting.

Or, for that matter, Donne's fourth Satire, in Pope's versification:

Howe'er what's now Apocrypha, my Wit,
In time to come, may pass for holy writ.



[This message has been edited by Christopher Mulrooney (edited February 27, 2001).]

[Len Krisak]

Dash, dash, dash (or is it dot, dot, dot?)--
(Endeavour) Morse is on the way.

A challenge to Christopher:

Try reading the last line of stanza one
(When March is scarcely on--) FIRST with
the dash at the end and THEN with a (ho-hum)
plain old garden variety period.

Please report back and let us know how
different they sound.

[Christopher Mulrooney]

The difference of breath between a dash and a full stop is that one is bated, and the other halted.

[This message has been edited by Christopher Mulrooney (edited February 26, 2001).]