Letter 173

19 August 2020: I think I am just about done with the syllabus for my Dickinson Seminar. I know there are important ideas/topics that I am leaving out, but I keep telling myself that it's okay since this semester is going to be such a challenge and it's best to keep expectations reasonable. 

Finally decided today which of Dickinson's letters to Sue to include, and am adding the one below, letter #173, probably from 1854, which I haven't taught before. Apparently, there is no further reference to any split between them, but the drama unfolding here is pretty clear and really speaks to me. I am just going to paste the whole thing, which includes a poem at the end.

 Sue - you can go or stay - There is but one alternative - We differ often lately, and this must be the last.

     You need not fear to leave me lest I should be alone, for I often part with things I fancy I have loved, - sometimes to the grave, and sometimes to an oblivion rather bitterer that death - thus my heart bleeds so frequently that I shant mind the hemorrhage, and I only add an agony to several previous ones, and at the end of day remark - a bubble burst!

     Such incidents would grieve me when I was but a child, and perhaps I could have wept when little feet hard by mine, stood still in the coffin, but eyes grow dry sometimes, and hearts get crisp and cinder, and had as lief burn.

     Sue - I have lived by this. It is the lingering emblem of the Heaven I once dreamed, and though if this is taken, I shall remain alone, and though in that last day, the Jesus Christ you love, remark he does not know me - there is a darker spirit will not disown it's child.

     Few have been given me, and if I love them so, that for idolatry, they are removed from me - I simply murmur gone, and the billow dies away into the boundless blue, and no one knows but me, that one went down today. We have walked very pleasantly - Perhaps this is the point at which our paths diverge - then pass on -singing Sue, and up the distant hill I journey on.

I have a Bird in spring

Which for myself doth sing -

The spring decoys.

And as the summer nears -

And as the Rose appears,

Robin is gone.

Yet do I not repine

Knowing that Bird of mine

Though flown -

Learneth beyond the sea

Melody new for me

And will return.

Fast in a safer hand

Held in a truer Land

Are mine -

And though they now depart,

Tell I my doubting heart

They're thine.

In a serener Bright,

In a more golden light

I see

Each little doubt and fear,

Each little discord here

Removed.

Then will I not repine,

Knowing that Bird of mine

Though flown

Shall in a distant tree

Bright melody for me

Return.