Ample Make This Bed
Ample make this bed.
Make this bed with awe;
In it wait till judgment break
Excellent and fair.
Be its mattress straight,
Be its pillow round;
Let no sunrise' yellow noise
Interrupt this ground.
Commentary
(Complete Poems Part Four: Time and Eternity, LXIII)
After reading today’s Emily Dickinson (Poem #1328) and reflecting on the recent “poetry in the movies” thread, I thought of this poem, used to such great effect in “Sophie’s Choice” and especially touching to anyone like me who’s recently lost a loved one.
Graves are often compared to beds, and death to sleep, but Dickinson’s description seems especially poignant to me, since graves are frequently described as narrow or deep, but “ample” seems both an unusual and apt term.
— Linda
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From the Wondering Minstrels mailing list, 1999–2008.
Nomad · 29 August 2003
This is one of the best poems you could pick, a tremendous poem. I have heard wonderful professors do an hour long lecture just on the layers of amazing shit in this poem. It is one of them that lives deep inside of me.
Chris
Matt Chanoff · 29 August 2003
One thing that’s shockingly beautiful about this poem to me is how eroticized it is. Except for the line “in it wait till judgment break,” it could be about a marriage bed.
Also, Dickinson has a way of doing things wrong that somehow seem right. What’s the deal with breaking the rhyme at the end of the first but not the last stanza? And who’s she addressing? Overall, it’s like a prayer to God, but some of it addresses the diseased “in it wait…”
Also, it reminds me of something my 10th grade poetry teacher said: look for trochees in poems about death. The stressed, unstressed rhythm gives a sense of trailing off, drifting away. Think of “To be or not to be, that is the question/…fortune/…end them.” This poem is all trochees, but each line ends with a final stressed syllable. Where Shakespeare was using this rhythm to brood about death, he was also expressing Hamlet’s indecisiveness (trailing off, mumbling). Dickinson uses that final stress to add a feeling of finality.
Beautiful poem, nice choice.
Matt
VnVJC37 · 10 September 2003
I, too, remember my poetry prof spend an hour lecturing on the deep layers of this poem and compare the bed to a grave and pass judgment on the author, saying that she must have been in terrible despair over a lost relationship in order to prefer the sleeping state to the waking state. But I must confess: This poem came to mind several months ago simply when my alarm clock went off and the sun was shining through my window on my face and I realized I had to drag myself up to go to work. That moment of the day is usually awful for me, for all I want to do is go back to the comforts of sleep. I know that’s a superficial analysis, but I honestly think it suffices on some level.
Thank you very much for letting me share…
MarChrist · 30 October 2004
yes it is a marriage bed and a not-wanting-to-get-out-of-bed bed.
of course the death bed is there and that’s why it’s so great for s’s choice b/c it is a marriage bed and death bed. look at the story and the end of the film.
when i hear the poem i hear love and coupling but when i read it in print i see death. idn’t that weird?
Dbrockskk · 12 July 2006
first heard it in “Sophie’s Choice” and it’s stayed with me ever since.