Jeff Berndt · 19 October 2000

Wow, I’m just surprised to see an Emily Dickinson poem that can’t be sung to the tune of “The Yellow Rose of Texas.”

I’ll be sharing this with friends. ;-)

Thanks for running this day-brightening list!

Jeff Berndt.

Todd · 20 October 2000

I would like to offer a reading of this poem, for what it is worth. As is not unusual with Dickinson’s poems, it is puzzling in some ways.

The lark represents the speaker, the poet. The lark’s music is the outpouring of the speaker’s heart, or her poetry. She addresses one who, like Thomas, lacks belief. The allusion to Thomas puts the speaker into a position parallel to that of Christ. Thomas refused to believe that Christ had risen, that he lived. In the final line the speaker asks, “Now, do you doubt that your Bird was true?” Her love and fidelity are as infinite as those of Christ – of God!

The second line (“Bulb after Bulb, in Silver rolled –”) occasioned the discussion to which Martin gave us a web-link. I believe that the poet is offering here a visual image of her music. I was reminded of a poem that I read recently in which the poet offered a whole series of visual equivalents of musical sounds. It was very well done, but I searched for it this morning and couldn’t find it. For me “bulb” is just a rounded, tapered shape such as a musical note might make. “Silver” is suggestive of music.

I was also reminded of Emerson’s poem “Rubies.” These are the first two stanzas:

They brought me rubies from the mine,
And held them to the sun;
I said, they are drops of frozen wine
From Eden’s vats that run.

I looked again, – I thought them hearts
Of friends to friends unknown;
Tides that should warm each neighboring life
Are locked in sparkling stone.

Dickinson frequently speaks of rubies, Eden, wine… Emerson was a an enormously influential figure in Dickinson’s day, a world-famous writer and philosopher who lived in a nearby town (and who once visited at the Dickinson home).

In lines three and four (“Scantily dealt to the Summer Morning/Saved for your Ear when Lutes be old…”) the poet suggests how vast are the reserves of her love. The song of the lark, so abundant on a summer morning, is scantily dealt in comparison with the outpouring she is saving for this other person.

The song of the lark, once truly “loosed,” will gush out in a great flood. The word “flood” recalls Dickinson’s comment to someone that immortality was her “flood subject,” i.e., the subject that caused the greatest outpouring of her creative work.

Todd

Christine Schroeder · 20 January 2003

Actually my reading is somewhat different -
By “split the lark” Dickinson means just that - cut the lark open, and you will easily find the bits and pieces that make the music (bulb after bulb…ugh…). She says if you want to dissect something to make absolutely certain that it is true (the “scarlet experiment” and the “gush after gush” is the blood of the bird), then you can certainly verify it…but at what cost? Obviously, once you have proven that the bird is capable of song (by killing it and splitting it open), it is no longer capable of it because of what you have done. That’s where the “sceptic Thomas” comes in…she is gently chiding the disbeliever for not having enough faith to take the beautiful music for the gift that it is.

sandi_ordinario · 2 May 2003

I agree with Christine’s comment above. Us poets, would-be poets, obscurantists all, tend to read too much into poems. I think the doubting Thomas referred to is someone who is incredulous of the “songs” of Emily…so she suggests to “open” her up to see that she is indeed real. The downside of course is that it will mean the end of her songs just to convince the skeptic…

Sandi

Ethan0807 · 10 October 2003

I’ve always thought that this poem was an obvious description of, how should I put it, defloration. It’s about man that doubted his loves “virtue,” but was assuaged of this fear by their first act of lovemaking. She was virginal.

I think once you look at it under this interpretation, it becomes quite obvious, especially the second verse.

“Patent,” by the way, means “exposed” or “spread.” (It’s an older use of the word.)

vadrine · 1 April 2006

I agree whole-heartedly with Ethan.

A friend showed me this poem, to get my take on it. I hadn’t read it before. Seemed obvious to me.. glaringly so.

I Googled it only after he’d been shocked by my interpretation and I was gobsmacked to see no one had read it this way until ethan’s post.

Graphic imagery for a dramatic experience.