I haven't told my garden yet — by Emily Dickinson
I haven't told my garden yet —
Lest that should conquer me.
I haven't quite the strength now
To break it to the Bee —
I will not name it in the street
For shops would stare at me —
That one so shy — so ignorant
Should have the face to die.
The hillsides must not know it —
Where I have rambled so —
Nor tell the loving forests
The day that I shall go —
Nor lisp it at the table —
Nor heedless by the way
Hint that within the Riddle
One will walk today —
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/I_haven%27t_told_my_garden_yet_%E2%80%94
Emily returns to day in fine form as per usual!
Here is a segue (i thought seque meant Sedgeway! a totally different a thing!learn something new everyday; got to keep current!)
Anyway, today is a bit wobbly for me as I am under the weather. Being that the weather is under the weather! Quite sick absolutely No sun for a week! What's up with that? Maybe I need the sun for my Vitamin D? Could be although I take D supplements today as per how important Vit D is lately...is it?
Maybe it is the slave fires in Slave Lake?
Maybe it is simply May the Queen month of Spring. As per April showers bring May flowers! We all know this so we must enjoy the light rains. But what is with the barometric pressure and those crazy tons of tornado's whenever my ear aches? I am sure I am not the only one to suffer from pressure. That's why I like Ms Emily so much; "pressure free since 1860's" or thereabouts!
Yes, we see the flowers budding, coming to life this week, (I wish i were; quite the opposite)
And as the green springs so vibrantly bringing back to life all around there is green at Blue Mountain. And all the stars are out and happy; the mood upbeat. An aside; yes, Collingwood has had a number of Hollywood productions here and we are often called, besides Toronto, Hollywood North to Northwest. As per Toronto's proximity to Collingwood being Northwest of Toronto). A glimpse of star material is to be expected not anticipated. Very exclusive; very fifi, very location location.
We have noted the attack of yellow with the first of the Forsythias and the Lotus or Magnolia trees ( I always thought Magnolias look like Lotuses) in full bloom NOW. So pretty but take a picture THIS MINUTE, as these trees only last one week maximum in bloom! Next will be the fine and glorious scented lilacs, purple and white. Prefer the scented variety but the deep purple are so gorgeous, even though a greenhouse hybrid. We lived by the depot a few years ago and when we left the house we noticed the profusion of scented lilacs; I will always remember the scent; it stays with one. Me being one!
Talking about lilacs; our area was once (maybe it still is?) the lilac capital of Canada. Many travel far and wide to view the lilacs in full bloom. Lilacs remind me of the French for some reason, perhaps my Gran mama.
A little history lesson; Sir Sanford Flemming, the inventor of Standard time as well as the illustrator of Canada's first stamp (a beaver) as well as one of the famous dignitaries who hammered the last spike of the CN rail did live a minutes drive from here (get out your gps!). His renaissance man of the 19th Century did endure and so did his many lilacs still appreciated around "The Depot" the CN trail depot once a restaurant and now a museum. Great lectures can be had, as per the amazing history of this area, prehistory ancient, and voyageur to current. Charles Garrad, a fine archeologist from Toronto has written extensively regarding the native history of this area. One may want to research the Huronia Worshipping Rock for further interesting history. Yes a portal to the overworldlies is just a stone throw away! Not that I am going there anytime soon although with this summer cold/flu or whatever I certainly did feel the rock opening up abit! Great Shamans!
Now; Back to good ol' Emily! Where were we? Oh yes..."I haven't told my garden yet"...reminds me of "I haven't told my garden that I love her". Isn't this a song.."Have I told you lately that I love you?" by Rod Stewart! Yes I thought this sounded familiar! However a garden is the object of desire here! Sorry Rod!
"I haven't quite the strength now
To break it to the Bee"
Again I think Ms Emily is discussing her "Bee" her best friend (and we should by now all know who this personage "be". (please read again all my Emily Dickinson (49) inserts. ok I'll tell you (if I must!) Sue Gilbert (not related to The Little House on the Prairie Gilbert, but maybe a relative?)
OK, I think Emily has "rambling poets disease" where the poet takes a bevy of books and heads to the hills to read alone to the plants and all God's creature fine literature out loud en pleine air (in plain air). That's French, you know!
"The day I shall go"
Who knows the day or the hour? Biblical reference to when one will die. It could be any day now (aren't you lucky). Miss Emily being ever the Victorian melodrama Queen certainly loves to gush Gothic romantic energy. Some would call it "feigning flowers" or as per the gruesome habit of those maudlin days. Reminds me of the PBS Masterpiece theatre cartoon with the lady with vapours with hand to forehead. Still can hear her say "ahhhh...ahhhhh!". Oh that Iconic image that!
So Emily is really rambling with the ramble brush and raspberry bushes. Emily is highly imaginative in nature but feels "shy" (obviously) when in the socialite circle. This may be a reason why she never did commit to marriage. I have my theories!
Yes Emily is, above all else, personable. She is a character, but a living-once breathing one! And surely alive in her writing today. Her liveliness jumps off the page!
"Nor lisp it at the table —
Nor heedless by the way"
This is a fun way to say something! Did Emily have a lisp? Did she prefer to whisper? And was she really "heedless" or referencing in a jovial jocular manner maybe hyperbole "heedless" as "headless" making poking reference to The Headless Horseman of her contemporary writer The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving. I believe Ms Emily's Alma mater or at least a New Englander. Read the book. Johnny Depp was fine in the movie, but I much preferred the book! Isn't that always the way!
Nor lisp it at the table —
Nor heedless by the way
Hint that within the Riddle
One will walk today —
The last stanza in any poem usual is the crux or climax of the poem. Here is no exception, Ms Emily is profound in her usage of the "off wordiness". Off wordiness is my own definition of the tendency by many poets to use words that are not exactly antonyms or synonyms but just close enough by sight or sound to allude to the word used.
Also used in an alliterative rhythmic nature; creating great cadence and thought-bubble. Usually an trickster "ah-hah" moment of personal discover; aka mystic method to propel mysticism. The great allusion! meaning the great illusion; sheer trickery technique! So "lisp" could mean "limp" as Emily alludes to "One will walk today" see how we see other things in similes? Very familiar for a ghost! And "Hint with the Riddle" Emily is using this word-exchange "off wordiness" as a way of off-putting the usual and making a new reference to that which she wants us to reference which is weak "not strong" dying and death. Lovely!
Yes I do love remorse in the repose somewhat! Creaky doors and all that glibness.
Chiccoreal's Take on "I Haven't Sold My Garden Yet"
No I will make no allusion
to the illusions that my garden grows and grows
Pretty little cockle shells all in a row
Now we all know gardens
do not grow when watching them
So one with the dreaded limp
of lamprey eels reels
or the coarse lispyness
of a thousand beheaded clowns
screaming whilst
riding horseback
I want my horse back! they say
when it is really their heads they want back!
and we all know how ghosts cannot walk
and they cannot talk
thus they are limp so ~ poor dears!
they cant walk? I beg to differ!
but they are a little lispy ~ romantically so
(have you ever heard a ghost rattle?
sounds like consumption to me
get out the Laudenum
yes ghost do float
and are more whispy than lispy
like chained helium balloons
they are not going anywhere soon
and return "again and again and again"
and oft find foggy mist a must
in which to a illuminate their filthy filmy bodies
with the accompanying off-scent
from the deep aqua sea
quite fishy!
to where there be
Miss Emily
Any sightings of her ghost lately?
I've got my theories!
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/ Yes Masterpiece Theatre~!
jj
Boy did I analyze this all wrong (er incorrectly)..remember I have ben sick..No excuse! I do believe thatthis poem is all about LOVE..and the way Emily can only "go tell it on the hillside" and shout out love to the hills..and we all know The Bee is em's riddledu jour..of the day yes! ok! there you go! oh Boy...
ReplyDeletea wonderful blog.. so glad to be here :)
ReplyDeleteAnd here I was thinking it's all about death.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your visits and for leaving such engaging comments. I appreciate your presence very much.
Have a nice day! (Where I am it's Sunday and the world hasn't come to an end yet. Yay! Think I'll go to bed now. When I get up I'll make myself some flapjacks.)
It almost sounded like a scenic tour through life...but basically that is what life is all about anyways...enjoy my Dearest chiccoreal(+)
ReplyDeleteLove,
Dom*;)xoxoxo---{--@
We all interpret a poem to fit our own lives. You can't have had it wrong, then. I loved your take.
ReplyDeleteOff-wordiness- love it. : )
Thank-you for your fine comments...i am unabashedly humbled ever-so-much! Yes, Andreas! Definitinely you are correct. Now I see this!Probably tis about death; although I think death for a transcendentalist like Emily maybe a positive thing, more of a transforming into something new. Not all oxygen-spent moth balled lifestyles of the over-stuffed davenports and tight and rigid clothing and limited expressive allowed by overtly righteous and morally uptight norms of the Victorian era. Was death a better thing for them? In Emily's mind her escapism into death-themes seems to suggest this (as so much ado regarding how much like death is to love; a sacrificial ritual played over and over again like a 1800's sitcom rerun. A fascination with death? More than likely, a want for spiritual renewal, then to rebirth and on to everlasting life with the Creator. It is immortality sought; infinity's eternal gem. The focus is always foggy when the transition from death and dying to eternal life is concerned. The transition can beome more of the focus because this was the "mind-set" of the people back then. A morbid curosity house. I keep smelling mothballs!And not in the traditional "death-wish" sense.Although often I get the sense that Emily does speak much too much about death and maybe had not found the "secret" as to "how-to find the positive in the impossible..death palor and way of emboding death as a cultural norm due to the extreme proximity to death all around her. So becoming somewhat morose and all-consumed with death and dying may be the norm in Victorian culture rather than the exception. They are "beyond" mortal...death always encrouching (er..encroaching) upon their lives to lead them to the great beyond of less coil, chains and other earthly things that weight the sould down. The Spirit needs life and a belief that there is more than death waiting to cross over the River; but we only have glimpses of that now. We dread the death parts but they are part of the whole and required "reading". We have to go beyond the death-theme infiltration somehow. Emily is yet totally focused uon this theme and so we will let her be. It is fun to find her when she is jumping in the air, or frolicking in her hills. Then she is free from the material bondage and the chattles which enslaves us and keep us prisoner here.
ReplyDeleteSlavery found in the world and its material gravitation pull. As with faith; Emily sews her seed and shows us Nature as the true moral value and one to be cherished.
So now by spiritual grafting one's soulful intent one can certainly be much more happy here! We are overcomers of death by allowing the spirit to live in us knowing death cannot kill us.Emily is not in the least apologetic, we hardly know herreligious affiliation. She is Spirit without a logos.
Although strong Christian symbolism is found throughout Emily's poems; the poems are more about the Spirit of Nature than death. As Nature has the cycle of death-life-rebirth as well, and so it is natural for Emily to be consumed with death as well as the vibrant life of flowers, plant, etc; re: life all around her. Essentially, Emily is a Naturalist at heart; having studied Botany extensively at Amherst, Boston MA.
Not that it makes it any easier for us, coming from our 21st Century perspective to understand Emily's peculiar ways. It is the realization that Emily is striving to become the full embodiment of the immortal, God-given Spirit. To live and be alive living with the Spirt within us; a flame which does not depart as swiftly as the day's departing dusk.:)