Image, Audio, and Description for Poem #378
I saw no Way –
The Heavens were stitched –
I felt the Columns close –
The Earth reversed her Hemispheres –
I touched the Universe –
And back it slid – and I alone – A speck upon a Ball –
Went out upon Circumference –
Beyond the Dip of Bell –
Description
She
did not need a very patriarchal puritan religion to experience Heaven.
She found her heaven, ‘Beyond the Dip of Bell’ in self discovery. Helen
Vendler says it beautifully in her book, “Dickinson Selected Poems and
Commentaries”, “Dickinson is left solitary, at the edge of the universe,
what redeems her lonely status is the fact that she has attained it by
her own exploration: she ‘went out’ to where she finds herself. ‘she is
the agent of her own enlightenment.” In today’s world of always staying
connected I think we forget the importance of being solitary. Being
alone, so we can develop our own relationship that exists ‘Beyond the
Dip of Bell’, so we can come back and make the Universe that much
stronger. An interesting fact I read in, “Emily Dickinson: Looking to
Canaan” by John Robinson, was that Emily’s Father used to ring the big
town bell when the Aurora lights were visible. Glad I could get this
post out before the natural phenomena of the eclipse occurs!
