Emily Dickinson

919
If I can stop one Heart from breaking
I shall not live in vain
If I can ease one Life the Aching
Or cool one Pain

Or help one fainting Robin
Unto his Nest again
I shall not live in Vain.

Emily Dickinson is an American poet of the nineteenth century, and she is famous for her beautiful short poems. I encountered her for the very first time when I read the poem #919 in an anthology of American poetry for beginners, which I happened to find in a school library years ago. The moment I read it, I was fascinated with it. Although some of her poems are too difficult for me to understand, I admire her sensitivity and great insight.

327

Before I got my eye put out
I liked as well to see --
As other Creatures, that have Eyes
And know no other way --

But were it told to me -- Today --
That I might have the sky
For mine -- I tell you that my Heart
Would split, for size of me --

The Meadows -- mine --
The Mountains -- mine --
All Forests -- Stintless Stars --
As much of Noon as I could take
Between my finite eyes --

The Motions of the Dipping Birds --
The Morning's Amber Road --
For mine -- to look at when I liked --
The News would strike me dead --

So safer -- guess -- with just my soul
Upon the Window pane --
Where other Creatures put their eyes --
Incautious -- of the Sun --

The more I think about her poems with my eyes closed, the more I seem to realize why I have been attracted by her works: Emily and I have similar eyes.

Since I have hurt my eyes, I know what it is like to be extremely sensitive to light. When I am in the light, I sometimes feel as if I were intoxicated. Some people tend to feel sick when they are traveling in a vehicle for a long time, but I sometimes feel as if I were suffering from severe motion sickness just by existing in the sun. To put it somewhat poetically, the earth's rotation itself seems to give me serious motion sickness.

214

I taste a liquor never brewed --
From Tankards scooped in Pearl --
Not all the Vats upon the Rhine
Yield such an Alcohol!

Inebriate of Air -- am I --
And Debauchee of Dew --
Reeling -- thro endless summer days --
From inns of Molten Blue --

When "Landlords" turn the drunken Bee
Out of the Foxglove's door --
When Butterflies -- renounce their "drams" --
I shall but drink the more!

Till Seraphs swing their snowy Hats --
And Saints -- to windows run --
To see the little Tippler
Leaning against the -- Sun --

The expressions like "liquor", "Inebriate of Air", "Reeling", "drunken" , "Leaning against the --Sun--", and so on, which suggest intoxication, vividly remind me of the feelings that sometimes come over me when I am walking in the sun. It can be said that Emily was describing in this poem the way she saw the world with her photophobic eyes. In this light, I will probably be able to explain and appreciate some of her poems which I used to find too difficult to understand.

According to some leading critics, Emily didn't accept Jesus Christ as her Savior, though she kept seeking Him. I suppose that it must have been unbearably difficult for her to live with photophobia AND without Christ.

1704

Unto a broken heart
No other one may go
Without the high prerogative
Itself hath suffered too.

I quoted the poem above in my another web page on depression. Emily Dickinson tells us about her emotional crises in many of her poems and I can identify myself with most of them. When Emily wrote the poem #1704, did she want to say that she had been hurt by those insensitive and possibly, self-righteous people who tried to help her in wrong ways, without understanding what her problems were really like, just like the three friends of Job in the Old Testament? Or did she intend to recommend herself as the comforter capable of understanding the sufferings of her friends? Another possibility is that she might be thinking of the Great Physician, Jesus Christ, who went through the greatest pain in the world.

In any case, this poem gives me great comfort, because it tells me that Emily must have had an experience similar to mine. Emily is an American poet in the 19th century, while Romi is a would-be poet in the 21-century Japan. Even if there is no "visible" friend around me who encourages me constantly, the fact that there was somebody, somewhere, and at some time in history who shared the same pain with me--the fact itself seems to provide me with "invisible" comfort and encouragement. By reading her poems, I can "talk with" her. Emily had a difficult time when she lost the Rev. C. Wadsworth, Austin, Susan, and many other friends figuratively. The Rev. Wadsworth went to the West Coast, which must have seemed to her to be the end of the Earth. When her brother Austin and her best friend Susan got married, she must have felt as if she had been excluded from their world. Some of her friends had died young.

Yes, Emily, I have also lost my Mr. Wadsworth, my Austin and mySusan recently.

I am not sure whether Emily had meant this or not, but the poem #1704 can be interpreted as a Christian poem; Jesus is the one who has the highest prerogative to go to a broken heart, for He himself has suffered more than anyone else. The Bible says as follows:

Because he himself suffered when he was tempted,
he is able to help those who are being tempted.

(Hebrews 2:18)

Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens,
Jesus the Son of God,
let us hold firmly to the faith we profess.
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses,
but we have one who has been tempted in every way,
just as we are
--yet was without sin.
Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence,
so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

(Hebrews 4:14--16)