That after horror – that ’twas us – (F243, J286)

That after Horror – that ’twas us –
That passed the mouldering Pier –
Just as the Granite crumb let go –
Our Savior, by a Hair – 

A second more, had dropped too deep
For Fisherman to plumb –
The very profile of the Thought
Puts Recollection numb – 

The possibility – to pass 
Without a moment’s Bell –
Into Conjecture’s presence
Is like a Face of Steel – 
That suddenly looks into our’s
With a metallic grin – 
The Cordiality of Death – 
 Who drills* his Welcome in –       *nails

Link to EDA manuscript. Originally in Fascicle 11 (1861), and a letter to Higginson (1861). First published in Letters by Mabel Loomis Todd in 1894. Courtesy of Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.

This poem explores close encounters with death. Many scholars see it exploring death and the trauma such an experience brings, especially for soldiers who experience battle. The “Face of Steel” with its “metallic grin” suggests a “soldier looking into the barrel of a gun,” according to Dickinson biographer, Cynthia Wolff. This reading gains support when we learn that on hearing that her friend Thomas Higginson was seriously wounded during battle, Dickinson sent him a letter (L 282) containing the last eight lines of this poem.

Wolff’s reading also points out the Christian undertones in the poem, noting that Dickinson offers “nails” as a variation for the potent verb “drills” in line 15, which conjures up an image of the crucifixion, a frequent allusion in Dickinson’s poetry. Here, the “Face of Steel” is linked to the sinister face of “Our Savior” who, like a crumbling pier of granite, “let go” of us “by a Hair” and, thus, threw the world into horror.

Other scholars do not read an allusion to the Civil War in this imagery. Helen Vendler, for example, links it  to a variety of anxieties surrounding death, universal to the human experience. Dickinson’s “terror” comes to mind, which she described later in Letter 261 as occurring in September of 1861.

Major motifs include the warlike imagery of machines, weaponry, and army “drills.” Also notable is the image of the “Face:” in stanza one, death is a “horror,” but in stanza two, it becomes a “profile of the Thought,” and by stanza three, it rears its fully revealed, personified “Face of Steel.” There is also a narrative in this poem: a quiet walk along an old pier that goes horribly wrong. Who is the “us” the speaker refers to? Wolff thinks it may be a pun on “U.S.,” adding to the Civil War connection.

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