Unto like Story – Trouble has enticed me – (F300, J295)

Unto like Story – Trouble
has enticed me – 
How Kinsmen fell – 
Brothers and Sisters – who
preferred the Glory – 
And their young will 
Bent to the Scaffold, or in
Dungeons – chanted – 
Till God’s full time -*                                       *whole – will –
When they let go the ignominy –
smiling –
And Shame* went still -*                               *Scorn  *dumb.

Unto guessed Crests, my moaning
fancy, leads* me,                                            *lures
Worn fair
By Heads rejected – in the lower
country –
Of honors there –
Such* spirit makes her perpetual                *Some
mention,
That* I – grown bold –                                     *till
Step martial – at my Crucifixion- 
As Trumpets – rolled – 

Feet, small as mine – have
marched in Revolution 
Firm to the Drum – 
Hands – not so stout – hoisted
them – in witness – 
When Speech went numb –
Let me not shame their
sublime deportments – 
Drilled bright – 
Beckoning – Etruscan invitation –
Toward* Light –                                                 *to – 

Link to EDA manuscript. Originally in Fascicle 10 (1862). First published in Unpublished Poems edited by Martha Dickinson Bianchi and Alfred Leete Hampson in 1935. Courtesy of Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.

Frontispiece to the 1761 Edition

This poem can be read alongside “The Doomed – regard the Sunrise -” because both grapple with bravery and hope in relation to death and sacrifice. A kind of martyred heroism displays itself in this poem, as the speaker imagines herself going to war for her beliefs. Dickinson’s family had a copy of John Foxe’s The Book of Martyrs, originally published in 1563 and lavishly illustrated with woodcuts, that told  stories of English Protestants martyred for their beliefs. Dickinson loved to read and reread this book.

This poem is a good example of Dickinson’s experimentation with form. In a discussion of Dickinson’s use of hymns, Cristanne Miller argues that is it more accurate to say

that she wrote in relation to song. Song, in this context, includes the hymns and ballads she sang, the poetry she read, and the popular music she played on the piano.

Miller asserts that although Dickinson “understood the integrity of the page …  her poetry leans strongly toward what might be called a secondary or written orality.” This poem has an unusual stanza structure and unusual accentual syllabic pattern. Note the prevalence of four syllable lines and, in the last stanza, two syllable lines.

Paul Crumbley puts this poem among other “overtly political poems” that “combat the threat of complacency” by using an unreliable speaker “whose failures to activate the will serve as cautionary tales that dramatize faulty reasoning.” He argues that readers who “see through the speaker’s rationalization” of small feet and not so stout hands “withhold their consent and independently imagine alternative courses of action.” This assertion of will allows readers to retain

sovereignty, in effect mimicking public acts of resistance and choice. This strategy invests the experience of reading with political significance even when the content of the poem is not overtly political. … Doing so draws readers into the creative process itself, democratizing the act of reading by leveling the authority of reader and text.

The phrase “Etruscan invitation” harks back to a rich and powerful civilization of ancient Italy, influenced by ancient Greek culture, that was eventually defeated, absorbed and defamed by the Roman Republic. Dickinson loved Italian culture.  The phrase may refer to the Etruscan custom of lavishly decorated tombs, which “invite” martyrs to a “bright” afterlife.

The inside of an Etruscan tomb. Brilliantly painted and preserved.
The inside of an Etruscan tomb, brilliantly painted and preserved (source: The Prowling Bee).

It is notable that both this poem and “The doomed regard the sunrise” use the word “drills,” which in the previous poem has the variant “nails” and suggests the martyrdom of the crucifixion.

 

 

 

 

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