The face I carry with me – last – (F395A, J336)

 

The face I carry with
me – last –
When I go out of Time –
To take my Rank – by – in
the West –
That face – will just be thine –

I’ll hand it to the Angel –
That – Sir – was my Degree –
In Kingdoms – you have heard
the Raised –
Refer to – possibly.

He’ll take it – scan it – step
aside –
Return – with such a crown
As Gabriel – never capered at –
And beg me put it on –

And then – he’ll turn me round
and round –
To an admiring sky –
As One that bore her Master’s name –
Sufficient Royalty!

Link to EDA manuscript. Originally in Amherst Manuscript #fascicle 80. 
First published in Bolts of Melody (1945), 177. Courtesy of Amherst College, Amherst, Mass.

This poem, in common hymn meter, reprises some of the imagery we have been tracing: the idea of rank and standing, the conferring of degrees (awards and achievements), receiving a crown from a discerning angel, who urges the speaker to—essentially–crown herself. The archangel Gabriel, God’s messenger, who appeared in “For this – accepted breath” heralding the earthly “trance” that compares favorably with heavenly glory, returns here as a foil for the speaker, to suggest the significance of her crown.

William Shurr interprets this “crowning” event as marriage, though the reference at the end to “Master” complicates this interpretation. The crown morphs into “her Master’s name,” an identifying sign that contains “Sufficient Royalty!” Naming, by others and by oneself, is another important form of entitlement Dickinson explores, as we will see in the final poem in this cluster. According to Martha Nell Smith, this manuscript contains erasures that are hard to see in the facsimile.

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