Inconceivably solemn! (F414, J582)

Inconceivably solemn! 
Things so gay 
Pierce – by the very Press 
Of Imagery – 

Their far Parades – order* on the eye            *halt
With a mute Pomp – 
A pleading Pageantry – 

Flags, are a brave sight – 
But no true Eye 
Ever went by One – 
Steadily – 

Music’s triumphant – 
But the* fine Ear                                                  *a
Winces* with delight                                           *aches
Are Drums too near -*                                        *The Drums to hear – 

Link to EDA manuscript. Originally in Packet 10, and various fascicles. First published in The London Mercury in 1929. Courtesy of Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.

Even the small town of Amherst would have seen military parades of men going off to war during this time. Immediately, this poem fills the reader with a sense of foreboding and incongruity. Scholars note the jarring imagery: a parade should be a symbol of happiness, celebration, “things so gay.” But, instead, it frightens the watcher and evokes soldiers marching off to war. The music hurts the ears of the listener, almost like loud gunshots sounding like drums up close.

Ruth McNaughton calls the poem one of Dickinson’s explorations of the power of imagery, especially jarring, disturbing, or ironically set against its conventional character. Douglas Leonard suggests Dickinson’s striking imagery draws on “Burkean elements of the sublime,” and Pamela Matthews recognizes the disjunctive imagery as similar to the idea behind “Tell all the truth but tell it slant–.” What we imagine lying behind the parade is worse than any reality. Elizabeth Phillips notes Dickinson’s poetic strategy, contrasting external events with their impact on the perceiver of them, with that of other poets of the Civil War, namely Herman Melville, who composed Battle-Pieces mostly from printed accounts, and Walt Whitman, who worked in a hospital tending the wounded and wrote from that intimate experience.

Stumped? check out these “phone a friend” videos of Fiona Bowen, Dartmouth ’18, and Sarah Miller, Dartmouth ’19, discussing the poem.

Sources        Back to Poems Index For Week Jan 1-7