The poetry of Dickinson has continually fascinated me. It fascinates me that people can make a shred of sense from it. Now I don't claim to be a poet, and maybe I'm incredible dense, but I just don't get it. One particularly vexing portion is from poem 398, or "I had not minded--Walls...". Actually the entire poem is a jumble to me:
I had not minded - Walls -
Were Universe - one Rock -
And far I heard his silver Call
The other side the Block -
I’d tunnel - till my Groove
Pushed sudden thro’ to his -
Then my face take her Recompense -
The looking in his Eyes -
But ’tis a single Hair -
A filament - a law -
A Cobweb - wove in Adamant -
A Battlement - of Straw -
A limit like the Veil
Unto the Lady’s face -
But every Mesh - a Citadel -
And Dragons - in the Crease -
Thomas Wentworth Higginson goes as far as to call it, "poetry torn up by the roots, with rain and dew and earth still clinging to them." It sounds more like the writings of a woman who needs a stronger command of the English language. Since most of her poems were published after her death, I think that English majors decided to make up a bunch of meanings from this nonsense. The poem is so general that it probably meant something to her only, but if anyone can find meaning in it, let me know so I may be enlightened...Please...*Please*.
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