National Poetry Month-Emily Dickinson and the Civil War
Like many middle and upper class women, Emily Dickinson joined the war effort during the Civil War by knitting and rolling bandages for the troops.
It looks like we may well have a mini-series within the National Poetry Month series this week. I will be posting poems relating to the Civil War.
Emily Dickinson was just 30 years old when the war broke out. She was not yet the famous recluse of Amherst. Not only was she a member of a leading Republican family, but at this time she had forged a friendship with Samuel Bowles, the owner and editor-in-chief of the Springfield Republican, in which she avidly followed the news of the day. Bowles, about this time became the first person to publish Dickinson’s poetry-anonymously and perhaps against her wishes, in his paper.
The coming of war soon swept up most of the young, and many of the not so young men of the town. Many were close family friends. When the body of one close family friend came back on the train, Emily and her beloved sister-in-law Sue were among those who mourned. Together they undertook nursing the wounded as they returned from the front. Emily’s health did not allow her to continue active nursing for long and the horrors of the wounded may well have overwhelmed her. She spent the rest of the war in genteel support of the troops as so many ladies did, by rolling bandages and knitting at home for the Sanitary Commission.
The death of loved ones always haunted-and wounded-Emily. The whole sale death of many of her contemporaries was just as devastating. She, of course, chose to deal with it internally and in the scattered pages of poetry she kept hidden. She didn’t write of the war often, and then typically obliquely. But what she did write was powerful and evocative for a woman who never heard a shot fired in anger.
A tip-o’-the-hat to the fine Secret Life of Emily Dickinson Facebook page to helping me find these poems.
A slash of Blue
A slash of Blue-
A sweep of Gray-
Some scarlet patches on the way,
Compose an Evening Sky-
A little purple-slipped between-
Some Ruby Trousers hurried on-
A Wave of Gold-
A Bank of Day-
This just makes out the Morning Sky.
It feels a shame to be Alive
It feels a shame to be Alive-
When Men so brave-are dead-
One envies the Distinguished Dust-
Permitted-such a Head-
The Stone-that tells defending Whom
This Spartan put away
What little of Him we-possessed
In Pawn for Liberty-
The price is great-Sublimely paid-
Do we deserve-a Thing-
That lives-like Dollars-must be piled
Before we may obtain?
Are we that wait-sufficient worth-
That such Enormous Pearl
As life-dissolved be-for Us-
In Battle’s-horrid Bowl?
It may be-a Renown to live-
I think the Men who die-
Those unsustained-Saviors-
Present Divinity-