SEARCH
As Imperceptibly as Grief
As imperceptibly as Grief
The Summer lapsed away —
Too imperceptible, at last,
To seem like Perfidy —
A Quietness distilled
As Twilight long begun,
Or Nature, spending with herself
Sequestered afternoon —
The dusk drew earlier in —
The morning foreign shone —
A courteous, yet harrowing Grace,
As Guest that would be gone —
And thus, without a Wing
Or service of a Keel
Our Summer made her light escape
Into the beautiful.
Though we have all experienced and come to expect different seasons, both in nature and in our lives, we often find ourselves in a new one without noticing the transition. With every new season, we remark how we can’t believe it’s already that time of year, as though the season snuck up without warning. So, too, we often think certain epochs in our lives will go on forever: When we grieve, we can’t imagine ever being able to be happy again, and when we are happy, we almost forget what it feels like to be sorrowful.
Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) noted the similarity in our reactions to the changing seasons of life and nature in her poem “As imperceptibly as Grief.” It’s a poem describing movement. It compares the change from summer to autumn to the slow fading of grief. The two movements are held in tension and almost seem to move in opposite directions: While summer’s light and warmth give way to cold and dark, grief ushers in a “harrowing grace.”
The form of the poem mirrors this near-imperceptible change. As in many of her poems, Dickinson writes in common meter: alternating lines of iambic tetrameter and trimeter. She uses slant rhymes to create a subtle harmony of sounds (away/Perfidy, begun/afternoon, shone/gone, and keel/beautiful). Even the word “imperceptibly” in line 1 melts into “imperceptible” in line 3, ending in a shorter sound and moving from adverb to adjective.
The Process of Healing
We might feel betrayed by summer as it leaves, perhaps betrayed by time itself as it seems to pass so quickly. In grief, we sometimes feel a sense of guilt when we experience happiness again, thinking that if we truly loved a person, we wouldn’t be capable of happiness after losing him or her. Yet the healing process is so gradual that we encounter moments of happiness when, just the day before, we’d thought them forever impossible.
Dickinson notes that the imperceptible change of the seasons doesn’t seem like “perfidy,” though it might if the change were sudden. Moments of happiness after grief don’t quite strike us as a betrayal, but they are harrowing. They make us aware of a new emotional season that stands in stark contrast to the sadness that came before.
With the line “A Quietness distilled,” Dickinson drops a stressed syllable to infuse a sense of quiet into the poem. One day tumbles into another: “Twilight” is succeeded by “afternoon,” which gives way to “dusk” and then “morning” in rapid succession. Days go by without any perceptible change, until all at once we find ourselves in a new season. At last, morning feels “foreign,” even though it is no stranger to us; it crept in long before we fully noticed it. We encounter the oxymoron of a “harrowing Grace,” which is a courteous but “harrowing” guest because we know it won’t stay long. As summer gives way to shorter days and light lessens. Just as in our times of grief, moments of consolation are soon replaced again with sorrow.
Summer needs neither fly nor sail away to escape into “the beautiful”; she sidles away unnoticed. By her use of the word “escapes,” Dickinson indicates that our world is distinct from “the beautiful.” Summer seems to escape into an eternal and ethereal realm, far from the world where we remain to grapple with grief.
Similarly, Dickinson seems to imply that we can hardly blame grief for throwing off its widow’s weeds to look towards a new dawn. Perhaps it’s not only a “morning foreign” but a mourning foreign in which we are able to grieve yet experience moments of joy. Changes come and go; grief, like the seasons, follows cycles, and life moves between joy and sorrow. Such is the human condition: As Robert Frost wrote, “Nothing gold can stay.” Dickinson observes that not even grief stays forever.
By the end of the poem, the impersonal-sounding “The Summer” at the start of the poem is replaced with the more affectionate “our Summer.” Dickinson affixes the possessive pronoun to summer just when we seem to have lost possession of it. Her poem is not so much about the doings of summer—its betrayal or escape—as it is about our own experience of grief, whether in mourning the passing of a particular season or in receiving grace as a guest. The use of “our Summer” makes no attempt to emotionally distance us from summer to protect us from grief, but rather demonstrates a coming-to-terms with the loss.
As Dickinson observed, there is no treachery in one season succeeding another. It is man who either rebels against the change or accepts it with resignation. He can grieve even the loss of grief itself, or he can acknowledge the natural arrival of the dawn and the assistance of grace in bringing about healing. He can view summer’s passing as a betrayal, or he can fondly consign the season to memory. Our perception is the only variable; time moves at the same constant pace, and nature continues to cycle through the seasons. It is for us to decide how to greet each successive “guest,” keeping in mind that they cannot stay forever.
What arts and culture topics would you like us to cover? Please email ideas or feedback to features@epochtimes.nyc.
