After great pain, a formal feeling comes -(372)
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After great pain, a formal feeling comes –
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs –
The stiff Heart questions ‘was it He, that bore,’
And ‘Yesterday, or Centuries before’?
The Feet, mechanical, go round –
A Wooden way
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought –
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone –
This is the Hour of Lead –
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow –
First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go –
Another of Dickinson’s tremendous insights into the human condition. The poem is organized into a descriptive octet (a stanza of eight lines) and a concluding sestet ( stanza of sex lines), a loose variation of the Italian Sonnet’s logic.
The first three words deftly convey the theme of the poem, setting the aching tone, the aftermath of some trauma (great pain). First stanza: When pain is trauma, feelings become numb (forma), nerves become funereal (ceremonious) or deadened (like Tombs), leading the Heart , now stiff and unyielding, to ask (questions), was it someone she knew, perhaps a loved one (He) who endured this pain, or it may be an allusion1 to Christ and his suffering, and, disoriented in its shock, did it happen recently (Yesterday) or long ago (Centuries before). The Second Stanza pictures the physical ramifications of great pain, the body (Feet) now leaden (mechanical), like an animated corpse walks in circles (go round), Wooden and lifeless, whether on Ground, heavily, or Air, insubstantially, or Ought (Nothing), devoid of any sensation.
Regardless of which surroundings are walked in, the soul/nerves/heart/body have transformed (grown) into a stony (Quartz) placidity (contentment), bereft of any spark (like a stone). The famous four last lines painfully recount that Life has devolved into a leaden state (Hour of Lead), Remembered afterward, if survived (outlived)–the pain is so intense that it may actually lead to death, perhaps imposed or self-actuated–as freezing persons remember (recollect) the death-process of being encased in Snow: First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go –, with the life-obliterating hyphen at the end.
Life traumatized.
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- an expression designed to call something to mind without mentioning it explicitly ↩︎
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