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With text on-screen, Eric reads Emily Dickinson’s somber, engaging Poem 1100. The poem starkly captures the experience of watching someone in the dying process and the emotions surrounding that.
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The Last Night That She Lived Poem by Emily Dickinson
The Last Night That She Lived · Hope Is The Thing With Feathers · A Book · A Dying Tiger&Mdash;Moaned For Drink · “Why Do I Love” You, Sir? · “Faith” …
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Poems by Emily Dickinson: XX (“The last night that she lived”)
The last night that she lived, It was a common night, Except the dying; this to us Made nature different.
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The Last Night That She Lived || Summary & Analysis
‘The last Night that She lived’ shows that death is not the end because life is continued after death. Death brings an end to the life of pains and losses.
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The Last Night that She Lived: Summary and Analysis
‘The Last Night that She Lived’ is a poem by Emily Dickinson in which she reflects upon the last moments of a person from the perspective of …
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Emily Dickinson – The last Night that She lived (1100) – Genius
The last Night that She lived / It was a Common Night / Except the Dying—this to Us / Made Nature different / We noticed smallest things— / Things …
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Emily Dickinson, “The last Night that She lived” For Carol …
The poem before us, “The last Night that She lived,” is a poem about dying. Dickinson does not, in this poem, write about ‘death,’ which is …
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The Last Night that She lived by Emily Dickinson
‘The last Night that She lived’ by Emily Dickinson is a poem about a dying woman’s final moments and how observers felt about her death.
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The Last Night That She Lived by Emily Dickenson – Prezi
Conclusion. In “The Last Night that She Lived”, Emily Dickinson portrays an attitude that conveys both jealousy and guilt felt in the response of the death of a …
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Last Night that She Lived by Emily Dickinson
In the “Last Night that She Lived” by Emily Dickinson, Dickinson develops the ea that though death may be a tragedy to loved ones left behind, …
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주제와 관련된 더 많은 사진을 참조하십시오 POEM 1100 — The last Night that She lived — Dickinson – c. 1866. 댓글에서 더 많은 관련 이미지를 보거나 필요한 경우 더 많은 관련 기사를 볼 수 있습니다.
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The Last Night That She Lived Poem by Emily Dickinson
1100
The last Night that She lived
It was a Common Night
Except the Dying—this to Us
Made Nature different
We noticed smallest things—
Things overlooked before
By this great light upon our Minds
Italicized—as ’twere.
As We went out and in
Between Her final Room
And Rooms where Those to be alive
Tomorrow were, a Blame
That Others could exist
While She must finish quite
A Jealousy for Her arose
So nearly infinite—
We waited while She passed—
It was a narrow time—
Too jostled were Our Souls to speak
At length the notice came.
She mentioned, and forgot—
Then lightly as a Reed
Bent to the Water, struggled scarce—
Consented, and was dead—
And We—We placed the Hair—
And drew the Head erect—
And then an awful leisure was
Belief to regulate—
Poems by Emily Dickinson: XX (“The last night that she lived”)
XX
The last night that she lived,
It was a common night,
Except the dying; this to us
Made nature different.
We noticed smallest things, —
Things overlooked before,
By this great light upon our minds
Italicized, as ‘t were.
That others could exist
While she must finish quite,
A jealousy for her arose
So nearly infinite.
We waited while she passed;
It was a narrow time,
Too jostled were our souls to speak,
At length the notice came.
She mentioned, and forgot;
Then lightly as a reed
Bent to the water, shivered scarce,
Consented, and was dead.
And we, we placed the hair,
And drew the head erect;
And then an awful leisure was,
Our faith to regulate.
The Last Night That She Lived || Summary & Analysis
Also Read
The last Night that She lived
The last Night that She lived
It was a Common Night
Except the Dying-this to Us
Made Nature different
We noticed smallest things-
Things overlooked before
By this great light upon our minds
Italicised-as ’twere.
As we went out and in
Between Her final Room
And Rooms where Those to be alive
Tomorrow were, a Blame
That Others could exist
While She must finish quite
A jealousy for Her arose
So nearly infinite-
We waited while She passed-
It was a narrow time-
Too jostled were Our Souls to speak
At length the notice came.
She mentioned, and forgot
Then lightly as a Reed
Bent to the Water, struggled scarce
Consented, and was dead
An we-We placed the Hair-
And drew the Head erect
And then an awful leisure was
Belief to regulate.
The last Night that She lived
Summary:
‘The last Night that She lived’ shows that death is not the end because life is continued after death. Death brings an end to the life of pains and losses. It further shows that death is a graceful departure into the sublime waters of immortality.
The opening of the poem shows man’s destiny is linked with death in life. The last night of death comes to all of us sooner or later in our lives. It enlightens us about the reality of death and life. Moreover, it bestows on us grace and salvation. Nature appears different to the onlookers because they have to confront nature’s destructiveness and hostility. They visualize its very minutely because death makes the world very mysterious and precious.
Stanzas III-V show the contrast between the situation and the mental condition the dying woman and those of the observers. The witnesses are in a state of panic and are seen moving in and out of the death room: They become resentful and ask why she is singled out to face this tragic situation. The jealousy for her is not an envy of her death; it is in fact a jealous defense of her basic right to live. As the fifth stanza ends, the tense moment of death approaches. The dying woman finally submits herself before the Authority of Death.
Stanzas VI-VII describe her death by employing the suggestive image of a slender fragile reed gently bent by the winds. The reed shudders momentarily as it comes in touch with the cold water of eternity. She finally accepts the natural process. In the last stanza the onlookers reach the corpse to arrange it, with formal awe and controlled tenderness. It may be concluded that the dead person is luckier than the living because she now gets rid of all struggle for faith.
Interpretation and Critical Analysis:
The poem shows that the traditional fear of death is illogical and unconvincing. The worldly life is only a part of life because it is followed by life in Heaven. Death is only a transitional phase which marks the end of the material life and the commencement of the spiritual life. Therefore, death is the connecting link between the material and the spiritual life.
For Dickinson, the material life is filled with pains and losses. Moreover, Man finds himself almost suffocated in it. Death is an outlet song of life which promises a better life ahead. Death makes the world mysterious and mystical. The hour of death bestows on us grace and salvation. Nature remains indifferent at the time of man’s departure from the scene of life.
Man cannot postpone or avert death by any means or strategy. Death is unavoidable and man must submit himself before its Authority. Man must accept the natural process in which death plays a key role. It is finally observed that a dead person is luckier than the living because she now gets rid of all struggle and faith.
Explanation with Reference to Context: The last night that she lived It was a Common Night Except the Dying this to Us Made Nature different.
We noticed smallest things- Things overlooked before By this light upon our Minds Italicized-as ’twere.
It is perhaps Emily Dickinson’s most powerful death poem. It shows that death is a part of life and man’s fate is linked with it. The experience of death is relived in the opening section of the poem.
The poetess recalls to her mind the circumstances leading to the death of the woman in the very start of the poem. The last night that she lived was not a particular but a common night. The death of the woman failed to disturb the normal rhythm of life. This commonplace experience of death proved to be very offensive o the observers. Nature seems different to the observers because they had to confront Nature’s fury and indifference.
It is this tragic sight that has awakened the observers to the reality of life. It has added to their sense of perception. Now they observe everything with heightened sensibility because death makes the world mysterious and precious. They begin to see even the petty smallest things which went unnoticed before. Everything now appears crystal clear in this state of heightened awareness.
She mentioned, and forgot Then lightly as a Reed Bent to the Water, struggled scarce- Consented, and was dead.
Death is the end of the pains and sufferings of life. It leads to immortality which ushers in an era of eternal peace and salvation. Death brings us closer to the reality of life which makes us view it from a new perspective. It reminds the living beings that they will continue to face pains and sufferings till they depart from scene of life.
This stanza shows that the dying woman will be forgotten with the passage of time. She will finally submit before the Will and the Authority of Death. She is not going to put up any resistance to postpone or delay the arrival of death in anyway. At the moment of death, the dying woman is willing to die – a sign of salvation and a contrast to the reluctance of the observers to let her die. The simile of a reed bending to water gives to the woman a fragile beauty and conveys her acceptance of a natural process.
And We-We placed the Hair- And drew the Head erect And then an awful leisure was Belief to regulate.
Death is a part of life and the onward march of death is never terminated. The arrival of death is always resented by its observers. Nature remains indifferent to the plight of the mourners because they have to face Nature’s destructiveness. Finally, the dying woman accepts her fate and submits herself before the Authority of Death.
The last stanza of the poem deals with the final phase of the burial ceremony of the woman. The mourners approach the dead body to arrange it, with formal restraint awe and restrained tenderness. They finally heave a sigh of relief after having buried the dead body. Instead of going back to life as it was, or affirming their faith in the immortality of a Christian who was willing to die, they move into a time of leisure in which they strive to ‘regulate’ their beliefs and dispel their doubts. The dead woman is now relieved of all struggle for faith.
The Last Night that She Lived: Summary and Analysis
‘The Last Night that She Lived’ is a poem by Emily Dickinson in which she reflects upon the last moments of a person from the perspective of the observer. The poem is set on the last night of a woman’s life. It is divided into seven stanzas.
The Last Night that She Lived: Summary
The poet begins by stating that the night of the death was like any other night, but due to the impending death, the natural surroundings appeared different. The impending loss seemed to heighten the senses of the poet and the other observers. They felt a great light upon their minds, which allowed them to notice even the smallest things in their surroundings. Just like an italicized word is more noticeable in a text, the small details seemed equally noticeable.
As the poet and her companions traveled between the room where the dying woman was and the other rooms of the house, she felt as if she was being blamed for the fact that while the woman would die soon, the rest of them would continue to live.
The poet felt jealous of the dying woman. The jealousy stemmed from the fact that she was escaping the complexities and challenges of existence. In contrast, the others would have to continue with their lives and the associated guilt of continued existence. The poet felt a ‘nearly infinite’ amount of jealousy. The poet, along with her companions, waited as the dying woman took her final few breaths. The time seemed constrained. It was as if their souls jostled in that constrained time. They all kept silent.
Finally, death arrived. The woman took her final breath; perhaps she also said her few final words before going silent. A reed bent to the water occasionally shivers with the water’s movement. Similarly, the woman too shivered like a reed in her final moment and died. After the death, the poet and her fellow observers arranged the dead woman’s hair and set her head in an erect position. After that, they had a painful wait as they reflected upon the sad event.
The Last Night that She Lived: Analysis
‘The Last Night That She Lived’ is another of Dickinson’s poems that explores the theme of death and loss. Having seen loss from close quarters several times in her life, the poet knew very well how it felt to be a witness to the death of a loved one. She writes this poem from the perspective of a witness to the last moments of a dying woman.
The tone of the first few lines borders on the dispassionate. Dickinson coolly remarks that it was an ordinary night, just like any other night. Almost as an afterthought, she adds ‘Except the Dying.’ However, over the next few lines, the words start to reflect the emotions in the narrator’s heart. The death made ‘nature different,’ she remarks and elaborates upon it in the next stanza.
The final moments of the woman created a sense of tension among her family and well-wishers who were by her side. The moments were very emotionally charged. The power in those moments allowed the observers to gain new perspectives on everything around them. They saw regular things in a new light. Small things that they had overlooked before now stood out, like italicized words. The poet refers to the ‘great light upon their minds.’ This light is the poet’s way of describing the heightened awareness that the family members of the dying woman felt at that time. The poet has made a very pertinent observation in this stanza. Moments of emotional stress often allow us to look at the world around us in greater detail.
In the next stanza, the poet touches upon feelings of guilt. The concept of ‘room’ here could be extended to refer to the world of the living and the world of the dead. As the poet and her companions traveled to and fro across these ‘rooms,’ the poet felt survivor’s guilt at being able to continue living while the woman would soon be dead. She felt a sense of being blamed by the universe for continuing to live.
The poet also discusses her feelings of jealousy towards the dying woman. Dickinson observes that the dying woman would soon exit the world of the living. She would have no more worries or responsibilities that come with life. Others would have to continue in the world of the living. They would have to deal with worldly worries and responsibilities. The family members of the dying woman would also have to deal with the pain of loss and the associated survivor’s guilt. The dying woman would soon be able to escape all that. Knowing this made the poet jealous.
The poet then takes us to the final moments of the dying woman. They observed the woman as she took her final breath. Time seemed to be constricted— the poet’s way of describing the pain and emotional stress that they were feeling. The poet continues with the metaphor in the next line. The souls of the observers jostled in the ‘’narrow time’ and were unable to speak. The poet is referring here to the grief that all the observers felt. The grief made them absolutely silent. Finally, the woman took her final breath.
Just like a reed bent to the water surface, the lady shivered and was dead. The poet also adds the word ‘consented.’ By this, she creates an image of the dying woman finally agreeing to let Death lead her away from the land of the living.
The woman’s final struggles had disarrayed her hair and tilted her head. After her death, the woman’s family arranged her hair and positioned her head properly. After that, they were left to reflect upon the event. The poet calls it an ‘awful leisure’ because although they had, they had nothing to do; now that the woman had breathed her last, it was leisure filled with sorrow. They spent that ‘awful leisure’ by coming to terms with their situation, described by the poet as ‘our belief to regulate.’ It was as if the poet and the rest of the woman’s family members were trying to tune themselves to the new reality. I hope you found the summary and analysis of ‘The Last Night that She Lived’ helpful and worth sharing.
Emily Dickinson – The last Night that She lived (1100)
The last Night that She livedIt was a Common NightExcept the Dying—this to UsMade Nature differentWe noticed smallest things—Things overlooked beforeBy this great light upon our MindsItalicized—as ’twere.As We went out and inBetween Her final RoomAnd Rooms where Those to be aliveTomorrow were, a BlameThat Others could existWhile She must finish quiteA Jealousy for Her aroseSo nearly infinite—We waited while She passed—It was a narrow time—Too jostled were Our Souls to speakAt length the notice came.She mentioned, and forgot—Then lightly as a ReedBent to the Water, struggled scarce—Consented, and was dead—And We—We placed the Hair—And drew the Head erect—And then an awful leisure wasBelief to regulate—
Emily Dickinson, “The last Night that She lived” For Carol Cosman, 1943-2020 — Poetry Letters by Huck Gutman
I wrote this essay when my cousin, Carol Cosman, died after a heroic three decade long struggle with cancer. I kept thinking, and thinking, of the last two lines of this poem. You will come upon them at the end of this letter. Carol is dead, but those of us who survive her, her husband and two sons, and her sister and mine and I myself, must live with what I call in the essay the ‘rubbishy aftermath.’
Death is hard to deal with. I am no afficionado, severely unpracticed in what in truth no human being ever comes to terms with. I say this to excuse my beginning this letter with philosophy. We turn to ideas, to abstraction, when reality is, in its actuality, too painful for us. Not Dickinson. As this letter proposes, she could look with a cold eye (Yeats’ epitaph was “Cast a cold eye/ On life, on death./ Horseman, pass by.”) on what lesser mortals talk around. Me, I talk around it, until at last I can talk no longer and face up to the reality.
1100
The last Night that She lived
It was a Common Night
Except the Dying—this to Us
Made Nature different
We noticed smallest things—
Things overlooked before
By this great light upon our Minds
Italicized—as ’twere.
As We went out and in
Between Her final Room
And Rooms where Those to be alive
Tomorrow were, a Blame
That Others could exist
While She must finish quite
A Jealousy for Her arose
So nearly infinite—
We waited while She passed—
It was a narrow time—
Too jostled were Our Souls to speak
At length the notice came.
She mentioned, and forgot—
Then lightly as a Reed
Bent to the Water, struggled scarce—
Consented, and was dead—
And We—We placed the Hair—
And drew the Head erect—
And then an awful leisure was
Belief to regulate—
One of the things I treasure about reading poems is that they teach us to see the world as carefully as it can be seen. Emily Dickinson is masterful at such seeing.
I’ve been talking over Zoom with Rob Faivre, a long-ago former student about looking at the world closely and in focus. Such looking is hard, though he and I don’t talk about that; moreover, and we do talk about this, it is impossible on some deep, philosophical level. We can only see what our perceptual apparatus – eyes, ears, consciousness – enables us to see; and our sensory and conceptual apparatus, consciousness above all, is always already shaped by the ways in which our minds work, and the ways in which our minds have learned to work. The structure of our brains, the structures of perception itself, always intervene between ‘reality’ and our consciousness, so that we see as we are pre-ordained to see.
That’s what Kant taught us: that there is a difference between the ‘noumenal’ world, the world out there, and the ‘phenomenal’ world, the world as we experience it. The early phenomenologists – I am thinking of Edmund Husserl here – urged philosophical efforts to ‘bracket’ things, to get back to where we first encounter an object before a lot of thinking and judging has taken place. Those efforts are doomed to failure if we want to know what is really out there, beyond the self, or even, as Husserl tried to do, see what it is that constrains our thinking. All we can do is see what the self allows us to see. What these phenomenologists wanted to chart was how perception worked at its most fundamental level, but perhaps even this is an ultimately unachievable endeavor.
I imagine that this is all a bit too philosophical a beginning In many of her poems Emily Dickinson tries to see what is in front of her eyes, unencumbered by superstition and expectation. That is a large and difficult task, for we have so thoroughly pre-judged the world in order to live in it, to avoid being ambushed by every little thing we encounter, to enable us to see our experience as ordered and hence predictable, that to see what is in front of our eyes is a huge effort. Even if, following Kant, we can never truly see what is out there, but can only see the world as we see it.
The poem before us, “The last Night that She lived,” is a poem about dying. Dickinson does not, in this poem, write about ‘death,’ which is a concept, but about dying, a process that begins perhaps with a lessening of consciousness and ends with a corpse, unseeing, unhearing, unexperiencing: Dead. The best poem I know on this fading of consciousness is a remarkable poem by William Carlos Williams, “The Last Words of My English Grandmother.” In that poem, a dying woman is taken by ambulance to a hospital; First she is angry at being debilitated, then she is paranoid about what is happening to her, and finally as her mind no longer functions, she “rolled her head away” from the external world, the world of perception, entering a place where there is no feeling, no perception. Death. She is dead.
Dickinson, in this poem, is concerned not as much with the dying woman who is at the center of the room, as with the perceptions of those who attend to her as she is dying. This is a poem of close observation, of the fading of the woman but more importantly of those who watch her dying, who experience the event in “just a country town.” (That phrase is from another poem of observation of the processes of death, this one of watching a funeral procession. “There’s been a death in the opposite house” is filled with humor: Boys joking about death and the mattress it occurred on, satires on the minister ‘taking command’ of the situation and on the funeral director not only measuring the corpse for the coffin but seeing how much money he can charge, and even recognizing that a funeral cortege is a kind of “dark parade.” But it also clearly, cannily, observes how death ‘marks’ a community.
So we finally come to the poem before us, “The last Night that She lived.” Seven four-line stanzas – quatrains – in which the second and fourth lines rhyme, although with slant rhymes (Night/different, before/’twere, Room/Blame, quite/infinite, time/came, Reed/dead, erect/regulate). She bends common or hymn meter – typically alternating six and eight line stanzas – so that each stanza consists of three six syllable lines and a third line of eight syllables.
[Does this matter? Yes. Meter and rhyme, and the larger regularities of rhythm and repetitive patterning, bring order into chaos.]Let’s start, as we should, with the first stanza. There is an opposition here:
The last Night that She lived
It was a Common Night
Except the Dying—this to Us
Made Nature different
The opposition is, of course, between the “common” of the second line and the “different” of the last line of the stanza. What creates the difference, enables it? The lines are clear: “Dying.” “Except the Dying” intervenes, and makes what is a common experience, that of night and bed, into something which is remarkable.
We noticed smallest things—
Things overlooked before
By this great light upon our Minds
Italicized—as ’twere.
The poet observes the watchers in the room, who “notice smallest things—/Things overlooked before” because of the circumstance that death is near. The advent of death concentrates the attention, so that the “minds” of the watchers seem to be reading “italics’ in place of everyday prose. This is, of course, a metaphor, where the events of the evening are “italicized” from the ordinariness of usual evenings by the “great light” of impending death. [A Husserlian phenomenologist would say death ‘brackets’ these experiences. In my view, Martin Heidegger took this special circumstance and made it ubiquitous, the condition of all consciousness: Death brackets, ‘italicizes,’ life and all that it contains.] The people in that room, attentive to an unusual degree, are paying heed to all that is transpiring, every event, every “smallest thing.”
As We went out and in
Between Her final Room
And Rooms where Those to be alive
Tomorrow were, a Blame
That Others could exist
While She must finish quite
A Jealousy for Her arose
So nearly infinite—
Not only does Dickinson use enjambment – where one line flows past line divisions into the next – but she, here, makes a sentence that pours across the stanza ending. The line she is writing is: ‘As we went in and out of that room and those rooms where tomorrow the living would congregate, we felt a blame that others could exist while she was about to be dead and no longer existing.’ It makes sense. Life is ongoing, but she, the dying woman, is not. And we blame life for continuing while the dead are just that, dead, and not continuing. That disjunction, between finality and continuity, is not only a great mystery, it makes us unhappy with existence. Hence “Blame.” That unhappiness will recur, in an extraordinarily powerful return, in the final stanza. We also note that ‘blame,’ in the more common usage of that term, refers to the circumstance that we blame existence (death) for taking the one we love when so many of the ‘less exceptional/important’ are still alive and not chosen by death. This is the famous complaint of Frederic Henry in Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms: “The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.”
One of the difficult things we encounter in reading Dickinson is that her poems move as the mind moves: that is to say, without the smoothness of such imposed devices as ‘plot’ or ‘continuity.’ Immediately after the long sentence about blaming life for going on while death is final, after seeing that we do not reconcile ourselves to irreversible endings while we must go on and on, come two lines which seem to issue from a different part of her mind: “A Jealousy for Her arose/ So nearly infinite—” Why should those who observe be jealous, when a moment before they were full of blame? I think the last two lines of this stanza are not directly connected to what came before. Well, they are related in that the jealousy has in part its origin in the ‘fact’ that when we are dead we no longer have to deal with the pain of separation and of endings. We are dead, past all that.
But the jealousy is that those who die are now part of the realm of the infinite, of things beyond the measures of time. They are outside of time and suffering, of loss. She is (from a religious perspective) with God and the angels, while we muddle along in our rather secular world. Who wouldn’t be jealous? And even for the non-religious, she is beyond time, beyond suffering, part of all things. (Perhaps you recall that Wordsworth poem I sent out a decade ago? In which death intrudes, unmentioned, between the first and second stanzas?
A slumber did my spirit seal;
I had no human fears:
She seemed a thing that could not feel
The touch of earthly years.
No motion has she now, no force;
She neither hears nor sees;
Rolled round in earth’s diurnal course,
With rocks, and stones, and trees.
This is the secular infinite: “Rolled round in earth’s diurnal course,/With rocks and stones and trees.”) Whether religious or secular, the merging with the infinite is something we can all be “jealous” of.
We waited while She passed—
It was a narrow time—
Too jostled were Our Souls to speak
At length the notice came.
There are no problems about “she passed,” since the euphemism – the final parting – is ubiquitous. Why was it a narrow time? Let me have recourse to Walt Whitman, who Dickinson told Thomas Wentworth Higginson she neither read nor approved of. (“You speak of Mr. Whitman. I never read his book, but was told that it was disgraceful.”) Near the end of “Song Myself” Whitman speaks of birth, and of our entry into the world through a narrow place, from our mothers’ wombs into the light of common day Immediately, in the next line, he suggests our egress from the world, through death, is similar:
I recline by the sills of the exquisite flexible doors, And mark the outlet, and mark the relief and escape. Narrow is the gate by which we enter into the world, and narrow is the gate by which we leave it.
What remarkable words Dickinson writes! Long ago I had a teacher, Ennis Rees, a fine scholar and translator and a minor poet, who said any poet would give his right hand to create lines such as can be found in all her poems. Such is the following: “Too jostled were Our Souls to speak.” Souls? Jostled? We know what she means, even if the metaphor strains credulity: After all, how can incorporeal things like souls be ‘jostled,’ which is of course refers to a physical activity? Ah, we know, we know, what she means. We are shaken by immanence of death. Although I am much cruder than she is: “Too jostled were Our Souls to speak.”
And then the moment comes, the notice is given: Death is present. Hovering about and suddenly final.
She mentioned, and forgot—
Then lightly as a Reed
Bent to the Water, struggled scarce—
Consented, and was dead—
The observers in the room watch the leaching away of consciousness, and the end of the struggle for life. Words do not come successfully and thought unravels, of no consequence. In an entirely natural process, like a reed bending down toward the water, with barely a struggle, the dying woman consents to what is before and upon her, and is dead. She does not embrace death, as Sylvia Plath might have done, but consents to it. The moment of dying is a yielding, all struggle past; it is as natural as that reed bending to the water as a breeze comes upon it. [When someone dies, I often send to their ‘survivors’ a poem that spoke powerfully to me, comforting me when my own father died. It is a poem by Rilke, The Swan, and it addresses this natural bending, as to water, when one moves from life into death.]
The final stanza is where Dickinson’s poem, to me, leaps beyond what has come before. As I said at the outset, Emily Dickinson is a very keen observer of what happens, in this case of what happens as someone is dying and the mourners gather round. Two other Dickinson poems that deal with this same moment are the insanely comic “I heard a Fly buzz – when I died” and the delirious poem of mental breakdown, “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain.”
But here, before our eyes, the final stanza leaps beyond the moments leading up to, and the moment when, “She passed.” That final stanza is about the “rubbishy aftermath” of death – the phrase I have just quoted is from Faulkner, who writes in Absalom, Absalom, “there is no all, no finish; it is not the blow we suffer from but the tedious repercussive anti-climax of it, the rubbishy aftermath to clear away from off the very threshold of despair.” Here is Dickinson’s final stanza:
And We—We placed the Hair—
And drew the Head erect—
And then an awful leisure was
Belief to regulate—
Let’s start with the remarkable repetition of “We” that opens the stanza. That ‘we’ encompasses the observers of the scene, and all those who mourn the death of the woman who is presented to us in the poem But through its repetition it also encompasses we readers: All of us mourn loss which is final, be it of persons who die, or of our infancy and youth, or of . . . whatever.
Facing loss, we try to make it decorous. Our ceremonies try to bring order to what is not only final, but a final triumph of chaos and disorderliness, for death rearranges – more, wholly undermines – all that we found meaningful. We arrange the hair of the corpse, position the head. And then?
Astonishing lines. “And then an awful leisure was/ Belief to regulate—” No one else in my knowing could say of leisure that it is awful. And yet Dickinson does so, doubly. The leisure is awful, horrible, in that it gives us time we do not want to use, time to meditate on what we have lost and how irredeemable and irretrievable that which we have lost is. But the “awful” also signifies “awe-full.” We are full of cosmic astonishment at our sense that loss is not reparable, a continent – more than a continent – of dread that we must now live on for all our days.
“Belief to regulate.” How do we control, or normalize, our beliefs, so that we can keep on going in the aftermath of death and loss, knowing that perhaps there is no God (or why would we be bereft?) and no meaning to life (for why would it end, without meaning, without significance, just expiring in a bed?).
I think Dickinson is right. The ‘facts’ of death, its process unfolding before us, is not as difficult as the time afterward when we try to come to terms with it, and with our beliefs in – what? – life and love and meaning. The “leisure” after death and loss is endless and “awful,” and we work hard to regulate our beliefs.
But can those beliefs be regulated? I think the poem suggests that they cannot be. Here I have recourse to the roots our English language. The effort to shape “belief” (an Anglo-Saxon term) is likely to be more superficial (Latinate terms were grafted onto the earlier Anglo-Saxon), technological (“regulate” is one of those processes of mind that Latin is to useful at denominating ) and thus unsuccessful. Our deepest feelings cannot, in actual fact, be regulated. We live with them, always.
And then an awful leisure was
Belief to regulate—
Perhaps, amidst the joy and celebration, amidst the humdrum and the ennui, what we always feel, deep down, is mourning. We lose, life-long, even as we think we win things like accomplishment, pleasure, understanding. What is lost is gone, irretrievable (as I said earlier). Perhaps that is our deepest task in living: “Belief to regulate.” Maybe that is what we have, and death just brings it to the surface.
This is getting too deep for me. All I know is we lose people along the way. I have lost my parents, and my aunts and uncles (including Ted and Ruth, Carol’s parents among them), and my grandparents. My parents-in-law, and two brothers-in-law. Beloved colleagues Ken Rothwell and Mbulelo Mzamane. Long ago, my friend Jimmy Mann. And now Carol. Loss never ends. And we: We have belief to regulate.
Carol Cosman in her youth….
The Last Night that She lived by Emily Dickinson
This unique poem includes a speaker who expresses their jealousy for the woman and their guilt that they get to live another day. They envy the new world she’s entering where she doesn’t have to worry about the living world’s troubles. ‘The last Night that She lived’ is a fairly simple poem by Emily Dickinson’s standards and not one of the poet’s better-known pieces.
The last Night that She lived Emily Dickinson The last Night that She lived It was a Common Night Except the Dying-this to Us Made Nature different We noticed smallest things- Things overlooked before By this great light upon our minds Italicised-as ’twere. As we went out and in Between Her final Room And Rooms where Those to be alive Tomorrow were, a Blame That Others could exist While She must finish quite A jealousy for Her arose So nearly infinite- We waited while She passed- It was a narrow time- Too jostled were Our Souls to speak At length the notice came. She mentioned, and forgot Then lightly as a Reed Bent to the Water, struggled scarce Consented, and was dead An we-We placed the Hair- And drew the Head erect And then an awful leisure was Belief to regulate.
Summary
‘The last Night that She lived’ by Emily Dickinson is a poem about the emotions death brings up in those observing.
In the first part of this poem, the speaker begins by describing how an unnamed woman’s death allowed everyone to observe her experience simple, mundane things differently. The elements of their life that they would not normally notice are highlighted.
The speaker expresses two different feelings related to the dying woman. First, a sense of guilt for their ability to survive into the next day and an overwhelming feeling of jealousy.
They envy the woman’s now lack of responsibilities and peace. Eventually, the woman does pass away, and the group arranges her hair and contemplates her life.
Themes
Throughout this poem, Dickinson engages with the theme of death. While this is not an overly emotional poem, the poet does express a few different perspectives and emotions that one might encounter when spending time around a dying person. In this case, the speaker experiences jealousy, guilt, and in the end, at least some amount of sadness.
Structure and Form
‘The last Night that She lived’ by Emily Dickinson is a seven-stanza poem divided into sets of four lines, known as quatrains. These quatrains follow contain a few examples of rhyme but do not follow an exact pattern. For example, “night” and “different” in stanza one contain a few of the same sounds but do not perfectly rhyme.
The poet is known for commonly using ballad meter. But, in this poem, she does not conform as strictly to the pattern as in other examples of her verse. Despite this, readers will find numerous examples of lines of iambic trimeter and iambic tetrameter in this seven-stanza poem.
Literary Devices
Throughout this poem, the poet makes use of several literary devices. These include but are not limited to:
Alliteration : the repetition of the same consonant sound at the beginning of multiple words. For example, “Dying” and “different” in stanza one.
: the repetition of the same consonant sound at the beginning of multiple words. For example, “Dying” and “different” in stanza one. Simile : a comparison between two things that uses “like” or “as.” For example, the poet compares the dying woman to a reed moving in water towards the end of the poem.
: a comparison between two things that uses “like” or “as.” For example, the poet compares the dying woman to a reed moving in water towards the end of the poem. Caesura : a division in the middle, or in any spot, within a line of poetry. For example, “And We—We placed the Hair” in stanza seven and “Italicized—as ‘twere” in stanza two.
: a division in the middle, or in any spot, within a line of poetry. For example, “And We—We placed the Hair” in stanza seven and “Italicized—as ‘twere” in stanza two. Anaphora: the repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of multiple lines. For example, “And,” which begins the first three lines of the seventh stanza.
Detailed Analysis
Stanza One
The last Night that She lived It was a Common Night Except the Dying—this to Us Made Nature different
In the first stanza of this Dickinson poem, the poet begins by describing a dying woman on the last night of her life. The speaker, an observer who speaks for themself and a group of other people present, describes how it was a night like any other, but the woman’s limited time made it feel different. The fact that she was going to pass away soon made all of their surroundings appear changed.
Dickinson uses her characteristic dashes and seemingly random capitalization throughout this poem. Most stanzas contain an example of caesura where readers are asked to pause in the middle of a line, for example, “Except the Dying—this to Us.” It makes the poet’s words and images more effective.
Stanza Two
We noticed smallest things— Things overlooked before By this great light upon our Minds Italicized—as ’twere.
In the second stanza, the speaker says what changed about the night because of the woman’s impending death. “We,” the speaker says, those present at the time of her passing, spent the night seeing the “smallest things.”
These are the things, the speaker says, that people generally “overlook.” But, now that death was near, they were highlighted like an italicized word is highlighted in a piece of text (an example of a simile). It makes even the shortest phrase stand out among the others.
Even though this poem is about a woman’s death, it is very hard to read these lines without a sense of hope and wonder. The speaker feels the same way. They are amazed by how, only now, they notice the true nature of their surroundings.
Stanza Three
As We went out and in Between Her final Room And Rooms where Those to be alive Tomorrow were, a Blame
In this stanza, the speaker expresses how difficult it was to be present with the dying woman. They all felt a sense of guilt. They were all present, watching her die, knowing they would live to see the next day.
The speaker even felt like they were being blamed for the fact that the unnamed dying woman would pass away soon and that everyone else would get to live. Emotions like these would make it challenging to be present, but the group, the speaker, describes remains within the house.
Stanza Four
That Others could exist While She must finish quite A Jealousy for Her arose So nearly infinite—
In a striking juxtaposition with what one might expect the speaker to express, she says she’s jealous of the dying woman. The unnamed woman is soon to escape the complexities of existence.
She’s passing away and entering the world where life’s challenges do not plague her. Her jealousy for the woman was “nearly infinite.” It was so strong and overpowering. At that moment, it felt as though her longing to trade places with her was the only thing that mattered.
Stanza Five
We waited while She passed— It was a narrow time— Too jostled were Our Souls to speak At length the notice came.
In the fifth stanza of this unusual poem, the speaker describes how the observers “waited while She passed.” The poet describes the woman’s death in simple, unemotional language. She took her dying breath’s and time felt “narrow” or constrained. Everyone was confined to those final moments as the woman died, and they all stood “Too jostled…to speak.”
The notice finally came, or the woman died, and there was some amount of relief.
Stanza Six
She mentioned, and forgot— Then lightly as a Reed Bent to the Water, struggled scarce— Consented, and was dead—
The poet uses a simile in the sixth stanza to describe the woman’s final moments. She spoke a few last words before going silent just as a reed shivers as the water moves around it. She didn’t struggle or try to fight off death; she “Consented” to it and suddenly “was dead.” She was ready to die and, as the speaker seems to, has no desire to remain in the world of the living.
Stanza Seven
And We—We placed the Hair— And drew the Head erect— And then an awful leisure was Belief to regulate—
After the woman was dead, those who remained fixed her hair, moved her into an erect position and then waited.
They sat around the body, reflecting on the woman’s death and death more generally. It’s likely that the speaker also found themself considering their feelings of jealousy for the now-deceased woman.
FAQs
What is the message of ‘The last Night that She lived?’ The message is that death is a complicated experience that brings with it a myriad of emotions. The speaker feels jealous of the woman’s now lack of responsibilities but also notes the sadness of her passing. Why did Dickinson write ‘The last Night that She lived?’ Dickinson wrote this poem to explore themes of death and loss. The woman’s death is not something that evokes a great deal of sorrow in the speaker (nor, it seems, in the other observers). But, they honor the woman’s passing by taking care of her body and considering the sadness of her loss. Who is the speaker in ‘The last Night that She lived?’ The speaker is commonly considered to be Emily Dickinson herself, but it’s unclear who the poet had in mind when she wrote this text. Dickinson experienced a great deal of death during her lifetime, so it’s likely that, if nothing else, the poem was inspired by those experiences. What is the rhyme scheme of ‘The last Night that She lived?’ The poem does not follow a specific rhyme scheme. But, many lines allude (through half-rhyme and eye rhyme) to Dickinson’s most commonly used pattern —ballad meter.
Similar Poetry
Readers who enjoyed this poem should also consider reading some other Emily Dickinson poems. For example:
‘A Narrow Fellow in the Grass’ – a thoughtful nature poem. Dickinson uses a male speaker to describe a boyhood encounter with a snake.
‘The Letter’ – is a sweet love poem. It is told from the perceptive of a love letter.
‘An awful Tempest mashed the air’ – personifies a storm. The speaker follows it from its beginning to end and depicts how nature is influenced.
Cite This Page
Last Night that She Lived by Emily Dickinson
In the “Last Night that She Lived” by Emily Dickinson, Dickinson develops the idea that though death may be a tragedy to loved ones left behind, it is in fact a peaceful euphoria for the departing. Dickinson does not take the traditional approach in describing the death of this woman. Instead, she describes the departing from life as a casual affair. Almost as if she is trying to console herself, as if it happens all the time. Through the use of diction, juxtaposition, and personification, Dickinson develops a poem that is anxious for the final departing of this woman.
Dickinson begins the first stanza with “The last night that she lived, it was a common night, except for the dying. ” This except reveals that the departing of this woman was of no significance to the speaker. Dickinson conveyed this moment as if it was a normal occurrence that occurred all the time. Dickinson uses words such as “final”, “passed”, and “infinite” to illustrate death as a halt to a human beings physical existence. However, it is not the end for their soul. In the beginning it seem as if the speaker is in denial and she does not want to express what she is truly feeling.
The speaker avoids really speaking on the subject. The speaker all the way to the end anticipates the ending. She also uses the word “we” in the last stanza to put emphasis on the death of this woman. This lets the readers know that they are the ones who wanted to take care of her. In addition to the use of diction, Dickinson also uses juxtaposition to convey her message. She uses death in lines thirteen and fourteen, Dickinson conveys that their is a reinvented joy of living that accompanies death, She states ” others could exist” however “she must finish. ” This emphasizes the freedom that living brings.
In contrast, the following lines suggest the opposite stating that ” a jealousy for her arose. ” This jealousy reflects the blame that Dickinson speaks on earlier in the poem. Dickinson makes it very evident of the jealousy the speaker who has “finished” has for the woman who gets to escape the exhaustion and troubles life bring. Another example of Juxtaposition that is present in the poem is in the opening stanza. Dickinson conveys “it was a common night, except for the dying. ” This is an huge understatement to illustrate the actual effect the woman’s death had on the speaker because the speaker craved to be the woman so bad.
Furthermore, Dickinson uses personification in the excerpt ” Too jostled were our souls to speak. ” This conveyed how the speaker and the lady other loved ones felt when she finally passed. Nobody was able to speak on her death because though they have been anticipating this moment, they cannot believe that it has finally arrived. Additionally, personification is used when Dickinson writes about the “reed. ” She mentions that the reed does not struggle, yet slowly gives in and lets the pleasure and peace death brings welcomes it. Similar to how the lady peacefully dies.
The poem goes from being calm and in denial, to a growing anticipation, and finally an acceptance. The speaker finally accepts that the time has come for this lady to leave and hey have accepted that there is nothing they can do to change this because she is gone. Dickinson portrays death as blissful experience, which is unlike many writers who portray death as excruciating experience that is not just physically excruciating but mentally excruciating. She portrays to her audience that death is not something to be afraid of because it holds true euphoria. And that one can be truly and eternally happy in death.
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