We Smoked Before A Swelling The Ground By Emily Dickinson

Looking back 100 years, it seems as if humans lived in a different world with different fashions, different values, and different thoughts. Go back another 100 years, and the world seems to become even more alien and strange. However, there are things that have tied humanity in a single thread throughout time; these things are what Emily Dickinson explored during her lifetime. She was an American poet born on December 10, 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts. Her father was a wealthy lawyer, and her mother a housewife. Dickinson had a series of passionate, intense emotional (and perhaps romantic) connections with men and women that helped her to form ideas about love and loss. Despite this, she lived alone, becoming even more reclusive when her parents

The sun always sets but rises again, and children grow older but more are born. Fields of grain are reaped and sowed again and again, year by year. The children are even mentioned as playing in a “ring”– a physical symbol of the circular movement of life (“Because I Could Not Stop for Death”). By contrast, the narrator is forced to confront her own mortality in the final few lines when the carriage stops in front of her grave: “We paused before a House that seemed/A Swelling of the Ground” (18-19). Ironically, earlier in the poem the narrarator mentions the silent figure of “Immortality”, who acts as a chaperone between her and Death. The cyclical symbols mentioned and the fact that “Death” is inextricably linked to “Immortality” shows Dickinson’s belief that there is a eternal quality to life despite its temporary nature. She mentions nothing specific of her time period and does not adhere to the typical rhyming conventions of her time; rather, she explores the timelessness of love, life, and death with choppy, simple, understandable language. The cyclical nature of life can be seen throughout all ages, and the words can be understood by people of all backgrounds, showing Dickinson’s ability to transcend her own world and provide insight into the core of humanity

Dickinson’s poem “I Like to See it Lap the Miles” describes the journey of a personified train: “I like to see it lap up the Miles--/And lick the Valleys up--/And stop to feed itself at Tanks--” (lines 1-3). Dickinson herself was connected to railroads. The railroad had been “one of the great enthusiasms in the life of [her father]”, who brought them to Amherst (McCormack). However, Dickinson expandes the railroad to larger religious theme, later calling the trains “Boanerges” (line 14) and “omnipotent” (line 16). “Boanerges” is a biblical reference: it was a surname given to disciples James and John by Jesus, and meant “sons of thunder”. Dickinson’s portrayal of the trains as all-powerful also gives them a mystical and ancient quality, making them an “otherworldly force” (McCormack). Religion played a large role in Dickinson’s life; she was a Trinitarian Congregationalist (similar to Puritanism) but felt stifled by their strict rules. Still, larger themes of humanity from Puritan beliefs influenced her greatly. By connecting modern technological change to the ancient disciples (who themselves were considered revolutionaries of their time), Dickinson reconciles old with new and allows a larger theme of change and