Dickinson's As imperceptibly as grief
Musing into Beauty
The speaker in Emily Dickinson’s “As imperceptibly as grief” (#1540 in Thomas H. Johnson's Complete Poems) muses on the feelings she experiences as she watches summer turning to autumn. She is thinking back on summer’s departure and attempts to explain the circumstances that accompanied that departure.
First Quatrain: “As imperceptibly as grief”
Summer has gone; it “lapsed away.” By describing summer’s leaving as an act of lapsing, the speaker implies that it slowly went and quite smoothly. As a matter of fact, it was so smooth and gradual that its final departure was unnoticeable.
But its leaving was undetectable in the same way that grief’s subsiding is hardly noticeable. This qualification implies that the speaker suffers grief at that departure, despite the fact that the leaving was so slow, gradual, and smooth.
The speaker then admits that because of the indiscernible nature of the summer’s departure, she did not think that it left just to cause her anguish, even though at this point she realizes that she feels sadness because it is gone.
Second Quatrain: “A quietness distilled”
The speaker’s images encapsulate the feelings she experienced while mourning the loss of summer. It seemed that a special silence surrounded her after summer was over. The twilight held that “quietness distilled” as if it deliberately intended to wring her emotions as would a strong, intoxicating drink.
It seemed that nature “sequestered” herself, perhaps needing to gather her thoughts and feelings; nature, somewhat like the speaker, seemed to spend all afternoon contemplating the differences that the departure of summer will have for her.
Third Quatrain: “The dusk drew earlier in”
Continuing the imagery that contains the speaker’s feelings, she claims that “dusk drew earlier in / The morning foreign alone.” She simply acknowledges that now that summer is gone, nighttime comes sooner; with the arrival of dusk at an earlier hour, she notes the changes that affect her life, such as having to go inside earlier than before her beloved summer departed.
Morning also appears transformed, taking longer for the sun to appear; she has to delay certain activities that she could begin earlier during her beloved summer. These changes are not abrupt, but are “courteous”; still they offer a “harrowing grace” and she feels as if a visitor whom she adored had left her home.
Fourth Quatrain: “And thus, without a wing”
The final quatrain finds the speaker uplifted by her musing; although she started her musing with a pang of sorrow, she ends quite contentedly. She observes that summer has the marvelous ability to fly off “without a wing,” or it can slowly and smoothly sail away without “service of a keel.”
She then avers that she has no cause for grief. She no longer mourns the loss of summer because she acknowledges that summer merely “escape[d] / Into the beautiful.” The “beautiful” refers to autumn; although the speaker experiences this pang at losing summer, she admits that summer does not just leave abruptly but slowly, and after it has “lapsed,” it leaves behind another beautiful season. Her heart is lifted into beauty.
Emily Dickinson
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