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Circuit III - (21) The Sky is Low, the Clouds are Mean (J-1075) (F-1121) Listen to Whistling Wind (520 K, wav)

(1) The sky is low, the clouds are mean,     A travelling flake of snow (2) Across a barn or through a rut Debates if it will go. (3) A narrow wind complains all day     How some one treated him; (4) Nature, like us, is sometimes caught     Without her diadem. (Below: an original manuscript version without editing or imposed lineation.)   (1) The Sky is low –   the Clouds are mean. A Travelling Flake of Snow (2) Across a Barn   or through a Rut   Debates if it will go – (3) A Narrow Wind   complains all Day How some one treated him (4) Nature, like Us   is sometimes caught Without her   Diadem – ~ Emily Dickinson Slideshow ~ Circumference!

Commentary adapted from Emily Dickinson's Poems & Letters

(1 low clouds, riddle) "The only ghost I ever saw was dressed in mechlin — so — he wore no sandal on his foot — and stepped like flakes of snow. [...] His conversation — seldom — his laughter, like the breeze — that dies away in dimples among the pensive trees." ~ (J-0274) (F-0331)

(1-4) "We all have moments with the dust, but the dew is given." ~ (L #337)

(1-4) "The Earth has many keys — where melody is not is the unknown penninsula — Beauty is nature's fact." ~ (J-1775) (F-0895 variant)

(1-4) "My business is circumference. An ignorance, not of customs, but if caught with the dawn, or the sunset see me, myself the only kangaroo among the beauty, Sir, if you please, it afflicts me, and I thought that instruction would take it away." (L #268)

(1-4) "Not a flake assaults my birds but it freezes me. Comfort, little creatures — whatever befall us, this world is but this world." ~ (L #329)

(1-4) "We have no fruit this year, the frost having barreled that in the bud — except the 'Fruits of the Spirit,' but Vinnie prefers Baldwins." ~ (L #936)

(1-4) "I am from the fields, you know, and while quite at home with the Dandelion, make but sorry figure in a drawing - room." ~ (unnumbered letter, to Susan Phelps? pub. 1992, Newsletter Friends of Amherst College Library)

(4) "Solomon himself suffers much embarrassment." ~ (unnumbered letter, same as above, pub. 1992, Newsletter, Friends of Amherst College Library (Biblical ref: Matthew 6:28-29)

(4) "Though [Nature's] reluctances are sweeter than others' avowals." ~ (L #479)

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