Department of English

Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University

 

"I cried at Pity – not at Pain –"

(c. 1862, 1896)

 

Emily Dickinson

(December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886)



I cried at Pity – not at Pain –
I heard a Woman say
"Poor Child" – and something in her voice
Convicted me – of me –
 
So long I fainted, to myself
 5
It seemed the common way,
And Health, and Laughter, Curious things –
To look at, like a Toy –
 
To sometimes hear "Rich people" buy
And see the Parcel rolled – 10
And carried, I supposed – to Heaven,
For children, made of Gold –
 
But not to touch, or wish for,
Or think of, with a sigh –
As so and so – had been to me, 15
Had God willed differently –
 
I wish I knew that Woman's name –
So when she comes this way,
To hold my life, and hold my ears
For fear I hear her say 20
 
She's "sorry I am dead" – again –
Just when the Grave and I –
Have sobbed ourselves almost to sleep,
Our only Lullaby –

 

 

Notes


1  cried:

1  Pity:


1  Pain:

3  Poor:

3  Child:

4  Convicted:


Cf. convinced in manuscript

5  fainted:

6  common:

8  Toy:

19  hold:





What was the United States like that Whitman and Dickinson were born into?
Source: Ed Folsom, Selected American Authors: Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman



EMILY DICKINSON is born in 1830, the year President Andrew Jackson signs the Great Removal act, forcibly resettling all Indians west of the Mississippi; Jackson addresses the nation, "What good man would prefer a country covered with forests and ranged by a few thousand savages to our extensive Republic, studded with cities, towns, and prosperous farms, embellished with all the improvements which art can devise or industry execute?" The Sac and Fox tribes, over objections of chief Black Hawk, give up all their lands east of Mississippi River ; Choctaws do the same; other tribes like Chickasaws follow suit within a year or two. Only the Cherokees, literate farmers who wanted citizenship, hold out. In 1832, Black Hawk leads some Sac and Fox back across Mississippi into Illinois --they are eventually ambushed and massacred in the Michigan Territory , and Black Hawk is turned over to U.S. authorities by the Winnebago Indians. Major Congressional debate is over whether or not the sale of Western lands should be restricted; Western senators sense a plot by Eastern business interests to close the West so that cheap labor stays in the Northeast where factories demand low-paid workers. Joseph Smith publishes "The Book of Mormon", based on his deciphering of golden plates he claimed to have found on an upstate New York mountain, detailing the true church as descended through American Indians who were apparently part of the lost tribes of Israel (an idea quite common in early 19th-century America). The next year, 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville arrives in the U.S. and begins his journey around the country that would result in his massive book of observations, "Democracy in America ," including his analysis of “the three races in America ” (black, red, and white). Nat Turner, a Virginia slave who had visions from God of white spirits and black spirits engaged in bloody combat, leads a revolt with seven other slaves, killing his master and his family; with 75 insurgent slaves, he killed more than 50 whites on a two-day journey to Jerusalem, Virginia, where he was hanged along with sixteen of his companions (many other blacks are killed during the manhunt for Turner). The Turner Insurrection was the stuff of nightmares for white Southerners, who passed increasingly severe slave codes. The song "America" is sung for the first time in Boston on July 4.

 



Poetry


If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can warm me I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only way I know it. Is there any other way?
—"Letter to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, August 16, 1870" The Letters of Emily Dickinson, eds. Thomas H. Johnson and Theodora Ward (Cambridge: Belknap, 1958)

 



[quoting Austin] It is a little remarkable that two girls—of the Genius of Helen Hunt and Emily Dickinson should have been within three or four years of each other in the same quiet New England village the one the daughter of a minister and professor in the College—the other daughter of a lawyer and Treasurer of the College—both attracting general attention in their childhood the one more by her wild romping rebellious Spirit and ways—the other by her intellectual brilliancy—the one as she grew up meeting the world fearlessly—and triumphantly—adding increasing fame with every year—moving through the country like a Queen—the other, after 18 or 20, gradually withdrawing herself from society till she saw  very few except members of her own family—and was known only through memory or tradition—and her letters to those who especially interested her. In her school days—at the primary—at [word illegible] Amherst Academy and at South Hadley—she was not of the best scholars—but the brightest of any social group. Her compositions were unlike anything ever heard—and always produced a sensation—both with the scholars and Teachers—her imagination sparkled—and she gave it free rein. She was full of courage—but always had a peculiar personal sensitiveness. She saw things directly and just as they were. She abhorred sham and cheapness. As she saw more and more of society—in Bos- [end of page 222] ton where she visited often—in Washington where she spent some time with her father when he was a member of Congress—and in other places [The following is crossed out:] she could not resist the feeling that it was [terribly] painfully hollow. It was to her so thin and unsatisfying in the face of the Great realities of Life although no one surpassed her in wit or brilliancy. [The text resumes:] notwithstanding the fact that she was everywhere sought for her brightness—originality & wit—
—Richard B. Sewall, "Publication of the Poems: Mabel and Austin," The Life of Emily Dickinson, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2003)




Dickinson’s editing process often focused on word choice rather than on experiments with form or structure. She recorded variant wordings with a “+” footnote on her manuscript. Sometimes words with radically different meanings are suggested as possible alternatives. [...] Because Dickinson did not publish her poems, she did not have to choose among the different versions of her poems, or among her variant words, to create a "finished" poem.  This lack of final authorial choices posed a major challenge to Dickinson’s subsequent editors.
—"Diction," Major Characteristics of Dickinson's Poetry, Emily Dickinson Museum (2009)


There is enough here to wring pity from the stoniest heart—"'Poor Child,'" the want of "Health, and Laughter," no presents, the sobbing "Lullaby." But the poem is not an appeal for pity; it is a warning against it, particularly here the kind of sentimental, uninformed pity (the "Woman" is clearly an outsider) that brings out the worst in the one pitied. Again she uses childhood as a metaphor for conveying an attitude toward a kind of pain that may have nothing to do with childhood—frustration of any sort, the experience of being excluded, or even, as has been suggested, frustration as poet. Indeed, the poem is more about pity than [end of page 329] about pain. Pain can be endured, she says; but she would "hold her ears" against the kind of pity that leads only to the debasement of self-pity.
—Richard B. Sewall, "Childhood," The Life of Emily Dickinson, vol. 2 (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2003)


Emily Dickinson's 'I cried at Pity – not at Pain" might almost have been—were there any evidence that Dickinson had any acquaintance with her exact contemporary—a complex, polysemous and mildly contemptuous riposte to the 'very sweet' comfort Christina's persona might appear to draw from pity and the survival of a sexual warmth she never inspired or shared [...]

Dickinson's infant persona, unaware of the meaning of vivisepulture, though seemingly enduring it, has all the longings of a living child: after a life in which health and happiness were as curiously rare as precious toys wrapped and consigned to exclusive heavenly children as good as (or incorruptible as) gold. She evokes pity even while excoriating it, detesting what has singled her out, convicted her of her unfortunate self. She no more wants her hand held than her life to be held as a text of compassionate sorrow, she wants to stop up 'the access and the passage to' repulsive compunction, seeking the only solace of the sentient corpse—sleep. But 'Sleep', of course, for both the living and the dead, 'is the station grand', the Grand Central for all imaginative journeyings.
—Caroline Frankling and Michael J. Franklin, "Victorian Gothic Poetry: The Corpse's [a] Text,"
The Victorian Gothic: An Edinburgh Companion, eds. Andrew Smith and William Hughes (Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2012): 78.


page 148, Poems: Packet XXVII (c. 1862)

 

"I cried at Pity" manuscript
Fascicle 19, 148c, Houghton Library, Harvard College
 
"I cried at Pity" manuscript
Fascicle 19, 148c, Houghton Library, Harvard College

I cried at Pity – not at Pain –

I heard a Woman say

"Poor Child" and something

in her voice + Convicted me – of me –

+ Convinced my self of Me –


So long I fainted, to myself

It seemed the Common way,

And Health, and Laughter,

   Curious things –

To look at, like a toy –


To sometimes hear "Rich people"

buy

And see the Parcel rolled –

And Carried, + we supposed – to

Heaven,         + I

For Children, made of Gold –


But not to touch, or wish for,

Or think of, with a sigh –

As so and so – had been to

+ us, + me

Had God willed differently –


I wish I knew that Woman's

name –

So when she Comes this way,

To hold my life, and hold my

ears

For fear I hear her say


She's "sorry I am dead – again –

Just when the Grave and I –

Have sobbed ourselves almost

to sleep –

Our only Lullaby –

 1
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5

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8
9
10

11
12
13
14
15
16

17
18
19
20
21

22
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24
25
26
27

28
29
30
31
32

           




J299

Your Riches – taught me – Poverty.
Myself – a Millionaire
In little Wealths, as Girls could boast
Till broad as Buenos Ayre –
 
You drifted your Dominions –
 5
A Different Peru –
And I esteemed All Poverty
For Life's Estate with you –
 
Of Mines, I little know – myself –
But just the names, of Gems – 10
The Colors of the Commonest –
And scarce of Diadems –
 
So much, that did I meet the Queen –
Her Glory I should know –
But this, must be a different Wealth – 15
To miss it – beggars so –
 
I'm sure 'tis India – all Day –
To those who look on You –
Without a stint – without a blame,
Might I – but be the Jew – 20
 
I'm sure it is Golconda –
Beyond my power to deem –
To have a smile for Mine – each Day,
How better, than a Gem!
 
At least, it solaces to know 25
That there exists – a Gold –
Altho' I prove it, just in time
Its distance – to behold –
 
Its far – far Treasure to surmise –
And estimate the Pearl – 30
That slipped my simple fingers through –
While just a Girl at School.

 

—Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, ed. Thomas H. Johnson (Boston: Little, Brown, 1960): 141.



When Emily Dickinson sent this poem over the hedge to her sister-in-law, Susan Huntington Gilbert Dickinson, in 1862, she prefaced it with the salutation, "Dear Sue," as if to underline the character of the poem as a personal note. She followed it with the simple words: "Dear Sue—You see I remember, Emily." What Emily was "remembering"—and saying good-bye to in this poem was their girlhood romance, which, by 1862, had existed only in memory for quite some time.
—Sharon Leiter, "'Your Riches—taught me—Poverty' (1862) (Fr 418, J 299),"
Critical Companion to Emily Dickinson: A Literary Reference to Her Life and Work (New York: Infobase, 2007): 234.


F856

I play at Riches – to appease
The Clamoring for Gold –
It kept me from a Thief, I think,
For often, overbold
 
With Want, and Opportunity –
 5
I could have done a Sin
And been Myself that easy Thing
An independent Man –
 
But often as my lot displays
Too hungry to be borne 10
I deem Myself what I would be –
And novel Comforting
 
My Poverty and I derive –
We question if the Man –
Who own – Esteem the Opulence – 15
As We – Who never Can –
 
Should ever these exploring Hands
Chance Sovereign on a Mine –
Or in the long – uneven term
To win, become their turn – 20
 
How fitter they will be – for Want –
Enlightening so well –
I know not which, Desire, or Grant –
Be wholly beautiful –

 

—Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, ed. Thomas H. Johnson (Boston: Little, Brown, 1960): 391.



This text stretches across a multitude of arenas, with gender both a fulcrum and a prism. The speaker of the poem first seems, as recurs in Dickinson, to be male, exactly because of its economic reference. This "I" tries to constitute himself through what was just emerging at the time of writing as an increasingly dominant American self-definition: "Riches." This becomes explicit in the lines "And been Myself that easy Thing / An independent Man –." But such cultural definition of the self in economic terms is what the poem goes on to examine and complicate, with peculiar gender shifts along the way. "The Clamoring for Gold" casts "Riches" as something restless and desperate. It is, as the poem pursues, a form of lack, of "Want," tempting to "a Thief" or to a kind of negative "Opportunity," or even, as the poem continues, a temptation to "Sin." Perhaps this is a reference to religious suspicions of material wealth as betraying inner spirituality, even as, in traditions of Puritan America famously explicated by Max Weber, wealth is also spirit's outward sign. Or perhaps "Sin" registers Dickinson's own suspicion against her culture's increasing turn to materialist measures of selfhood. "Riches" as the American dream of independent Manhood is here almost dismissed as too "easy," in contrast to genuine achievement, and threatens reduction to a "Thing."

In a manuscript variant, however, instead of "easy" Dickinson writes "distant." To be an "independent Man" is indeed distant from her because she is a woman. Her approach to "Riches" remains mere "play," in part because her "lot" is one not of overabundance but of dearth, a "Poverty" "Too hungry to be borne." "Riches" is denied her, not least as a female who, at the time of writing, had at best very limited property rights. Yet there is also "novel Comforting" derived in her "Poverty." Here Dickinson enters into her persistent practice of weighing, and recasting, gain against loss. "Riches" seems obvious gain. Yet the "Man / Who own" does not in the end sufficiently "Esteem the Opulence" he seeks. As to the speaker, if he or she "never Can" attain such opulence, then he or she also more fully takes its measure, not only because unable to achieve it, but also through questioning its value.

—Shira Wolosky, "Gendered Poetics," Emily Dickinson in Context, ed. Eliza Richards (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2013)



Paraphrases
 
I cried at Pity – not at Pain –
I heard a Woman say
"Poor Child" – and something in her voice
Convicted me – of me –
 
So long I fainted, to myself
It seemed the common way,
And Health, and Laughter, Curious things –
To look at, like a Toy –
 
To sometimes hear "Rich people" buy
And see the Parcel rolled –
And carried, I supposed – to Heaven,
For children, made of Gold –
 
But not to touch, or wish for,
Or think of, with a sigh –
As so and so – had been to me,
Had God willed differently –
 
I wish I knew that Woman's name –
So when she comes this way,
To hold my life, and hold my ears
For fear I hear her say
 
She's "sorry I am dead" – again –
Just when the Grave and I –
Have sobbed ourselves almost to sleep,
Our only Lullaby –		 I cried at pity – not at pain – I heard a woman say "poor child" – and something in her voice convicted me – of me –
So long I fainted, to myself it seemed the common way, and health, and laughter, curious things – to look at, like a toy –
To sometimes hear "rich people" buy and see the Parcel rolled – and carried, I supposed – to heaven, for children, made of gold – but not to touch, or wish for, or think of, with a sigh – as so and so – had been to me, had God willed differently – I wish I knew that woman's name – so when she comes this way, to hold my life, and hold my ears for fear I hear her say she's "sorry I am dead" – again – just when the grave and I – have sobbed ourselves almost to sleep, our only lullaby –


I cried because of pity, not because of pain. I heard a woman say "poor child" and something in her voice made me guilty of being myself. I was weak for so long that it seemed normal to me, and health and laughter seemed strange things to witness, like an amusing toy. To sometimes hear "rich people" buying a package and see the package wrapped and taken (I assumed) to heaven for children who are made of gold but not the kind of gold to touch, wish for, or think of with a sigh as someone had done so to me, had God willed differently. I wish I knew that woman's name so that when she comes to where I am, to hold my life, and hold my ears because she is afraid I might hear her say again that she's "sorry I am dead" just when the grave and I have cried ourselves almost to sleep. This crying is our only lullaby.


I cried from pity, not from pain. I heard a woman say "poor child" and something in her voice made it wrong for me to be me. I was weak for so long that I thought it was ordinary to be so, and it was strange to see health and laughter; it was like looking at an amusing trivial plaything. To sometimes hear "rich people" buying a package and see the package wrapped and taken (I assumed) to heaven for children who are made of gold but not the kind of gold to touch, wish for, or think of with a sigh the way someone had done to me, had God done things differently. I wish I knew that woman's name so that when she comes to the place where I am, to hold my life, and to hold my ears because she is afraid that I might hear her say again that she's "sorry I am dead" just when the grave and I have cried ourselves almost to sleep. This crying is our only lullaby.

           




 

 

Study Questions

  • What is the difference between dictionary definitions and Dickinson's meanings?
  • In the paraphrases above, when the dashes are taken out and the line breaks removed, how do the lines read differently and to what extent does this change the meaning of the lines?
  • Which meanings of hold in the Emily Dickinson Lexicon can apply to this poem?

            



Vocabulary

fascicle
lyric
diction; denotation, connotation
figurative meaning
ambiguity
circumlocution
definition; definition poem
riddle; riddle poem
irony
pathos
logos
form
stanza
meter; common meter
rhyme
repetition
punctuation; dash
imagery
symbolism, symbols, symbolic
tone
theme

 

 

 


Sample Student Responses to Emily Dickinson's "I cried at Pity – not at Pain –"


Response 1: 

 

           

 

 

 

Reference

 

Link
Texts Secondary Texts Textual Criticism
 Resources

 


 

Emily Dickinson

 


Reference

Dickinson, Emily. The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Ed. Thomas H. Johnson. Boston: Little, Brown, 1960. Print.


Further Reading

Dickinson, Emily. The Letters of Emily Dickinson. Ed. Thomas H. Johnson. Cambridge: Belknap, 1958. Print.

Eberwein, Jane Donahue, Stephanie Farrar, and Cristanne Miller, eds. Dickinson in Her Own Time: A Biographical Chronicle of Her Life, Drawn from Recollections, Interviews, and Memoirs by Family, Friends, and Associates. Iowa: U of Iowa P, 2015. Print.


Grabher, Gudrun, Roland Hagenbüchle, and Cristanne Miller, eds. The Emily Dickinson Handbook. Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, 1998. Print.


Griffith, Clark. The Long Shadow: Emily Dickinson's Tragic Poetry. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1964. Print.


Kirby, Joan. Emily Dickinson. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991. Print.

Martin, Wendy. The Cambridge Companion to Emily Dickinson. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2002. Print.


Martin, Wendy. The Cambridge Introduction to Emily Dickinson. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2007. Print.


Miller, Cristanne. Emily Dickinson: A Poet's Grammar. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1989. Print.


Miller, Cristanne. Reading in Time: Emily Dickinson in the Nineteenth Century. Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, 2012. Print.


Mitchell, Domhnall. Emily Dickinson: Monarch of Perception. Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, 2000. Print.


Sewall, Richard B. The Life of Emily Dickinson. New York: Farrar Straus and Giroux, 1974. Print.


Smith, Martha Nell, and Mary Loeffelholz, eds. A Companion to Emily Dickinson. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2008. Print.


Socarides, Alexandra. Dickinson Unbound: Paper, Process, Poetics. Oxford: OUP, 2014. Print.


 



 

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Last updated April 24, 2016