Let Me Not Mar That Perfect Dream : Emily Dickinson's Nature Mysticism

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Circuit II - (10) Let Me Not Mar That Perfect Dream (J-1335) (F-1361)

⁽¹⁾ Let me not mar that perfect dream
By an Auroral stain —
⁽²⁾ But so adjust my daily night
That it will come again.

⁽³⁾ Not when we know, the power accosts,
The garment of surprise
⁽⁴⁾ Was all our timid mother wore
At home — in paradise.

^{(Below: an original manuscript version

without editing or imposed lineation.)}

⁽¹⁾ Let me
not mar
that perfect
Dream
By an Auroral
stain
⁽²⁾ But so
adjust my
daily Night
that it will
come again.

⁽³⁾ Not when we
know, the
Power accosts —
The Garment
of Surpise
⁽⁴⁾ Was all
our timid
Mother wore
At Home —
in Paradise.

~ Emily Dickinson

Commentary adapted from Emily Dickinson's Poems & Letters

^{(1-2) (see Aurora)} "Morning is due to all — to some — the night —
to an imperial few — the Auroral light." ~ (J-1577) (F-1621)

^(1-2) "The suburbs of a secret a strategist should keep, better than
on a dream intrude to scrutinize the sleep." ~ (J-1245) (F-1171)

^(1-2) "So — wondering — thro' the hours meek I trudge the day away —
half glad when it is night, and sleep, if, haply, thro' a dream, to peep
in parlors, shut by day." ~ (J-0103) (F-0151)

^(1-4) "'Give me thine heart' is too peremptory a courtship for earth,
however irresistible in Heaven." ~ (L #608)

^(1-4) "Valor in the dark is my Maker's code." ~ (L #617)

^{(1-4, comment describing Dickinson speaking with her hands, by her Aunt
Martha Dickinson Bianchi, from the Introduction to the Single Hound, 1914)}
"She had a dramatic way of throwing up her hands
at the climax of a story or to punctuate one of her own flashes.
It was entirely spontaneous, her spirit seemed merely playing
through her body as the Aurora borealis through darkness."

^(2-3) "Renunciation — is the choosing against itself —
itself to justify unto itself." ~ (J-0745) (F-0782)

^(3-4) "I have lately come to the conclusion that I am Eve,
alias Mrs. Adam. You know there is no account of her death
in the Bible, and why am not I Eve?" ~ (L #009) )

^(3-4) "Life is the finest secret. . . . With that sublime
exception I had not clandestineness."
~ (L #354)

^{(3-4 unknown & home)}
"So of the Flower of the Soul
Its process is unknown.
When it is found, a few rejoice
The wise convey it home."
~ (J-0945) (F-1112)

⁽⁴⁾ "So, children, told how brooks in Eden bubbled a better — melody,
quaintly infer — Eve's great surrender." ~ (J-0503) (F-0378)

⁽⁴⁾ "Eve gave her pretty gowns to the trees —
but they don't always wear them." ~ (Fragment #73)

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(Eve as) Mystic Visionary or Bodhisattva