Poetry Chaikhana Sacred Poetry from Around the World

Search the Poetry Chaikhana site:

<<Previous Poem | View All Poems by Emily Dickinson | Next Poem >>
Me from Myself -- to banish by Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886) Timeline Original Language English Secular or Eclectic Christian : Protestant 19th Century Me from Myself -- to banish -- Had I Art -- Impregnable my Fortress Unto All Heart -- But since Myself -- assault Me -- How have I peace Except by subjugating Consciousness? And since We're mutual Monarch How this be Except by Abdication -- Me -- of Me?   1862   -- from The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, Edited by Thomas H. Johnson Amazon.com	Themes   Heart         Recommended Books American Triptych: Anne Bradstreet, Emily Dickinson, and Adrienne Rich, by Wendy Martin Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson, Edited by Mabel Loomis Todd / Edited by Thomas Wentworth Higginson The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, Edited by Thomas H. Johnson Dickinson: Poems: Everyman's Pocket Library, by Emily Dickinson Emily Dickinson and the Art of Belief: (Library of Religious Biography), by Roger Lundin More >>
<<Previous Poem | More Poems by Emily Dickinson | Next Poem >>

Commentary by Ivan M. Granger

I love the way this brief poem by Emily Dickinson perfectly pares her lines down to the essential words... maybe not even quite revealing every essential word. A few sharp, punctuated statements, and she says it all.

But what is this great 19th century American mystic saying? Reread the lines.

She is striving to "banish" herself from herself. It is an "assault" of "Me" by "Myself," and the only way to have peace is by "subjugating" or mastering "Consciousness." The solution: "...Abdication -- / Me -- of Me".

Written in a different century and different culture, this could be read as a Sufi poem of fana or ecstatic self-annihilation. It could be read as a Buddhist poem of mind dissolving to reveal Buddha mind, an Advaita Yoga poem of discovering the true Self.

Emily Dickinson is clearly playing with the two levels of self. There is the little self that most people think of as who they are, the identity that clings and sticks, that imagines itself trapped in the body and in time. And then there is the vast, unified Self, who resides everywhere without boundary, but whose seat or "Fortress" is found to be the heart.

To find the fullness life in the greater Self, the little self must fall away, it must be banished or "die" This is one way Christian esoteric tradition understands Christ's injunction to die in order to be reborn. This is the Sufi goal of self-annihilation in the Beloved. This the discovery of awakened awareness beneath mundane perception, the recognition of the true Self.

This is how Dickinson can tease us with her playful riddles, talking about banishing "Me from Myself" -- finding peace and an "Impgregnable... Fortress / Unto All Heart."

Ivan M. Granger's original poetry, stories and commentaries are Copyright © 2002 - 2011 by Ivan M. Granger.
All other material is copyrighted by the respective authors, translators and/or publishers.