I measure every grief I meet

Are some like my own?

Wildaboutthewritten word's recent post reminded me of one of my favourite poems by Emily Dickinson. Dickinson is today considered to be one of the most unique voices in American poetry, though she was largely unknown during her lifetime and her writings were only published after her death in 1886. In many ways, her poems were radically different from those of her time - especially in their use of title case, sentence case and dashes. One of Dickinson’s special gifts as a poet is her ability to describe abstract concepts with concrete images. Her poems stand out from the rest by virtue of their power to convey a range of complex emotions through minimal yet profound words. 

In this untitled poem, she brings out evocatively the age-old questions in the minds of the grief-stricken: "Do others understand my pain? Does anyone else feel a similar sorrow? Does time make the burden any lighter?" 

I measure every Grief I meet
With narrow, probing, eyes –
I wonder if It weighs like Mine –
Or has an Easier size.

I wonder if They bore it long –
Or did it just begin –
I could not tell the Date of Mine –
It feels so old a pain –

I wonder if it hurts to live –
And if They have to try –
And whether – could They choose between –
It would not be – to die –

I note that Some – gone patient long –
At length, renew their smile –
An imitation of a Light
That has so little Oil –

I wonder if when Years have piled –
Some Thousands – on the Harm –
That hurt them early – such a lapse
Could give them any Balm –

Or would they go on aching still
Through Centuries of Nerve –
Enlightened to a larger Pain –
In Contrast with the Love –

The Grieved – are many – I am told –
There is the various Cause –
Death – is but one – and comes but once –
And only nails the eyes –

There’s Grief of Want – and grief of Cold –
A sort they call “Despair” –
There’s Banishment from native Eyes –
In sight of Native Air –

And though I may not guess the kind –
Correctly – yet to me
A piercing Comfort it affords
In passing Calvary –

To note the fashions – of the Cross –
And how they’re mostly worn –
Still fascinated to presume
That Some – are like my own –

Source: flickr

My thoughts

What I like about this poem is Emily Dickinson's treatment of such a heavy subject - she does not wallow in melancholy but brings out the pathos through words that are deceptively simple yet carry an immeasurable weight of emotions. Those sharply-etched images stay in my mind long after I've finished reading the poem - a dimmed smile on someone's face akin to a lamp that has little oil left in it; successive sorrows heaped year after year upon the original grief till one is numbed to the pain; the agony of death being perhaps more bearable than slowly dying from a life-long grief; the urge to gauge others' burdens to find out if they bear the same kind of cross. It is so true - knowing someone else has been through similar pain and can relate to it makes us feel a kinship with that person and helps us tolerate our own sorrow. Somewhere deep within us, we feel a strange fortitude: "If they can bear it, so can I."