Poem F534
How many Flowers fail in Wood -
Or perish from the Hill -
Without the privilege to know
That they are Beautiful -
How many cast a nameless Pod
Opon the nearest Breeze -
Unconscious of the Scarlet Freight -
It bear to other eyes -
* Note: Opon is not a typo. Emily liked the visual aspect of words and in this case, the round "O" letter for the word "upon". She writes this word that way in several poems.
What this poem means to me: In the mid-19th century, women didn't have the same birthright as their male counterparts (not sure there has been much change though). They didn't get to study or didn't have access to the same fields of study men had access to. They wouldn't be published or praised the same way men did. Women couldn't travel alone, they were not allowed to share their opinion, to write, to read or do anything else apart from gardening, baking or taking care of a house.
In the first stanza, the poet asks how many women died without being aware of how beautiful they were (talking about inner beauty, the beauty of the heart). They are compared to flowers, blooming and colorful but eventually dying in the woods and the hills without knowing how essential and impactful their lives were (Without the privilege to know That they are Beautiful)
In the second stanza, women are compared to flowers sending their nameless/not recognized/anonymous pods - meaning they are sending their seeds to be carried away in the wind. These seeds, traveling in the Breeze, can be poems if we think about Dickinson. Women didn't get a chance to be recognized for the impact they had on other peoples' lives, in whichever way they tried to do it - but they also were unaware of that significant and meaningful impact (Unconscious of the Scarlet Freight - It bear to other eyes). Scarlet is heavy in symbolism and imagery to me: the ED Lexicon defines it as either:
- Blood; vital body fluid that carries life
- Fire; eruption of flame, ash, and lava
- Freight is Impact; meaning; importance; great significance. Both definitions of Scarlet work so well with freight here in my opinion, as well as with the rest of the poem.
That's Emily Dickinson's story right here: she must have been "unconscious" of this "Scarlet freight" she "bore to other eyes" when she wrote this poem - she didn't know that her ethereal "seeds" would be carried away to far away lands, across mountains and oceans, and fertilize millions of minds for the next 136 years - and many more to come.
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