Some of you may notice that this post nearly coincides my last post, separated by only a few minutes. I am on such a writing binge now that I couldn't bear not to write about fascicle 20. Since my last post was on the fascicle's final poem, I decided to give the POTD to the fascicle's first poem.
I took one Draught of Life -
I'll tell you what I paid -
Precisely an existence -
The market price, they said.
They weighed me, Dust by Dust -
They balanced Film with Film,
They handed me my Being's worth -
A single Dram of Heaven!
Here we see, yet again, a Death poem. In fact, the entire action of the poem takes place after Emily has died, and is being judged. Though this is not your daddy's "pearly gates" poem, but a bizarre comparison of Emily's soul and a butcher's marketplace, or something. They, whoever that is, weigh her, balance the weight, and stick her with a "market price." This gives us a very atypical portrayal of judgement, as well as a disturbing one. She basically pays for her life, after death, with existence. All they give her back, in exchange for her "Being," is a little tiny bit of Heaven, expressed through the old-timey word "Dram." Perhaps this is Emily expressing anger, or outrage at what she finds existence to be.
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I think you're right. Based upon her depiction of Heaven in many of her other poems, she was probably not pleased to receive a piece of it as payment for her existence. I like what she writes in poem 323, in the third stanza, "How many times they - bore the faithful witness - / Till we - are helped - / As if a Kingdom - cared!" Clearly, ED doesn't have much faith in the protection of Heaven.
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