Emily Dickinson

Forever at his side to walk

Exact repetition

The entire poem repeats verbatim. Either a manuscript error or Dickinson's radical formal choice—the same vows, the same subordination, forever and forever.

FOREVER at his side to walk
The smaller of the two,
Brain of his brain,

Genesis language

Direct echo of Genesis 2:23—'bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh.' Dickinson's swapping 'brain' and 'blood' for 'bone' and 'flesh' shifts from physical creation to intellectual/emotional union.

Blood of his blood,
Two lives, one Being, now.
Forever of his fate to taste,

Subordination logic

The conditional structure ('If grief... If joy') sets up asymmetry—she'll share his grief but hide her joy to spare him. Unequal partnership disguised as devotion.

If grief the largest part,
If joy, to put my piece away
For that belovéd heart.
All life to know each other—
Whom we can never learn,

Epistemological paradox

The central knot: a lifetime spent knowing someone 'Whom we can never learn.' Marriage as permanent unknowing, not gradual understanding.

And by and by a change
Called "Heaven"—
Rapt neighborhood of men
Just finding out what
Puzzled us

Heaven as answer key

'Lexicon' means dictionary—heaven is where men finally get the definitions for what confused them on earth. Death as linguistic clarity.

Without the lexicon!
Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

The Marriage Dickinson Never Had

CONTEXT Dickinson never married, though scholars debate whether she had romantic attachments to various figures (Samuel Bowles, Judge Otis Lord, possibly Susan Gilbert Dickinson). This poem reads like a wedding vow she's writing in the subjunctive—imagining total self-subordination to a husband.

The Genesis 2:23 allusion is crucial. When Adam sees Eve, he says 'bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh'—the biblical template for marriage as two becoming one. Dickinson rewrites it as 'Brain of his brain, / Blood of his blood,' shifting the union from physical to intellectual and vital. But notice the pronouns: it's *his* brain, *his* blood. She's the derivative, 'The smaller of the two.'

The asymmetry gets worse in stanza two. She'll 'taste' his fate—if grief, she shares it; if joy, she hides her own 'piece' to protect his heart. The conditional structure reveals unequal terms: his suffering becomes hers, but her happiness gets suppressed. This isn't partnership; it's erasure with a romantic gloss.

The poem's exact repetition (all 16 lines repeat verbatim) is either a copying error or Dickinson's most radical formal gesture. If intentional, it enacts the 'FOREVER' of the first line—the same vows, the same subordination, cycling endlessly. Marriage as life sentence.

Knowing the Unknowable

The poem's philosophical center is stanza three: 'All life to know each other— / Whom we can never learn.' Dickinson sets up marriage as an epistemological paradox—you spend your entire life trying to know someone who remains fundamentally unknowable. This isn't romantic mystery; it's cognitive frustration.

The solution arrives in stanza four: heaven as 'lexicon.' A lexicon is a dictionary, a key to meanings. On earth, men are 'Puzzled'—they lack the definitions for what they're experiencing. Heaven is where you finally get the answer key, where the 'Rapt neighborhood of men' (the blessed dead) are 'Just finding out' what confused them in life.

Notice what gets deferred to heaven: understanding your spouse. The poem suggests that true knowledge of another person is impossible in mortal life—you need death and divine revelation to finally 'learn' them. It's a bleak view of intimacy: marriage as permanent bewilderment, resolved only by ceasing to exist.

Dickinson often used lexical/linguistic metaphors for meaning-making (see 'A Word made Flesh,' 'A Word dropped careless'). Here, heaven is the ultimate dictionary—but you have to die to read it.