Dickinson Poetry Essay, Research Paper

Safe In Their Alabaster Chambers

This poem, one of Dickinson’s best-known works, contrasts the qualities

of stillness with those of life. In the first stanza she emphasizes the

timelessness of death; the “meek members of the resurrection” sleep in their

coffins untouched by dawn or noon. They are sealed in, closed off from time

and the world, by the oppressive weight of rafter and roof. The second stanza

lists some of the joys of a summer day: the breeze laughs, the bees buzz, the

birds sing. Their unknown wisdom is for nothing, however, since no one hears

them. In the third stanza the poet goes from the movement of natural things to

the movements of time; the years proceed in their orderly fashion, planets

make their own prescribed orbits, and earthly kings rise and fall – but again,

the dead are unaware of all this activity.

Comment:

This poem is on one hand a statement on the awful unknowingness of death,

the complete removal of the dead from all activity, the largest and the

smallest. The dead are “safe” in their “alabaster chambers,” but they are also

completely removed from everything that a human being considers interesting or

valuable. The poem can also be read as a statement on organized religion; the

“meek members of the resurrection,” those who have been “saved” by religion,

are sealed from the world as effectively as if they were dead. In this sense

it is, like many of Dickinson’s poems, very similar to Transcendentalist

thought. Churchgoers who worship under rafters and roof simply cut themselves

off from the breezes and birds, the natural creatures who have true “sagacity”

or wisdom.

The two readings do not contradict each other, however; rather the poet

seems to be saying that people who are blinded by a narrow religion suffer

twice. They cannot be aware of the realities of the world when they are alive,

for they will not let themselves see what is really happening; and when they

are dead, they will never have the chance to make up for their mistake.