Учил Ты ждать, саму с собой

- Учил Ты ждать, саму с собой,-
был пункт блюденьем строг;
Учил быть стойкой пред судьбой;
Был учен и урок

вершины Смерти, чья стена
не горшая из мук,
чем Жизнь пред ней, хоть Жизнь, она
побольше из наук...

- Та Высь тебе - узнать, что ты
непостыдима Мной,
в кругу Христовой светлоты
став за Его рукой...




(Это диалог между Богом и Эмили,
и финальный катрен - Его слова.)

[David Preest:
It is not clear how this poem breaks up into units, but on
the assumption that it breaks up into units of 2,1,4 and 5 lines,
it might be paraphrased:
You taught me how to wait, and that I have done (1-2).
You taught me the bravery I needed to bear
my Fate of being alone (3).
I have also learned that death as extinction
could be a barrier to our companionship,
just as bitter a barrier as life had been before it (4-7).
But I might yet come to understand that the Heaven you know
is a reality, so that you will not be ashamed of me when
I stand before Christ on judgement day (8-12).
(the further Hand’ is presumably Christ’s right hand,
and we are meant to think of the parable of the sheep and
the goats, in which Christ declares that ‘he will set the sheep
on his right hand (Matthew 25:33).’
Also uncertain in this poem is the identity of the ‘You’
being addressed. Judith Farr takes the ‘You’ to be
Emily’s beloved master, Samuel Bowles, who had indeed
taught her how to wait and endure her fate of non-marriage
with him. But the implication that Bowles knows Heaven while
Emily is still faced with the task of understanding it does
not ring true, so that Ruth Miller could be nearer the truth
in suggesting that the ‘You’ of the poem is God, for of him
she can sensibly say ‘the Heaven you know.’ And the whole poem,
as a prayer addressed to God, would then mean,
‘Dear God, you have taught me that I cannot know you fully
in this life, and that death, if it is the end, would also be
a bar to that knowledge. But I have to realise that there is
a heaven in which you will not be ashamed to know me fully, as I shall be
stationed among the sheep, having faithfully carried out
the task you entrusted to me of writing poems.’
Miller also points out that this poem immediately follows poem 679
in packet 12, and that in poem 679 Emily’s visitor is Immortality.]

***********************************************
You taught me Waiting with Myself -- by Emily Dickinson

You taught me Waiting with Myself --
Appointment strictly kept --
You taught me fortitude of Fate --
This -- also -- I have learnt --

An Altitude of Death, that could
No bitterer debar
Than Life -- had done -- before it --
Yet -- there is a Science more --

The Heaven you know -- to understand
That you be not ashamed
Of Me -- in Christ's bright Audience
Upon the further Hand --