Poem of the week: Death sets a Thing significant … by Emily Dickinson

The Guardian

14-04-2025

Death sets a Thing significant
The Eye had hurried by
Except a perished Creature
Entreat us tenderly
To ponder little workmanships
In Crayon — or in wool —
With 'This was last her fingers did' —
Industrious until —
The Thimble weighed too heavy —
The stitches stopped — themselves —
And then 'twas put among the Dust
Opon the closet shelves —
A book I have — a friend gave —
Whose Pencil — here and there —
Had notched the place that pleased Him —
At rest — His fingers are —
Now — when I read — I read not —
For interrupting Tears —
Obliterate the Etchings
Too Costly for Repairs —
Death sets a Thing significant begins with the idea of a combat between Death and what might be called creatureliness. But Death hardly stands a chance. The very first stanza turns on the failure of Death to correct a careless eye and show us 'a Thing significant' – 'except' (unless) we imagine the lost creator of the artefact which has been left unfinished.
In the previous year, 1862, Dickinson had written a poem betterknown than this one, with a striking first stanza: 'Because I could not stop for Death — / He kindly stopped for me — / The carriage held but just Ourselves — / And Immortality.' Although the current poem begins with a personified, capitalised Death, it drives straight past 'him' towards the imagined 'perished creature' and the special 'entreaty' 'to ponder little workmanships'. That first line of stanza two gives the solid, approving noun, 'workmanship' a humanising, domesticating plural: the adjective, 'little', rather than trivialising or sentimentalising the noun, simply declares the scale. How can we not see those 'little workmanships / In Crayon — or in wool', and not go on to remember the hands that held the paper, cloth, and tools, and think that ''This was the last her fingers did.' — / Industrious until —' ?
Dickinson has never placed her dashes more suggestively than in this poem. They seem like the hesitations of that pondering, grief-stricken observer, and slow the pace and flow of thought. No actual person is outlined. The focus draws away from the colourer in 'Crayon' – a child, perhaps? – and the needlewoman is shown simply by means of the Thimble, which began to 'weigh too heavy'. And then there's a last closeup of a work-in-progress which has ceased to make progress: 'The stitches stopped — themselves —'. There's a rhythm to this which is more like the stopping of the lungs and heart, followed by the matter-of-fact statement that the piece of needlework (never specified, never described) has been 'put among the Dust / Opon the closet shelves —'. 'Dust' is the operative word. Death is allowed this much presence, at least.
There's nothing more to be said and Dickinson changes the subject. Again, the syntax, reinforced by dashes, implies that this 'Book I have — a friend gave' is difficult to talk about now that 'at rest — His fingers are —'. The page has been marked heavily ('notched') to show 'the place that pleased Him' and we might read the intentions of the last line of the stanza to tell us not only that the fingers are at rest but that the fingers are: they still exist for the poet.
She's left with marks deeper than stitches through cloth: the impression of a mind on the page. She describes the pencil marks, surprisingly, powerfully, as 'Etchings'. The words that can't be read 'for interrupting tears' are lost with the pencilling: these etchings are 'too costly for repairs' — the possible rhyme with 'repairs' in the word 'tears' suggesting that precious things have been torn apart as well as wept for.
The trio of possible 'perished Creatures' – a child, a woman, a man – all differently close to the poet, may have been conjured from her imagination. The poem needs no biographical context to enter and strike like a knife in our understanding. But I admit to having remained curious about the male friend who might not have been fictional, who really might have lent Emily Dickinson books he wanted her to share, and I was interested to come across the existence of a young lawyer, Benjamin Franklin Newton (1821 - 1853). Dickinson described him in a letter: 'Mr Newton became to me a gentle, yet grave Preceptor, teaching me what to read, what authors to admire, what was most grand of beautiful in nature, and that sublimer lesson, a faith in things unseen.' A few years before his death he presented her with Ralph Waldo Emerson's poems. There's a moving description in this small gallery of Emily Dickinson's friendships. Whether or not he's the 'friend' in the poem, his significance for the outstanding future-poet deserves to be remembered.