And then together bore away
Upon a shining sea,—
Though never yet, in any port,
Their coming mentioned be.

If spoken by the distant bird,
If met in ether sea
By frigate or by merchantman,
Report was not to me.

I love Dickinson’s nature poetry.  She paints a beautiful portrait of a world that is so close, yet so foreign.  Dickinson longed to be a part of nature; and that longing is apparent in this poem.  She sees nature as being a part of two worlds: “..stepped straight through the firmament.”

The last line solidifies the fact that we are abstracted from nature, and it shows how we take nature for granted.  While she longs to be closer to nature and find out where these butterflies are headed, the sighting of butterflies will not be any big news to share by any seamen or merchantmen.  In contrast, Dickinson is sure to say “if spoken by the distant bird,” which shows that other animals in nature will speak of themselves, but the aforementioned humans will not.

In a sentence: Emily Dickinson once again shows that we are typically too busy to wonder or care about nature.

Power is only pain,
Stranded, through discipline,
Till weights will hang.
Give balm to giants,
And they ’ll wilt, like men.
Give Himmaleh,—
They ’ll carry him!

I struggled with this one, so comments are more than welcome.  Interpreting this reminded me of my initial reaction to Kate Chopin’s “A Pair of Silk Stockings.”  It wasn’t until the next day that I got that one, and it was amusing since the main point was that the “man” saw “nothing” when he looked at the woman; I felt just like the man she was chastising at that point…thanks, Kate!  Similarly, I think Dickinson’s poem is making a perfect example out of me as a man.  Anyway, here’s what I’ve got so far:

She sees herself as swimming in the same pool of grief (i.e. life) as “men,” although the men have channeled their pain into power, through discipline.  Whereas she seems to be wading  (i.e. moving around), the “men” are anchored (“till weights will hang”).

If she experiences the least bit of joy (indulgence in liquor or balm, which is perhaps a metaphor for anything that eases the pain of life), she becomes overwhelmed (drunken).  When speaking of the giants and men, she concludes that “balm” will cause them to wilt; men prefer to continue gaining power by moving mountains (the Himalayas).

Can someone help me with the “let no pebble smile” part?  All of my interpretations for this don’t coincide with the rest of the poem.

And then, to go to sleep;
And then, if it should be
The will of its Inquisitor,
The liberty to die.

In Dickinson’s trademark style, she succinctly paints a picture of a human lifespan, but from the perspective of the heart.  In her eyes the heart is seen as an innocent entity who seeks pleasure and finds pain instead.  Upon encountering the initial pain, the heart simply asks to be excused from it, perhaps hoping the next attempt will successfully yield pleasure.

Unfortunately, life isn’t so kind, and the heart encounters pain until it is suffering.  Just as the human body physically deteriorates and needs medication, the heart also needs anodynes as it fails under the constant weathering of pain.  It is interesting, too, that Dickinson chose the words “deaden suffering.”  The strong verb here produces a fitting transition to the final stage of the poem (of life).

Finally, the heart makes its way to the death bed and asks for the “liberty to die,” which can be read as “freedom to die.”  At this point the heart views death as freedom from all the pain.  The other interesting word here is Inquisitor.  All along we’ve gathered the sense that the heart is the one playing the role of Inquisitor, asking for its pleasure over and over.  But Dickinson points out that we may just be the ones asking the questions of our hearts.  To clarify, we are the ones who put our hearts under an inquisition whenever it asks for pleasure, and perhaps we should be more mindful of our hearts desires.