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Emily Dickinson and the Music: that keyless Rhyme in Better ‒
than Music!
小泉, 由美子
茨城大学人文学部紀要. 人文コミュニケーション学科論集
, 15: 57-69
2013-09
http://hdl.handle.net/10109/4591
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Emily Dickinson and the Music:
“that keyless Rhyme” in “Better – than Music!”
Yumiko SAKATA KOIZUMI
Abstract
Dickinson’s “Better-than Music!” (F378) expresses the poet’s declaration of independence
and claims that her poems were “faint Rehearsal[s]” for the song of Moses and the Lamb of
Revelation. Dickinson locates herself in the prophetic tradition in the Bible: she could be
ranked with Mosses and Jesus Christ. By ending the poem with a full rhyme, the poet attempts
to create the very moment when earthly humming turns into celestial music through the use of
“that keyless Rhyme.” Focusing on her use of a full rhyme in the final stanza, I argue that the
rhyme pair “alone” and “Throne” strongly implicates her ambition to bring together the earth
and heaven.
Emily Dickinson’s poems are well-known to be characterized by irregular meters and
partial rhymes. However, the fact that they also contain some regular meters and pure full
rhymes has not been made equally clear. She is famous for having been a highly ingenious
inventor of partial rhymes, while little attention has been paid to her deliberate use of full
rhymes and their poetic effect. William Harmon and Judy Small (1987, 1990) briefly mention
that Dickinson’s peculiar use of a full rhyme at the end of a poem may signify the poet’s
intention of creating a solid foundation of a poem, although they extensively discuss the poetic
effect of partial rhymes in her poems. This stable rhyme pattern appears in approximately 15%
of her poems from 1862 to 1864. Timothy Morris’s (1988) detailed analysis of the frequency
of full rhymes in Dickinson’s poems support the present study author’s point. The frequency of
full rhymes in Dickinson’s early 1860s steadily decreases. The best way to enduringly impress
the reader could be through the arrangement of sounds. Dickinson pays particular attention
to the last word of the last stanza because it lingers longest in the reader’s ears. In particular,
in a setting marked by deficient rhymes, a full rhyme at the end of a poem has a great impact
on the reader. The last rhyme pair in a poem is the most important, because it represents the
culmination of her vision.
Since Dickinson was an end-focused poet, end-rhymes surely play a great role in the poetic
『人文コミュニケーション学科論集』15, pp. 57-69.
© 2013 茨城大学人文学部（人文学部紀要）
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Yumiko SAKATA KOIZUMI
effect. In “Better-than Music!” (F378), she attempts to create the very moment when earthly
humming turns into a sacred song by ending the poem with a full rhyme. The correspondence
of sounds in terminating words in the last stanza brings this earth to heaven through the use of
“that keyless Rhyme.”
Unexpectedly almost half of her 21 poems on music are primarily concerned with celestial
music. “Better-than Music!” is one of Dickinson’s representative poems related to celestial
music, which expresses her declaration of independence from other poets and maintains that her
poems are “faint Rehearsal[s]” for the song of Moses and the Lamb of Revelation. Dickinson
daringly states that her songs could be equated with those of Moses and Jesus Christ. Focusing
on her use of a full rhyme in the final stanza, I argue that the rhyme pair “alone” and “Throne”
strongly implicates her ambition to bring together the earth and heaven. This study aims to
reveal the meaning of “that keyless Rhyme” in F378 by examining Dickinson’s deliberate use
of a full rhyme at the very end of the poem. There is a biblical echo from Revelation 14: 2-4 in this poem. It is especially meaningful
for the poet to end the poem with the rhyme pair, “alone” and “Throne,” which echoes the
line “and they sung as it were a new song before the throne” (Rev 14:3). A close relationship
between music and religion is shown in one of Dickinson’s letters to Samuel Bowles:
I think the Father’s Birds do not all carol at a time – to prove the cost of Music – not
doubting at the last each Wren shall bear it’s “Palm” – To take the pearl – costs Breath – but then a pearl is not impeached – let it strike the
East! (L242)
Here “Music” is a metaphor for heaven, and “the cost of Music” suggests the Christian idea of
redemption (i.e., the redemptive death of Jesus Christ). “To take the pearl −costs Breath −”
literally means the cost of life. People “clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands”
(Rev 7:9) are victors “which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and
made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (Rev 7:14). The relationship between religion and
music has historically been long, beginning with the history of ancient Israeli people, in which
music had been an integral part of religious rituals to praise God.
Music is deeply associated with the Dickinson’s image of heaven in her poems. Taking
into consideration her use of many musical terms in this poem, the term “music” illustrates an
abstract concept of heaven in the poet’s mind. For example, melody, the main tune of a musical
piece is defined in Dickinson’s lexicon: “B. [Fig] praise to God consisting of a joyful and
thankful disposition, ascribing to him the honor due to his name.” Dickinson’s 1844 Webster
Emily Dickinson and the Music: that keyless Rhyme in Better – than Music!
59
explains “To make melody in the heart, to praise God with a joyful and thankful disposition,
ascribing to him the honor due to his name.” In other words, humming instead of singing is
regarded as the act of praising God.
Dickinson first differentiates celestial music from birds singing by stating “’Twas Translation
- Of all tunes I knew - and more -.” It is something totally different from earthly humming.
Starting with the comparative form, she does not state what is compared with “Music.” The
trochaic meter in the first five lines predicts the speaker’s exciting experience when reciting the
poem. Her incantatory rhythm gives prominence to the rhymes which interact semantically
and calls up a biblical quotation: “and they sung as it were a new song before the throne” (Rev
14:3), thereby opposing an intense physicality to an everlasting reminder of mortality. Her
rhymes in the first two stanzas are effective because they relate to both immediate and implied
contexts.
The process of transforming “all tunes she knew” on earth into a different form is
emphasized in the second stanza. Dickinson names such a sacred song as “that keyless Rhyme!”
No one could play it except the perfect Mozart:
’Twas’nt contained - like other stanza No one could play it - the second time But the Composer - perfect Mozart Perish with him - that keyless Rhyme!
The last phrase “that keyless Rhyme!” appears as the terminating phrase of the second
stanza, which strongly appeals to the reader. The rhyme pair “time” and “Rhyme” is very
conventional. “Time” refers to the personal time of experience and metrical time of the poem,
as does “Rhyme,” which stands as both a poetic and spiritual restoration.
The peculiar phrase “that keyless Rhyme” reminds us of another Dickinson poem in which
the celestial musician, a poet, is compared to piano players at the keys:
He fumbles at your Soul
As Players at the Keys
Before they drop full Music on - (F477)
Similar to piano players, “they drop full Music on - .” To make richer music, the poet keeps
singing, though she knows it takes far longer to reach heaven. Here celestial music is compared
to piano music, yet differentiated by the nature of “that keyless Rhyme.”
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“Better - than Music!” is the only poem in which the poet clarifies her intention of using
a full rhyme in her poems. Dickinson is famous for her persistent silence over her own forms.
However, there are a few sentences that suggest her focus on using rhymes; one such sentence
exists in one of Dickinson’s letters to T. W. Higginson: “I thanked you for your justice - but
could not drop the Bells whose jingling cooled my Tramp” (L265). Dickinson claims that
mere artificial jingling has no meaning in writing poetry. Simultaneously, she does not deny
that an effective way to deliver her message is through the use of full rhymes. She seems to
eschew the formal patterning of rhyme during the early 1860s, but she was still drawn to the
extraordinary effects that using only full rhymes can effectively deliver her message. The poet
alternates between full and partial rhymes to create her own art. A rhyme works well when the
sound corresponds with the sense; otherwise, it is wasted. Dickinson strives to make the sound
completely correspond with the sense.
In discussing the function of Dickinson’s rhyme, Small also quotes the following line from
Dickinson’s letter: “These Behaviors of the Year hurt almost like Music – shifting when it
eases us most” (L381). Though the quoted line is not a direct statement about the poet’s use of
rhymes, it implies that Dickinson feels relieved when she could shift sounds. The poetic effect
is suggested here; shifting does have an easing effect. The frequently quoted remarks on rhyme
show the poet’s focus on using rhymes: rhyme provides necessary relief from mental stress.
However, a close reading of “Better – than Music!” demonstrates Dickinson’s deliberate use of
a full rhyme at the very end of the poem to reveal her concept of full rhymes.
Dickinson is well-known as a tactful inventor of partial rhymes, and because of this, her
use of full rhymes has not been completely discussed to sufficiently understand their poetic
effect. Dickinson critics tend to focus on her use of partial rhymes and their poetic effect, but
fail to understand the purpose of her deliberate use of full rhymes. A few statements about
her remarks defending her use of rhymes have attracted many critics and could have been
interpreted in either a positive or negative way.
Lindberg-Seyersted (1968) is a critic who analyses Dickinson’s use of full rhymes. She
states that the predominant rhyme scheme in Dickinson’s poems is xa ya: “The very stanza form
thus limits the occurrence of sound agreement, and the significance of rhyme as ornament and
structuring device” (156). She explains its poetic effect in Dickinson’s poems: “plentiful exact
rhyme appears to be an appropriate device for humor and mockery or for a song-like tone,”
emphasizing its lightness and playfulness (157-8). The critic is right in saying that Dickinson
uses full rhymes for its lightness and playfulness in her early poems; however, her statement
does not apply to some poems written in the early 1860s. Dickinson employs full rhymes to
deliver a more grave tone of religious sentiment in the poems written during the Civil War.
Emily Dickinson and the Music: that keyless Rhyme in Better – than Music!
61
The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry describes rhyming as “one of the most conservative
aspects of verse craft” (1052). It states that “a rhyme is the phonological correlation of differing
semantic units at distinctive points in verse” (1053). The phonic semblance and difference
point out semantic semblance or difference: the equivalence of the rhyming syllables or words
on the phonic level implies an association with likeness or difference on the semantic level.
To summarize, the following two points are concerned with its definition: 1) rhymes as being
conventional and cultural, and 2) the marker of line end. The poet is aware that her poetic
expression is not limited or weakened if she uses rhymes. Helen Vendler (2010) in Dickinson
characterizes the poet’s use of rhymes as the binder of ideas and images as well as lines and
stanzas. Vendler completely discovers the structural and semantic functions of rhyme in some
Dickinson poems. The associated words, images, and ideas emphasized by rhymes are revealed
through her explication.
“Better - than Music!” manifests the poetic effect of “that keyless Rhyme” on both poetic
and religious levels. Numerous musical terms are used in this poem: “music,” “the Birds,”
“tunes,” “melody,” “ humming,” “ cadence,” “strain,” “snatches,” “stanza,” “humming,”
and “rehearsal.” A musical term appears in almost every stanza. The persistent procession of
musical implications finally arrives with the final key-word “ Throne.” Starting with hearing
the birds singing, the speaker tries not to spill “it’s smallest cadence - ,” but to keep humming
“until my faint Rehearsal - / Drop into tune -around the Throne - .” According to the speaker,
the tune is something unworldly that only “the Composer - perfect Mozart - ” could play.
The first line of this poem suggests that the object discussed in this poem is better than
a bird’s song on earth, something far beyond our understanding. The reason for this firm
statement is that the speaker “heard” rather than “told” stories. No other proof exists other than
that she heard herself and experienced transportation to a celestial domain. Dickinson tries to
deliver her excitement of listening to celestial music: “This - was different.” This music is quite
different from what she had heard “before,” though it reminds her of nature’s music.
Dickinson strives to capture the very moment when birds’ songs, the music of nature, turns
into celestial music. Transforming an earthly bird song into celestial music helps the speaker
to be momentarily transported to a celestial domain, this experience makes her feel a sense of
immortality and allows her to sense “more.”
The relationship between music and water is also introduced in the third stanza to project
the image of heaven in the Book of Revelation. Children innocently believed what they were
told “how Brooks in Eden - / bubbled a better melody - ”:
Children - so - told how Brooks in Eden -
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Bubbled a better - melody Quaintly infer - Eve’s great surrender Urging the feet - that would - not - fly “Bubble” is associated with music and water. The imagery of music associated with waters
appears in other Dickinson poems such as F309, F477, F1003, and F1295.
The verb form
reminds us of the second line of “Dying at my music!” (F1003):
Dying at my music!
Bubble! Bubble!
Hold me till the Octave’s run!
Quick! Burst the Windows!
Ritardando!
Phials left, and the Sun!
The Book of Revelation holds the key to understand the relationship between music and water.
Rev 19:6 describes “a voice came out of the throne”: “And I heard as it were the voice of a
great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings.”
After hearing the voice of many waters, other voices are heard. However, a voice of heaven
is heard first through waters, thunder, and then, the voice of harpers (Rev 14:2). Celestial
music associated with waters is very old and very new. Music and water are metaphorically
interchangeable terms and both are the springs of life and the symbols of immortality. They
provide us with life-giving water and give us eternal life. Heaven is also depicted as the
place where “They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more” in the Book of Revelation;
therefore, water is associated with heaven as well as music. “A better – melody - ” on heaven
redirects us to the first line of “Better - than Music!,” where there is supposedly a better melody
of living water there.
In contrast, mature children in the fourth stanza have become wiser now, they have not
treated “Eden” as a true story but as a tale told long time ago. Eve and the anguishing story of
her expulsion from the Garden of Eden were somberly told to the speaker. Yet, somehow, “I
was telling a tune - I heard - ,” possibly about an untold story of Eve, the first woman. This was
not a story but “a tune.” What she was told in her childhood differs from what she has heard
herself; the remotest pair of words signifies the discrepancy. The syntactic parallel gradually
delineates a peculiar nature of music in the fifth stanza, and Dickinson elucidates the speaker’s
experience in terms of Christian metaphors:
Emily Dickinson and the Music: that keyless Rhyme in Better – than Music!
63
Not such a strain – the Church – baptizes –
When the last Saint – goes up the Aisles –
Not such a stanza splits the silence –
When the Redemption strikes her Bells –
The last stanza starts unusually with a trochaic beat and corresponds to the first stanza in
meter and rhyme. A return to full rhymes after a departure supports a closing effect. The final
full rhyme helps confirm the reader’s sense that the poem has reached an ultimate conclusion:
Let me not spill - it’s smallest cadence Humming - for promise - when alone Humming - until my faint Rehearsal Drop into tune - around the Throne “Humming” is obviously the key-word in this poem, since it is repeated two times as the first
word of lines 2 and 3 in the last stanza with a trochaic beat. To hum a tune “alone” is to sing in
low voice so that others cannot hear. Instead of singing a tune, the speaker claims that “I was
telling a tune” (L17). The difference between singing and telling is important here because
“telling a tune” on earth holds a key to sing “a new song” someday in the future, taking each
step steadily.
The end rhyme of the poem is almost a song about her ambition, but the singing quality
is muted, instead, more like humming to oneself. The two units are parallel but not exactly
parallel, in ways that contain echo and contrast with the play of similar and dissimilar sounds.
The repetition of humming emphasizes her will to murmur so that she can sing “a new song
before the throne” (Rev 14:3) in the near future. Here Dickinson locates herself in the prophetic
tradition in the Bible: she could be ranked with Mosses and Jesus Christ. By ending the poem
with a full rhyme, Dickinson attempts to create the very moment when the earthly humming
turns into a sacred song. From the start to finish, Dickinson emphasizes humming instead of
singing aloud, or telling a tune instead of telling stories about heaven.
*
The reason for Dickinson’s abhorrence of jingles in the previous stanzas is obvious: it is
very difficult for a poet to find rhyming words that appear completely natural and necessary
and not just a mechanical fit to the rhyme scheme, which bores the reader. But how could the
poet find the perfect rhyme pair which appears completely natural and necessary? Dickinson’s
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challenge was to find the best rhymed words, which were linked in many senses other than
sound. Thomas Johnson (1955) provides a clue by suggesting that “her [Dickinson’s] choice
in any event would have been determined by her preference for one image rather than another,
not by a desire to create exact meter and rhyme” (92). As Shira Wolosky (2001) points out,
“The fact of the rhyme brings the two words into special, emphatic contact” (155). In sum,
argues Wolosky, “rhymes join with other relationships between words in the intricate network
of pattering which together creates the poem’s sense” (153).
Dickinson’s awareness of a rhyme as a powerful way to bind words together in a meaningful
sequence is dramatized in “Better - than Music! ” which is her only poem that demonstrates how
to rhyme and sing “that keyless Rhyme.” Rhyme shifts are more fundamental to Dickinson’s
poetic constructions. Starting with a full rhyme, Dickinson usually deviates from normal rhyme
schemes. Written in 1862 when Dickinson’s prosodic expertise was completely realized, this
poem also starts with a full rhyme in the first and second stanzas and then moves off rhyme
in the third and fourth stanzas. A partial rhyme then returns in the fifth stanza, and the poem
finally ends with a full rhyme. The poem starts with the poet’s experience of listening to the
birds on earth, but introduces a different tune she had never heard, supposedly one better than
that told in the Bible. The final rhyme in the first stanza “more” suggestively makes us realize
the presence of a heavenly song on earth. The structural form when she narrates the facts of
celestial music is in exact rhyme with confidence.
The third and fourth stanzas are off rhyme, followed by partially rhymed fifth stanza. The
completion is expected in these three stanzas and is finally fulfilled with a full rhyme. The
final full rhyme in the final stanza is untimely, resulting in a more startling poetic effect. The
seemingly negative voice is turned into a positive one. The binding power is illustrated in
the first two stanzas, and the power of association is emphasized through departure from the
expected sound repetition of rhymes. The poem follows this pattern until its last stanza restores
a full rhyme pattern, as a sign of hope for a new song.
There is wit in rhyming two spheres of the speaker’s location: earth and heaven. All three
sets of rhyme pair are all conventional. “Time” at once refers to the personal time of experience
on earth and metrical time of the poem, as does “Rhyme,” which stands as both a poetic and
spiritual restoration. Semantically, the rhyming words “more,” “Rhyme,” and “Throne” are
associated with heaven, while “before,” “time,” and “alone” are images related to earthly
humming. In particular, the two capitalized terms “Rhyme” and “Throne” stand out to express
the overwhelming power of a new song. Six rhymed words function as an image to finally
create the image of “Throne,” which is the poem’s final word. Harmon classifies five categories
of the relationship between sound and meaning: three sets of rhyme pair belong to the second
Emily Dickinson and the Music: that keyless Rhyme in Better – than Music!
65
category “a range of rhyming words that are related” (373).
Dickinson pays particular attention to the last word of the last stanza. The last word of
a poem is the most important one because it lingers longest in the reader’s ears; therefore, it
holds a lasting impression. The last word “Throne” followed by a zero space at the end is not
one dimensional, but multi-dimensional; it is where sound and meaning are juxtaposed in the
reader’s mind. The last word reverberates an idea and has a strong and wide-reaching effect.
Rhymes do precede context in some Dickinson’s poems. By selecting common pairings such
as “time/Rhyme” and “alone/Throne” before composition, Dickinson could set a larger context
with them. These pairings have ready-made semantic links in addition to similarity in sound;
thus, they provide the poet with both a rhyme and theme. Dickinson’s last rhyme pair works
well because it relates to both immediate and implied contexts.
A rhyme is another form of punctuation closely bound to lineation and layout, audibly
helping on the page to organize relationships between words. In particular, the correspondence
of sounds in the terminating words of the last stanza leaves an indelible impression of the
entire poem. The unexpected regular full-rhyme brings a sense of closure and restoration.
The conclusiveness of the last sentence derives from its force as a statement of conviction
encapsulating the wisdom quoted from the Book of Revelation, and the full rhyme with which
it ends. In this poem, full rhymes appear in the first, second, and last stanzas, and a partial
rhyme appears in the middle stanza. The authoritative tone is delivered through full rhymes,
particularly one at the end.
We can at least speculate that Dickinson intentionally places each final rhyme for a specific
purpose. Technically this device is a convenient means of supporting closure. But the poet
takes this further: the rhyme pair “alone” and “Throne” is supposed to be juxtaposed in the
reader’s imagination by acoustic-semantic superimposition. Let us consider the poetic effect of
the final rhyme in the last stanza:
Let me not spill -it’s smallest cadence Humming - for promise - when alone Humming - until my faint Rehearsal Drop into tune - around the Throne The last stanza unusually starts with a strong beat and corresponds to the irregular first stanza.
The poem ends with trochaic tetrameter, which is one of the striking exceptions.
The rhyme pair “alone” and “Throne” reflects Dickinson’s stoic attitude toward her
occupation as well as her ambition of singing the song of Moses and the Lamb of Revelation.
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Thus Dickinson’s use of a full rhyme in the final stanza holds an iconic significance; she attempts
to capture the very moment when earthly humming turns into a new song. The correspondence
of sounds in the last stanza’s terminating words brings this earth to heaven through the use of
“that keyless Rhyme.” Ending the poem with the image of Revelation, Dickinson’s use of a full
rhyme in the very last stanza leaves a more enduring impression on the reader, both acoustically
and visually.
T. W. Higginson (1890) states in his preface to the 1890 Poems that Dickinson “often
altered a word many times to suit an ear which had its own tenacious fastidiousness” (xx).
Small points out that in the case of Dickinson there are a few variants of rhymed words.
According to Small, even when approximately three-quarters of variants for rhymed words is
provided, the sound character of the words they would replace would not be altered; that is, a
full rhyme would be a full rhyme. We may conclude that Dickinson had a strong sense of how
she wanted her poems to sound at the end. We could speculate that Dickinson began with her
image of the last rhyme and then created other rhyming pairs to deliberately fall into the final
spot. Dickinson had a keen sense of broken patterns, which also suggests that she had a clear
sense of using a full rhyme at the right time.
William Wimsatt (1954) maintains in “One Relation of Rhyme to Reason” that “they
[rhymes] are the icon in which the idea is caught” (153). For Wimsatt, sound patterns are not
detachable ornaments; nonetheless, they are strictly secondary in logic: “They impose upon the
logical pattern of expressed argument a kind of fixative counter-pattern of alogical implication”
(153). Although both Lindberg-Seyerstead and Small conclude that “the principles he [Wimsatt]
discovers there are not easily trans-ferable to a poetry that is heavily enjambed and that uses a
large proportion of partial rhymes,” Wimsatt’s insight in a poet’s iconic use of rhymes might
help us understand the function of a full rhyme in the final stanza in Dickinson’s poems.
Seeing “the unsteadiness of rhyme pattern in many of Dickinson’s poems,” both LindbergSeyerstead and Small find difficulties in explaining a possibility of drawing conclusions about
Dickinson’s rhyme pattern beyond the level of individual poems.
Small mentions that the critical confusion surrounding the evaluation of Dickinson’s rhymes
“results in part from lack of understanding of the principles by which rhyme operates” (7).
Still, Small herself does not seem to find the principles by which Dickinson’s rhymes operate in
Positive as Sound. Masao Okazaki’s (2013) comprehensive description of Dickinson’s partial
rhyming patterns is the first real breakthrough in years in the study of her partial rhyme patterns.
He classifies partial rhyme cases into three types and he concludes that Dickinson’s partial
rhyme is identified as a full rhyme. Although Okazaki’s analysis is persuasive, his conclusion
does not account for the difference between a partial rhyme and a pure full rhyme. There is
Emily Dickinson and the Music: that keyless Rhyme in Better – than Music!
67
a fundamental difference between these rhyme schemes in Dickinson’s poems and in spite of
sound similarities, they are essentially different. Each rhymed word holds an iconic meaning
for Emily Dickinson.
Dickinson seems to have conveyed a specific iconic message in her final full rhyme in the
last stanza. In particular, the last rhyming words of a poem are highlighted, which demand
attention. The poet appears to have the final word in her mind at the beginning and starts to
arrange each rhyme pair. In reviewing a history of rhyme-making in English, Harmon maintains
that “a synthetic-suffixal language will not tend towards rhyme except for extraordinary
purposes” (368). Dickinson uses a full rhyme exactly “for extraordinary purposes.” The poet
may consider the possibility of having a dramatic impact on the reader when the vowels and
consonants are superimposed in syllables of two verses. In addition, Dickinson strives to
include an iconic message in the final rhyme at the end of a poem.
A feature of Dickinson’s full rhyme is a combination of two terms, which seemingly appear
to be separate in some ways, yet are related in meaning. She is very much aware of a full rhyme
as a powerful way to bind apparently disparate words together in the poem’s last stanza; for
example, the earthly image of humming “alone” and heavenly imagery of “the Throne.” By
creating the very moment when “my music” and “the Music” are juxtaposed, the last vowel and
consonant coincide with the rhyme pair; an earthly humming would turn into celestial music.
The piercing effect of that final unexpected full rhyme contributes to the reader’s sensation of
the last line― “Drop into tune - around the Throne - .”
Critics tend to focus on the unsettling quality of Dickinson’s rhymes. There is also a
miraculous combination of word-pairs so linked and exploited it with powerful effect to capture
the mystery of bringing together the earth and heaven. Emily Dickinson’s challenge was to find
rhyming words that appeared completely natural and fitted to suit her vision of heaven.
Harmon characterizes an occurrence of an irregular rhyme in the usual pattern as “departure
from the norm may seem unusual, striking, ironic, or unsettling” (373) in which a norm can
be perceived. However, in the case of Dickinson’s poems written in the early 1860s, in which
deviation from the norm is apparent, the function of a full rhyme could be different. At least
one rare case of Dickinson’s use of full rhymes stands out and delivers a significant message.
Dickinson never appears to be an off-rhymer; instead, she makes every effort to rhyme. Even
when she places partial rhymes, a rhyme is a powerful way to suggest the relationship between
sound and meaning.
Examining the number of rhyming pairs at the end of poems between 1862 and 1864, we
notice that religious poems come first, with 8 out of 28 consisting of echoes of Revelation. In
conclusion, “that keyless Rhyme” represents the final rhyme pair “alone” and “Throne” in the
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last stanza as the most effective means of leaving a more enduring impression of heaven as
well as celestial music. By creating the very moment when “my music” and “the Music” are
juxtaposed the last vowel and consonant coincide with the rhyme pair; an earthly humming
turns into celestial music.
It is uncommon for Dickinson to use a very conventional standard rhyme pair such as
“time/Rhyme” and “alone/Throne.” These rhyming pairs are so overt and familiar, yet so
solemn. These rhyme words are what Michael Mckie (1998) redefines “semantic rhyme”
(what he also calls “the stock rhyme”), “which may be semantically similar or contrasted;
and common pairings” (347). These pairings have ready-made semantic links in addition to
similarity in sound; thus, they provide the poet with both a rhyme and theme. In the tightly
controlled form such as a hymn, the acceptance of semantic rhyme would bring a larger cultural
context with it. Although they are much-used rhyming pairs, they evoke a particular historical
point when the biblical echo must have had great resonance in the Civil War.
The rhyming is resonant in sound. John Creaser (2012) suggests the degree of aural resonance
in a rhyme depending on the presence or absence of three qualities in the rhyming-syllable:
“Whether the vowel is long or short; whether the closing consonant is voiced or unvoiced;
and whether or not the closing consonant can be drawn out” (444). The final word “Throne”
contains a long vowel and is made highly resonant by the following nasal consonant.
The “Time/rhyme” pairing has attracted many poets because they recall their career,
mortality, and the destructive effects of time upon memory. Many poets have not overcome
the devouring effects of time in their poems. In contrast, Dickinson’s poem speaks even
more powerfully of a possibility of “a new song before the throne.” T. S. Eliot (1917) in his
“Reflections on Vers Libre” refers to the poetic effect of a rhyme: “when the comforting echo
of rhyme is removed … much ethereal music leaps up from the word” (438). Eliot’s remarks
on the correlation between a rhyme and ethereal music illuminate Dickinson’s speculation
concerning “that keyless Rhyme.” A rhyme is essential when she sings “a new song before the
throne.”
Commenting on Dickinson’s use of partial rhymes, Brita Lindberg-Seyersted states that
“no poet writing before the last quarter of the nineteenth century seems to have employed these
types of rhyme as frequently and as deliberately as Dickinson” (161). The same is true of
Dickinson’s use of full rhyme. Emily Dickinson is the very first poet to deliberately use both
partial and full rhymes. Dickinson was a great innovator of rhyme in context.
Emily Dickinson and the Music: that keyless Rhyme in Better – than Music!
69
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＊The research for this study was supported by Grants-in-Aid Scientific Research. Grant
Number: 25370265.