"Lay this Laurel on the One" By Emily Dickinson [Analysis]

Lay this Laurel on the One[1] Too intrinsic for Renown [2] Laurel veil your deathless tree [3] Him you chasten, that is He![4]
Poem 1393 [F1428] "Lay this Laurel on the One" Analysis by David Preest [Poem]

This poem and poem 1394 are both part of a letter (L503) sent to Thomas Higginson in June 1877. Emily's father had died in that month three years earlier, and she tells Higginson that she has been re-reading his poem Decoration which had been originally published in the June of her father's death and has been inspired by his poem of 28 lines to write her own version of 4 lines. Higginson later generously said of the two poems that hers 'is the condensed essence [of mine] and so far finer.' In the poem Emily seems to be saying that she could put a Laurel on her father's grave to commemorate him, but that, as her father is too intrinsically noble to need this mark of renown, the Laurel should instead veil its deathless tree, as the one, whom the Laurel branch would be 'chastening' or refining, is he who has no need of it.
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