"What Twigs We held by --"

By Emily Dickinson
[Analysis]
What Twigs We held by -- [1]
Oh the View [2]
When Life's swift River striven through [3]
We pause before a further plunge [4]
To take Momentum -- [5]
As the Fringe [6]
Upon a former Garment shows [7]
The Garment cast, [8]
Our Props disclose [9]
So scant, so eminently small [10]
Of Might to help, so pitiful [11]
To sink, if We had labored, fond [12]
The diligence were not more blind [13]
How scant, by everlasting Light [14]
The Discs that satisfied Our Sight -- [15]
How dimmer than a Saturn's Bar [16]
The Things esteemed, for Things that are! [17]
Poem 1086 [F1046]
"What Twigs We held by"
Analysis by David Preest
[Poem]
Emily seems to imagine that she has struggled through to the end of 'Life's swift River' and to be pausing 'before a further plunge' into
eternal life viewed ahead. As she pauses, she thinks how small were the Twigs she held on to as props while she careered down the river,
how she might have got into difficulties and pitifully sunk, how she is glad that what was looking after her had not been more blind. Her
aids on the journey now seem as small as a garment's fringe when the garment has been removed from it.
As she stands on the edge of heaven, its 'everlasting Light' makes her earthly 'Discs' or guiding lights seem 'scant,' and 'the Things
esteemed' by her on earth seem dimmer than the bar faintly seen in Saturn's atmosphere when compared with the 'Things that are' before her
in heaven.
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