By My Window Have I for Scenery
poem 797
By My Window Have I for Scenery - meaning Summary
Perception as Doorway to Faith
This poem presents a quiet meditation on how ordinary perception shapes larger beliefs. Dickinson watches a single tree from her window and treats names and functions—pine, port, melody—as contingent opinions that serve human understanding. Sensory impressions (sight, odor, voice) gesture toward but cannot fully define the divine; when sight fails, conviction or faith remains. The tree becomes a catalyst for thinking about immortality and the limits of language. The closing lines propose that apprehension of the sacred acts as a divine introduction, requiring reverent response rather than precise explanation.
Read Complete AnalysesBy my Window have I for Scenery Just a Sea with a Stem If the Bird and the Farmer deem it a Pine The Opinion will serve for them It has no Port, nor a Line but the Jays That split their route to the Sky Or a Squirrel, whose giddy Peninsula May be easier reached this way For Inlands the Earth is the under side And the upper side is the Sun And its Commerce if Commerce it have Of Spice I infer from the Odors borne Of its Voice to affirm when the Wind is within Can the Dumb define the Divine? The Definition of Melody is That Definition is none It suggests to our Faith They suggest to our Sight When the latter is put away I shall meet with Conviction I somewhere met That Immortality Was the Pine at my Window a Fellow Of the Royal Infinity? Apprehensions are God’s introductions To be hallowed accordingly
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