From: LouisFors@aol.com
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Date: Sun, 1 Feb 1998 13:20:25 EST
To: emweb@fmgmt.mgmt.utoronto.ca
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Subject: Re: Question - "Now I lay me ..."
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Joe:

My reading of the poem is slightly different from Marcy's.  I suspect the
ever-alert Dickinson called to mind the prayer and then did some word play
with it, noodling around, so to speak.  But noodling by a genius can result in
something more than she might have expected.  And one must remember that Ms.
Dickinson spent a good deal of time jousting with God.  

#1539 is filled with ambiguity and thus with possibility.  Who, for example,
is the "I" in 1536?  A mother or father putting a child to sleep?  (The "I" is
a dramtic shift from the prayer I said as a kid.)  Or, given the word "dust,"
is this a burial?  

The last two lines, for me, "noddle around" with the Lord and His ability to
make a soul.  And there are possibilities with the idea of resurrection.

So, we may be left with the same possibilites that Dickinson had after her
word play.
She may have said, "There's interesting stuff in here, and it can go in a lot
of directions, but, I'll stuff it in my bundles and let other people play with
it."  And she may have decided not to show it to the preachers.

But, remember that I'm an amateur with this stuff.

Louis Forsdale