The Great Mirror of Same-Sex Love - Prose - 8. Emily Dickinson “Those unions will take us one day”

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Emily Dickinson “Those unions will take us one day”

(In this remarkable letter, the longing for the day when same-sex marriage -- the union for us -- is treated as equal to opposite-sex relationships is palpable. This point is driven home by Dickinson in her inevitable way, pointing out how miserable most women become locked in a loveless marriage, nothing but the 'property' of a man in traditional marriage law. She tries to offer a glimpse of an alternate, perhaps one where Susan and Emily go off an set up house together as a couple. Their own HEA.)

They are cleaning house today, Susie, and I’ve made a flying retreat to my own little chamber where with affection and you, I will spend this, my precious hour; most precious of all the hours which dot my flying days, and the one so dear, that for it I barter everything, and as soon as it is gone, I am sighing for it again.

I cannot believe. dear Susie. that I have stayed without you almost a whole year long; sometimes the time seems short, and the thought of you as warm as if you had gone but yesterday, and again if years and years had trod their silent pathway, the time would seem less long. And how soon I shall have you, hall hold you in my arms; you will forgive the tears, Susie, they are so glad to come that it is not in my heart to reprove them and send them home. I don’t know why it is — but there’s something in your name, now you are taken from me, which fills my heart so full, and my eye, too. It is not that the mention grieves me, no, Susie, but I think of each “sunnyside” where we have sat together, and lest there be no more, I guess is what makes the tears come. Mattie was here last evening, and we sat on the front door stone, and talked about life and love, and whispered our childish fancies about such blissful things — the evening was gone so soon, and I walked home with Mattie beneath the silent moon, and wished for you, and Heaven. You did not come, Darling, but a bit of Heaven did, or so it seemed to us, as we walked side by side and wondered if the great blessedness which may be ours sometime, is granted now, to some. Those unions, my dear Susie, by which two lives are one, this sweet and strange adoption wherein we can but look, and are not yet admitted, how it can fill the heart, and make it gang wildly beating, how it will take us one day, and make us all its own, and we shall not run away from it, but lie still and be happy!

You and I have been strangely silent upon this subject, Susie, we have often touched upon it, and as quickly fled away, as children shut their eyes when the sun is too bright for them. I have always hoped to know if you had no dear fancy, illuminating all your life, no one of whom you murmured in the faithful ear of night — and at whose side in fancy, you walked the livelong day; and when you come home, Susie, we must speak of these things. How dull our lives must seem to the bride, and the plighted maiden, whose days are fed with gold, and who gathers pearls every evening; but to the wife, Susie, sometimes the wife forgotten, our lives perhaps seem dearer than all others in the world; you have seen flowers at morning, satisfied with the dew, and those same sweet flowers at noon with their heads bowed in anguish before the mighty sun; think you these [first] blossoms will now need naught but — dew? No, they will cry for sunlight, and pine for the burning noon, tho’ it scorches them, scythes them; they have got through with peace — they know that the man of noon, is mightier than the morning and their life is henceforth to him. Oh, Susie, it is dangerous, and it is all too dear, these simple trusting spirits, and the spirits mightier, which we cannot resist! It does so rend me, Susie, the thought of it when it comes, that I tremble lest at sometime l, too, am yielded up. Susie, you will forgive me my amatory strain —it has been a very long one, and if this saucy page did not here bind and fetter me, I might have had no end.

I have got the letter, Susie, dear little bud, and all — and the tears came again, that alone in this big world, I am not quite alone. Such tears are showers — friend, thro’ which when smiles appear, the angels call them rainbows, and mimic them in Heaven.

And now in four weeks more — you are mine, all mine, except I lend you a little occasionally to Hattie and Mattie, if they promise not to lose you, and to bring you back very soon. I shall not count the days. I shall not fill my cups with this expected happiness, for perhaps if I do, the angels, being thirsty, will drink them up — l shall only hope, my Susie, and that tremblingly, for haven’t barques the fullest, stranded upon the shore?

God is good, Susie. I trust he will save you. I pray that in his good time we once more meet each other, but if this life holds not another meeting for us, remember also, Susie, that it had no parting more, wherever that hour finds us, for which we have hoped so long, we shall not be separated. Neither death, nor the grave can part us, so that we only love!

Your Emilie —

—Emily Dickinson[i]

letter of early June, 1852