Сусальной маскою - личиной -
Не стану я -
Каким бы под моей натурой
Грехов не лечь слоям -
И здрава правда, и надёжна, и как Свет.
Сколь тощи враки - изгнанным вослед,
И звучны - коль нам смерть...
Подоплёка, кому интересно:
[David Preest: The manuscript of this poem is
headed in petto (= in confidence) and is signed
Lothrop. Thomas Johnson explains the background
to these words. The daughter of a certain clergyman
called C.D. Lothrop had fled from her father’s house,
accusing him of maltreatment, and appealed to her
neighbours, including Austin. When The Republican
published an account of the matter, her father
brought a libel suit against it. The case went to Salem
in Essex County and judgement was given against Lothrop.
Emily may have sent this poem on the incident to Austin
himself, with Lothrop at the end perhaps indicating
Emily’s view of Lothrop’s character. She does not want
her own ‘strata of Iniquity’ plated over with a deceptive
veneer of surface goodness, any more than she had approved
of the ‘Plated Wares’ of poem 747. It is the ‘Truth’
about her which will reach ‘the Sky’ (= heaven), while
lying deception, like Lothrop’s, exiles him from his
fellows in this life and will be exposed in the next.
When Emily in the previous year had enclosed a batch of
poems in a letter (L513) to Thomas Higginson, she had
said of them, ‘Excuse them if they are untrue.’
*********************************
A Counterfeit -- a Plated Person -- by Emily Dickinson
A Counterfeit -- a Plated Person --
I would not be --
Whatever strata of Iniquity
My Nature underlie --
Truth is good Health -- and Safety, and the Sky.
How meagre, what an Exile -- is a Lie,
And Vocal -- when we die --