How slow the wind

In April 2013 I posted this on Facebook:

Is this the shortest poem ever? I find it very moving.
 
How slow the Wind—
how slow the sea—
how late their Fathers be!

Emily Dickinson c 1883

The painting is by Daniel Ridgway Knight (American-born French genre painter, 1839-1924) and is called "Waiting for the Return of the Fishermen."

Well, I have now discovered that there was a mistake in that version of the thirteen-word poem.  When Emily Dickinson wrote it, it ran as follows:

How slow the Wind—
how slow the sea—
how late their Feathers be!


A masterpiece of brevity, and not easy to understand.  The last line is "How late their FEATHERS be."  Not fathers!  That mistake occurs in many reprints of this simple little poem.  So it's not about small children waiting - endlessly - on the shore for their fathers to return from some ocean voyage or fishing trip. It's a nature poem, like many of her others -- and it must be about birds, and the slow arrival of the spring as the migrating birds return from overseas...... with the poet waiting and waiting, and gazing out to sea.


But think for a moment how clever the wording is.  To describe the wind as "slow" is very startling.  We normally describe the wind as "strong" or "gentle" or "moderate" ......... but I have never heard the word "slow" used in this context.   And then to use the same word with respect to the sea.  Even more clever, and more startling.  A slow sea?  And yet we know exactly what she means......


And the last line.  An exclamation to end one of the shortest poems ever.  The feathers must be a reference to the birds whose return the poet longs for -- but she uses the word "their" to imply that the feathers do not belong to the unmentioned birds, but to the wind and the sea.  And in doing that, Emily Dickinson conjures up images of loose feathers floating in the air or drifting in the wind, and images of "feathers" on the tips of waves as they break and foam.  We see white flecks far out to sea -- delicate feathers where normally we think of white horses, geese or sheep (it depends which country we come from!).  

So even though I had the word "fathers" instead of "feathers" I still think this poem is wonderful.  Written -- or crafted -- by a consummate poet, and packed with symbolism.  It's even cleverer than I thought when I first read it...........  

And it's been set to music at least twice -- so it strikes a chord or two with quite a few people.