It’s all I have to bring today —
This, and my heart beside —
This, and my heart, and all the fields —
And all the meadows wide —
Be sure you count — should I forget
Some one the sum could tell —
This, and my heart, and all the Bees
Which in the Clover dwell.
It’s all I have to bring today
Analysis, meaning and summary of Emily Dickinson's poem It’s all I have to bring today
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I used this for my monthly peom, and i LOVE it!
I received this poem without understanding why and I so I am analyzing why it has shown up in my life. Similar to another disection is that there is a longing to express a love that is not able to be received as satisfactory but the writer is saying that she can give only what she has and that should be enough.
i studied english literature for just over a year, not the most impressive of studies i kno but moving on. When I studied this poem i came to the same conclusion. Dickinson was trying to express her belief that all she had to offer is what she holds in her heart, but at the same time I also got the impression that she believed that was far more than enough. She says that although she only has her heart to bring she also has the fields and meadows wide, inspiring the idea that her heart is a lot more than it may at first seem. This, I think, is supported by her saying that she could lose count of the value of her own heart. that made so much more sense when it was in my head then when i wrote it down but there you go, just my thoughts.
I really think that this is also a life lesson. What Emily is trying to say is that all anybody has to offer if you strip them down to the minimum, is their heart and that is it. Money and fame are hear today and gone tomorrow, and the only thing left is the real person left in your true heart.
I think the other poem you’re talking about is #95:
“My nosegays are for captives”, right?
I can’t remember the name of the poem, but she wrote at least one other that has to deal with what she can offer. I believe that all she felt she had to offer was her poetry, and nothing more. But then again, she made it easy to interpet it in another manner.
I think “this” refers to this poem or all of her poetry in general. Her poetry is all she has to show for herself; her poetry and her heart because her heart is in her poetry, so to say.
The “fields” and “meadows wide” and all these nature references probably mean that her poetry is directly derived from Nature. “Someone the sum could tell” probably means that the subjects of her poems are so universal and intuitive that any one could get them and “tell” about them.
I do believe this poem is about desire. Deepfelt desire to have something to show the world.