This is the Hour of Lead - Remembered, if outlived!

Dickinson’s words describe the body’s response to a shocking, emotionally painful event. This event could be anything humans find to be the cause of great suffering. The timeless portrayal of pain response is likened to that of Christ’s suffering in the first stanza, the ultimate suffering which bore the since the sins of the world. The first stanza writes “The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore, and Yesterday, or Centuries before?” The pain in which the authors writes happened the day before and is questioned to have been one of the sins of the world that Christ died for, just as the sins/pain of centuries before. This reaffirms the timelessness of pain, in that it is blind to each generation and spares none. The readers understand the pain which Dickinson describes which will be remembered, only “if outlived.” The survivorship seems unlikely at the time of a painful event, but eventually the pain subsides and the “great pain” becomes a memory.

In psychology, we learn that the body’s response to a painful loss is depression, which removes your ability to function normally, often limiting your mobility. It is for this that we protect ourselves. If, after a painful event, we continue to carry out our daily tasks, we are more of a danger to ourselves because of an intense distraction and our reduced ability to reason. Dickson gives a somber detailed look at the body’s own reaction to the pain. “The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs.” Biologically, our nerves synapse at a rate that gives us the ability to move, think, and feel. If the nerves, cold and awaiting death like “tombs,” react in this manner to an emotional pain, how do nerves function after a physical blow – pain which uses the sympathetic system to alert the body to flee from a dangerous situation and more importantly, requires the body the heal itself. The parasympathetic system controls the restful states of the body, perhaps the one in which Dickinson describes in the first stanza.