keen and quivering ratio
Mathematical language—**ratio** means exact proportion. Joy and pain aren't random; they balance like an equation.
Sharp pittances
**Pittances** are tiny wages, barely enough to survive on. For one happy hour, you get paid in stingy bits of suffering.
contested farthings
**Farthings** were the smallest British coin, worth 1/4 penny. Even these worthless coins must be fought over—nothing comes easy.
Reading Notes
Dickinson's Emotional Economics
This poem treats feelings like currency. Ecstasy costs anguish, beloved hours are purchased with years of pain, and tears pile up in coffers (treasure chests). The entire system runs on exact exchange rates—notice ratio in line 3.
CONTEXT Dickinson wrote this around 1858-1860, during her most productive period but also increasing isolation. She'd experienced several losses and was beginning her withdrawal from Amherst society. The poem's accounting language reflects 19th-century economic thinking, but also Calvinist New England's obsession with moral ledgers—every pleasure must be paid for.
The financial metaphors get progressively smaller and meaner. Stanza one deals in abstract ecstasy and anguish. Stanza two descends into petty cash: pittances (meager wages), farthings (nearly worthless coins), money so small it's bitter to even count it. The poem moves from cosmic balance to penny-pinching misery. That shift matters—it suggests life doesn't just balance joy with sorrow, it *shortchanges* you, paying out suffering in amounts that far exceed what the happiness was worth.
What the Adjectives Do
Every noun gets modified, and the modifiers hurt. Ecstatic instant versus keen (sharp, cutting) anguish. Beloved hour versus sharp pittances and bitter farthings. Even quivering in line 3—the ratio itself trembles, unstable.
Heaped in the final line is the only word suggesting abundance, but it's abundance of tears. The poem's sole image of plenty is suffering. Compare this to the pittances and farthings—joy comes in tiny, contested amounts while grief accumulates in overflowing treasure chests.
The poem never questions whether this exchange system is fair. It states it as law: we must pay. The certainty is Calvinist—this is how the universe works, take it or leave it. Dickinson isn't complaining; she's reporting the terms of existence.