Emily Dickinson

From the Chrysalis

FROM THE CHRYSALIS.

Cocoon tightens

The transformation is already happening—tightening signals the pupa stage ending. She's not waiting to change; she's mid-metamorphosis.

My cocoon tightens, colors tease,
I'm feeling for the air;
A dim capacity for wings
Degrades the dress I wear.

Degrades the dress

Strange word choice. Growing wings doesn't degrade anything—unless she means her earthbound body now feels like inferior clothing compared to what's coming.

A power of butterfly must be
The aptitude to fly,
Meadows of majesty concedes
And easy sweeps of sky.

Baffle at the hint

**Baffle** as a verb means to struggle or be confused. She's not gracefully emerging—she's fumbling with cryptic instructions.

So I must baffle at the hint
And cipher at the sign,
And make much blunder, if at last
I take the clew divine.

Take the clew

**Clew** is the old spelling of 'clue'—originally the thread Theseus used to escape the labyrinth. Divine guidance as a thread leading out of confusion.

Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

Dickinson's Awkward Transformation

Most butterfly poems celebrate graceful emergence. Dickinson's speaker is baffled, making blunders, struggling to cipher unclear signs. This is transformation as confusion, not triumph.

The physical details are precise: the cocoon tightens (accurate—the chrysalis contracts before emergence), colors tease (wings show through the casing), and there's a dim capacity for wings. But notice what she calls her body: the dress I wear. The metaphor suggests her current form is just clothing, temporary and separate from her true self.

The real surprise is degrades. Wings should be an upgrade, but she says they degrade her dress. Either she means her earthbound body now feels shabby by comparison, or—more interestingly—she's saying the promise of flight makes her current state feel worse. Anticipation as degradation.

The final stanza abandons the butterfly metaphor for religious language: the clew divine. She's not just becoming a butterfly; she's trying to decode divine instructions. The transformation is spiritual, and she admits she'll make much blunder before she gets it right. This is Dickinson's typical move—taking a pretty nature metaphor and making it about epistemological struggle.

The Grammar of Becoming

CONTEXT Dickinson rarely titled her poems. "From the Chrysalis" was added by her first editors in 1890. She would have left it untitled, making the butterfly metaphor a surprise rather than announcing it upfront.

Watch the conditional language: must be, must baffle, if at last. Nothing is certain. The aptitude to fly is theoretical. Meadows of majesty exist somewhere, but she hasn't reached them. The whole poem is subjunctive—describing a transformation that might happen, not one that has.

The poem's structure mirrors the struggle. Lines 1-4 describe the physical change. Lines 5-8 imagine what butterfly-hood offers. Lines 9-12 admit the difficulty. But there's no final stanza showing success. It ends on if—if I eventually figure this out. The chrysalis never fully opens in the poem.