subtle glutton
Paradox in two words—gluttons aren't subtle, and 'subtle' things don't gorge. Hope is both ravenous and invisible.
halcyon table
Halcyon = kingfisher bird, also Greek myth for perfect calm. A table of peace that seats only one—hope is solitary.
amounts remain
The math doesn't work—consumption without depletion. Hope violates the laws of physics.
Reading Notes
The Economics of Hope
Dickinson treats hope like a paradoxical resource—it consumes without depleting. The poem opens with "subtle glutton," immediately breaking our expectations. Gluttons are obvious, excessive, visible in their consumption. But hope gorges invisibly, "feeds upon the fair" without anyone noticing the meal.
The central trick is in lines 7-8: "whatsoever is consumed / The same amounts remain." This is impossible economics. Normal resources—food, money, energy—diminish when used. Hope operates by different math. You can spend it endlessly and still have the same amount. This connects to Dickinson's more famous hope poem ("Hope is the thing with feathers")—both present hope as something that defies normal scarcity.
The "halcyon table / That never seats but one" deepens the paradox. Halcyon refers to the kingfisher bird and Greek myths of perfect calm seas, but here it's a table of abundance for a solitary diner. Hope isn't shared—each person has their own infinite supply. The loneliness of "never seats but one" cuts against the comfort of endless replenishment. You have infinite hope, but you're eating alone.
Dickinson's Pronoun Switch
Notice that hope starts as "He" (line 2) in a poem titled with a typically feminine abstraction. Dickinson's era usually personified Hope as female—think of allegorical paintings with women holding anchors. By making Hope masculine, she defamiliarizes it.
The "inspected closely" in line 3 matters because it's what the poem is doing—examining hope under a microscope and finding "abstinence" where you'd expect consumption. If hope is a glutton that feeds constantly, where's the evidence? What does it actually eat? The answer: nothing visible. It's "abstinence" masquerading as appetite.
This is pure Dickinson technique—taking an abstraction everyone thinks they understand and revealing its strangeness through precise observation. The poem is only eight lines, but it completely rewires how hope works: invisible, inexhaustible, solitary, and somehow both starving and satisfied.