Emily Dickinson

I dwell in Possibility

I DWELL in Possibility

Possibility vs. Prose

Dickinson sets up poetry against prose fiction—'Possibility' is her metaphor for the poetic imagination. She's claiming poetry has more room, more openings.

A fairer house than Prose,
More numerous of windows,
Superior of doors.
Of chambers, as the cedars—

Cedars as chambers

The comparison is structural—cedars are tall, many-branched, dense. 'Impregnable of eye' means you can't see into them, can't count their rooms.

Impregnable of eye;
And for an everlasting roof

The gables

Gables are roof peaks—she's claiming the sky itself as her ceiling. The house of poetry has no actual roof, it opens infinitely upward.

The gables of the sky.
Of visitors—the fairest—

The fairest visitors

Likely the Muses, or poetic inspiration itself. In her house metaphor, these are the guests poetry receives that prose cannot.

For occupation—this—

Narrow hands

The physical smallness (her actual hands, her limited life in Amherst) contrasted with what they reach for. The gesture is both humble and ambitious.

The spreading wide my narrow hands
To gather Paradise.
Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

The Architecture of Poetry

Dickinson builds an extended metaphor comparing poetry to a house, with prose as the inferior alternative. Every architectural detail does work: windows suggest viewpoints and light, doors mean possibilities for entry and exit, chambers imply private spaces for thought. The comparison to cedars is precise—these trees grow tall with dense, layered branches you can't see through, just as poetry contains depths prose cannot match.

The phrase 'Impregnable of eye' uses Dickinson's typical compression—it means the eye cannot penetrate, cannot count or measure. This is her claim for poetry's mystery versus prose's transparency.

The 'everlasting roof' that is actually the sky's gables turns the house infinite. A gable is a triangular wall section at a roof's peak—she's claiming the sky's peaks (clouds? horizons?) as her roof, meaning poetry's house has no ceiling, no limit. This was written around 1862, during her most productive period when she was writing nearly a poem a day.

The Occupation of Paradise

The final stanza shifts from describing the house to describing what happens inside it. Her 'occupation'—both her job and what occupies her time—is the physical gesture of spreading her hands wide. The word 'narrow' is crucial: she acknowledges limitation (her hands, her life as a reclusive woman in a small town) while performing an expansive gesture.

'Paradise' here is what poetry gathers—not the Christian afterlife but the infinite possibilities the poem opened with. The verb 'gather' is active, almost agricultural, as if Paradise is something growing that must be harvested. This isn't passive reception of inspiration but work, effort, the spreading of inadequate hands to grasp something too large.

Dickinson never titled her poems and published fewer than a dozen in her lifetime. This poem, defending poetry's superiority to prose, was found in her papers after her death. The fairest visitors likely refers to the Muses or moments of inspiration—the guests that only poetry, not prose, receives in its more open house.