Emily Dickinson

If I should die

IF I should die,
And you should live,

gurgle on

Weird verb choice—time doesn't gurgle. It's mock-cheerful, like baby talk, undercutting the serious premise with bathos.

And time should gurgle on,
And morn should beam,
And noon should burn,
As it has usual done;
If birds should build as early,
And bees as bustling go,—
One might depart at option

depart at option

Suicide hint. If nature keeps going without you, why stick around? The business language ('option,' 'enterprise') makes death sound like quitting a job.

From enterprise below!

stocks will stand

Double meaning: flower stocks in the garden AND stock market shares. Death becomes a financial matter.

'T is sweet to know that stocks will stand
When we with daisies lie,
That commerce will continue,
And trades as briskly fly.
It makes the parting tranquil
And keeps the soul serene,
That gentlemen so sprightly

gentlemen so sprightly

Savage irony. These cheerful businessmen conducting life's 'pleasing scene' are oblivious to individual death—or she's mocking the idea that this should comfort anyone.

Conduct the pleasing scene!
Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

The Business of Indifference

Dickinson wrote this around 1860, during America's market revolution when commerce language saturated everyday life. She weaponizes it here: stocks, commerce, trades, enterprise. Death becomes a business transaction, nature becomes an economy that won't miss you.

The poem pretends to find comfort in continuity—'T is sweet to know'—but every word choice sabotages that comfort. Gurgle is absurdly casual for time's passage. Sprightly gentlemen conducting the pleasing scene reads like bitter sarcasm. If this is supposed to be consoling, why does it sound like mockery?

'One might depart at option / From enterprise below' is the dark center. If the world's an enterprise you can quit, and nature won't notice, what's the argument for staying? Dickinson frames it as choice (option), not tragedy. The business metaphor that's supposed to minimize death's importance actually makes life seem equally dispensable.

What 'Sweet' Means

The turn at line 11—'T is sweet to know'—signals conventional consolation poetry. You're supposed to find peace knowing life continues. But Dickinson's version is poisoned.

Compare her contemporary consolation poems (the 'safe in their alabaster chambers' type). Those at least pretend nature's indifference is majestic. Here, she makes it commercial and trivial. Bees as bustling go like workers. Commerce will continue like you're a failed shop. The daisies you lie with are the only non-economic image, and they're just marking your grave.

The final couplet seals it: gentlemen so sprightly / Conduct the pleasing scene. If you read this straight, it's grotesque—death is fine because businessmen stay perky. If you read it as irony, it's devastating—the world's indifference isn't noble, it's just guys making money. Either way, the 'sweetness' curdles.