We have this from Emily Dickinson: 'Every bird that sings, and every bud that blooms, does but remind me of that garden unseen, awaiting the hand that tills it' (from a letter to Susan Gilbert, 1852, if memory serves the underlining is in the original). She wrote that ten years before the great flowering of poems in 1862-3, but it could serve as a concise statement of purpose for those weird and ambiguous lyrics.
Consider this, from 1862 (Fr358):
Perhaps I asked too large -
I take - no less than skies -
For Earths, grow thick as
Berries, in my native Town -
My Basket holds - Firmaments -
Those - dangle easy - on my arms,
But smaller bundles - Cram.
Tell me the singular perception of this poet did not take in a world stranger and larger than most of us could bear. What's more, dear reader, I have been convinced, all against my will (!), that this is at least in part the working out of her perhaps all unconsciously borne Calvinist heritage. (Blame Marilynne Robinson for this if blame you must.)
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