According to the short autobiographical section in the anthology, detailing Dickinson’s life and writing career (or lack thereof), she felt “Conflicted and ambivalent about Christian orthodoxy even as a child…”  Emily Dickinson seemed to suffer from an overwhelming sense of isolation.  She once said “Christ is calling everyone here and I am standing alone in rebellion.”  The autobiographical portion also details that Dickinson spent almost the entirety of her adult life inside her family home.

It is not surprising that her first poem included in the anthology references a sort of enclosure, since she remained almost entirely enclosed for her life.  It also is no surprise that Dickinson is commenting on the impacts of religion in the first poem included.

“Poem 216” describes a group of people that are safe in their fragile chamber.  She describes these people as untouched.  By the fourth line, we realize that these people are sleeping and that they are meek members of the resurrection.  I believe she is trying to symbolically call orthodox members of the Christian faith members of the resurrection.  This is especially clear since she calls them meek, meaning they are submissive to their God.  She then says that within their alabaster chamber is a rafter of satin.  This is counter-intuitive.  A rafter is a means of support.  It must be sturdy and is traditionally made of wood.  The rafters in the alabaster chamber are useless.  Here, I believe Dickinson is saying that the foundations for the principles of Christianity are nonexistent.

In the second stanza she says “Light laughs the breeze/In her Castle above them…”  I translated this line to something like “Mother nature lightly laughs, made audible by her movement of a breeze.”  Dickinson is placing mother nature in a (capitalized) Castle above the chamber full of religious men because she believes that nature is far more powerful than Christ.

Finally, I think it’s very important to look closely at the last line of the poem, where bees and birds, who are both members of all-powerful nature, are saying, “Ah, what sagacity perished here!”  I translated this to “all soundness of judgment ends here.”  I am quite surprised that Emily Dickinson wrote such a bold and powerful poem without directly referencing evils of Christianity.  I’m very impressed by her skill.  However, having read Poem 216, I am not surprised that Dickinson was hesitant to have her poems published and even requested they be burned.