"I know that He exists."

I know that He exists.

Somewhere - in silence - 

He has hid his rare life 

From our gross eyes.

‘Tis an instant’s play -

‘Tis a fond Ambush - 

Just to make Bliss

Earn her own surprise!

But - should the play

Prove piercing earnest - 

Should the glee - glaze -

In Death’s - stiff - stare -

Would not the fun 

Look too expensive!

Would not the jest - 

Have crawled too far!

Fr 365

            This poem is written in quatrains, and opens with an assertion confirming the speaker’s belief in the existence of God. However, like many Dickinson poems, this initial statement becomes undermined by the rest of the poem.  In the first stanza, the speaker asserts that she does believe in God, however she immediately follows this statement by saying that he is hidden himself from us. Right from the beginning, the speaker’s faith is shrouded in uncertainty. God exists “in silence”, intentionally hiding himself from the “gross eyes” of humanity. It is also interesting that the first line, the speakers assertion of belief, is the only statement in the poem that ends with a period. The speaker presents it as a simple statement of fact, but if it really were that simple, the rest of the poem would be unnecessary. 

The second stanza builds on the idea of God hiding himself, and Dickinson paints a picture of God playing a childlike game with humanity. Her descriptions of “play” and “fond ambush” bring to mind memories of playing hide and seek or peekaboo as a child, when the surprise of finding someone added to the joy of the game. Bliss is earned through surprise, so the surprise awaiting the speaker when God reveals himself to her will make the wait worth it. Through this imagery, the speaker is comforting herself that God’s absence from her will make his eventual presence that much sweeter and more meaningful. While the poem has been hopeful up until this point, there is a turning point that takes place in the third stanza. The speaker begins to question the morality of God hiding himself for too long. The “play” that was fun in the second stanza becomes sinister, as God remains hidden from people even as they are startled by the reality of death. Picture a parent playing Hide and Seek with a young child. The child will surely have fun looking for the parent, but what if the game doesn’t end? What if the child continues to look and look and the parent is never found, and never reveals themself even after the game is over and the child is left panic stricken and alone. This is the imagery the speaker of the poem gives us about God’s relationship to humanity, his children. It is hard to imagine a parent would ever perform a trick so cruel on their child, and so the initial assertion that the speaker knows that God exists comes into doubt.  In the face of death, the childlike faith that God will reveal himself is challenged. The speaker ends the poem with questions of whether or not the “fun” of the game is worth the price of the game, a price that entails terror and desolation.