The reticent volcano keeps

The reticent volcano keeps
His never slumbering plan;
Confided are his projects pink
To no precarious man.

If nature will not tell the tale
Jehovah told to her
Can human nature not proceed
Without a listener?

Admonished by her buckled lips
Let every prater be
The only secret neighbors keep
Is Immortality.

F(1776)

A dormant volcano, as seen above, has a continuous plan yet does not tell anyone of his lava-colored scheme. It is a secret for him to reveal in his own timing, if ever. Similarly, if nature will not relay what Jehovah has told her, being nature, why can’t humans keep quiet? Nature keeps many secrets from us, but “neighbors” do not keep any secrets between themselves.

Dickinson’s poems often show that she looks up to nature, through her speaker, for various reasons - beauty, perfection, divinity - but in this poem, the speaker demonstrates her admiration for nature’s silence. Volcanoes can keep their secrets, and nature can keep hers, but we cannot keep ours. Both the volcano’s and nature’s secrets are arguably more important than the neighbors’. The volcano's secret has the potential for destruction and nature’s secret was given to her from God himself. Our secrets tend to be trivial matters of the here and now.

Dickinson’s use of personification shows us that we should naturally be able to keep our secrets because natural elements of the world can keep theirs. Volcanos keep secrets from us, and God tells secrets to nature. Nature, in turn, keeps the secrets to herself. Volcanoes have the potential to erupt, similar to how our mouths can erupt with words, but he keeps it contained and does not tell the world. Using these natural elements of the world, that are vast and powerful, show us that we are small in comparison and so are our secrets. It is only natural that we should keep our secrets to ourselves.

Each stanza ends with a concluding punctuation mark: a period or a question mark. This is unusual for Dickinson, and she does it here for a very specific reason. Each stanza makes its own point. The first stanza proves that volcanoes can keep secrets. The second stanza shows that nature can keep secrets that God told her and we should too. The final stanza concludes by stating that we should try to be more like nature, “admonished by her buckled lips,” because we are not. These three points work together to criticize humans on their ability to keep information contained.

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