Poem 52: He Touched Me, So I Live to Know

He touched me, so I live to know
That such a day, permitted so,
I groped upon his breast --
It was a boundless place to me
And silenced, as the awful sea
Puts minor streams to rest.

And now, I'm different from before,
As if I breathed superior air --
Or brushed a Royal Gown --
My feet, too, that had wandered so --
My Gypsy face -- transfigured now --
To tenderer Renown --

Into this Port, if I might come,
Rebecca, to Jerusalem,
Would not so ravished turn --
Nor Persian, baffled at her shrine
Lift such a Crucifixial sign
To her imperial Sun.

This poem was somewhat similar to some of Walt Whitman's poems. I mean, yeah it was somewhat graphic and everything. However, I thought that maybe Emily Dickinson was talking about all of this in a Christian sense because there is a lot about Christianity and Jerusalem. So even though she was touched or whatever, I do not think she means physcially touched, but instead in a spiritual sense in that she was touched by the Holy Spirit or whatever. Although that does sound kind of weird, it is something that could happen and does happen as well, which would be why Emily Dickinson chose to write about it.

She was talking about her Crucifixial sign and her imperial sun, which I think is referring to Jesus and God, because she is not necessarily meaning the sun, like the big hot ball of gas, but instead the Son of God, so she just had a play on words, which is kind of cool But, maybe I am just analyzing this in a weird way or something, but that is what I think is going on. She is not talking about being in love and being touched by a man, but instead the holy spirit and the fact that he is filling her in every way possible and she is reveling in the feeling and all of that. Which, that was interesting of her to talk about, because she was talking about her feelings for religion instead of a specefic person like most people would in my opinion. Because if it was me, I would not be talking about my love for the church, instead I would be talking about a guy, however that is just me and my opinion.