MaryAnn,

Good point that in this poem Dickinson really emphasizes the female point of view--(as opposed to other poems where she takes a boy's or man's persona or leaves gender ambiguous). It does seem as if she finds consolation here in the familiar rituals of womanhood.

To me the key moment in the poem, tying together the ineffably huge and the painstakingly small, is the image of the bomb. When one is holding a ticking bomb, one moves very carefully, precisely, so as not to set things off. I've had that feeling when holding intense emotion. Dickinson conveys the forced, not-quite-explosive power of such studied calmness so movingly here, with the soothing m sounds, juxtaposed so closely with the more powerful b and k sound, in bosom, bomb, calm...

Annie