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Following from my previous post, regarding the confusion of the perspective of the speaker, it appears the speaker feels a strong connection to the subjects in the poem. The word "Our" capitalized is used several times throughout the poem. "Our soul and theirs", "that paralyze Ourselves", "vital only to Our thought" and, "tis as if Our souls absconded". The speaker discusses the bereavement of those "we have never seen" and how strangers are often hard to mourn, but the speaker constantly uses the word "Our" as if to include themselves throughout this bereavement and loss whether or not how direct that may be.

Jessica Clement

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"Who, vital only to Our Thought" is a significant statement to me, in comparison to the following line "such presence bear away". From what I can analyze, it appears the speaker is showing that the lives of those lost remain forever engrained in memory of those who are close to them, but their "presence bears away", I thought the word "presence" here means their bodies may fade away, along with war and several other deaths, but their memory will live on in thoughts.

Jessica Clement

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Dickinson discusses the significance of direct emotion when it comes to the impacts of war. It seems she is attempting to show how the war can sometimes be a distanced subject - "strangers do not mourn". That war can be distanced, cold, have elements of sadness but no empathy. It is not until a close death occurs, in which it "paralyzes [ones]sel[f]".

Jessica Clement

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It is difficult to tell the precise direction the speaker is coming from - whether they're writing from collective perspective of those who do not participate in the war, as an individual (unbiased onlooker of the war), or as a whole (all beings involved somehowin the war either directly in battle or at home). She uses direct words that indicate a sense of togetherness as in "Our souls" which is capitalized. Dickinson speaks generally in regards to facing death - reflecting upon how quickly all death can "abscond". But then the speaker also discusses mourning, as something that can paralyze someone if the individual who died is an "immortal friend" but the speaker also states that "strangers are not mourned" which indicates that the speaker is an onlooker towards this situation. The speaker also disconnects from the subject by stating "our souls and theirs" - a "vital kinsmanship import", indicating some form of involvement but also a distinct separation from the subject.

Jessica Clement.

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I like the way Dickinson uses the word 'abscond' to describe the flight of the soul from the body. When one absconds, it is generally when someone is fleeing a crime, or has done something wicked. Perhaps Dickinson is making a backhanded quip about the sin one incurs on Earth and how one can abandon it when they die and head to the afterlife.
-Raynna J

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When Dickinson writes "Who, vital only to Our Thought" she may be making the point that the dead cease to be in our corporeal world, however they continue to exist in the minds of the living who remember them.
-Raynna J

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The use of the word "kinsmanship" makes the reader feel that there is a shared experience between the one who has died, and those who have to remain on this side of life. That shared experience is death, or rather the feeling brought about by death. Fear.
- Raynna J

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It seems to me that Dickinson is elucidating the idea that we do not think of death, and that it does not torment our thoughts, until we are confronted with the brute reality of the death of another.  Raynna J

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"In dying - 'tis as if Our Souls / Absconded - suddenly -"

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"In dying - 'tis as if Our Souls / Absconded - suddenly -"

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Interesting - why Our souls, and not theirs (no implication that they died right away)? Their deaths so full of impact to us that it is comparable to ourselves dying? Why are we "Abscond[ing]" so quickly? Shock, takes our breath away, grief ("paralyze")? And it does make one think - is Death taking us(them) away to Heaven... or to Hell?
Lindsay H

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A spiritual connection between the two - allusion to God and how he works (Father, Son, Holy Spirit/Ghost), Jesus fighting for the salvation of (our) souls
Lindsay H

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Connection between the civilians and the soldiers, but also possibly between the black slaves and those who want to free them
Lindsay H

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Ironically enough, this is not exactly true - photographs taken that illustrate the horror of the War - but perhaps the emphasis is on the fact that 'We' see the photographs, yet never witness for ourselves the true horror that awaited soldiers in the battlefront, so we have never 'seen' what the soldiers saw through their own eyes
Lindsay H

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The poem isn't clear on whether this kinsmanship between the dead and the living is good or bad-natured. There is an ambivalence about whether the effect of the death of a stranger is something to be amazed by or dreaded.

-Eric W

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"Bereavement" (meaning being deprived of a love one through their absence) and "Absconded- suddenly" (to leave quickly and secretly) are what the poem begin and end with. These seem to express a fear of loss that can be seen throughout the poem.

-Eric W

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"There be Immortal friends / Whom Death see first," is an odd use of characterizing concepts of being. Immortal and Death are capitalized as if they are characters. Whereas "friends" would seem a more appropriate word to capitalize.

- Eric W

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The use of "vital" twice seems to be in juxtaposition with the theme of death in this poem. It evokes a sense of vigour in this invisible bond that Dickinson is trying to describe.

-Eric W

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Dickinson uses the word "news" in a way that suggests the person's death isn't what paralyzes our thoughts, but, instead, it's the news of their death that causes this.

It makes the poem sound very bitter.

-Mitchell D

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I like how the first word is "Bereavement." The clinical connotation of the word suggests that the speaker is removed from the tragedy, and immediately sets up the expressed sentimentalism later in the poem.

-Mitchell D

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"Absconded" is an interesting word to use; it connotes both hurried escape and leaving in principled dignity. The suggestion is that in death  elevated people should leave in unremembered dignity, lest their loved ones abscond as well.

-Mitchell D

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If Dickinson was aware of the image she was cultivating, she could be playing off of it through the line "For Stranger -- Strangers do not mourn --". The speaker initially believing that Strangers stick to themselves reflects Dickinson's own self-isolating tendency, which would make the exploration of this passage more poignant when the speaker later refutes it.

-Mitchell D

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Last stanza- I was trying to read this initially as the souls of the dying soldiers are with us because we feel for their deaths and their sacrifice, and then they disappear once we have forgotten them, but I also see it now as a dehumanizing way of looking that the soldiers dying by saying they die and therefore have no soul after that (Victoria K)

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Capitalization in the poem- was curious to see if this is for aesthetic reasons or to signify personification such as "Death" or to include everyone in this narrative by capitalizing "Our" as to refer to all of man. (Victoria K)

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"Kinsmanship"- soldiers fight for these people they have never meet creating a bond almost that is almost familial (Victoria K)

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"There be immortal friends"- they live on in our minds, even though they are strangers, as if they are our friends due to their sacrifice for us (Victoria K)