Yes. Dickenson recreates the suffering we go through
after a terrible shock. She does not say what the specific pain is --- but it really
doesn't matter, it is a terrible psychological pain. She is talking about the reaction
to the pain.
Many people go into a terrible depression.
She talks about "nerves sit ceremonious like tombs" --- like places for the dead. The
heart is stiff, not pumping; the feet mechanical and wooden, operating without
thought; and she compares contentment to a stone. None of these images have a life of
their own. The human mind has become lifeless and
distant.
She terms this the hour of "lead". Lead weighs
you down. If you outlive this part of the trauma, you will remember it as a freezing
person remembers the snow, first the chill (the initial feeling of pain), then the
"stupor" --the anguish of the pain at its worst. Notice she uses the word "stupor"
which is defined as "mental dullness, apathy, stupefaction" (see below), and then the
"letting go" or the reemergence into the world of the living.
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