In other words, so women must take their husbands: increasingly clever and crude.

This alludes to the “for better or for worse” of the traditional marriage service, and relates to Hamlet’s previous condemnation of marriage–most obviously the lines: “Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners?” and “We are arrant knaves, all; believe none of us.”

Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741-1801) was a famous Swiss physiognomist, i.e. a scholar who claimed to be able to deduce character traits from features of the face. Physiognomy is now a quasi-scientific and evolving branch of research–some studies have offered evidence of correlations between elements of appearance and personality–but as practiced in the 19th century it would have been pseudoscientific by today’s standards.

Sheaves: large bundles of grains bound after harvest.

Critic/editor David Preest cites as the reference here James Thompson’s poem “The Seasons,” which mentions “sheaves” in this passage:

Soon as the morning trembles o'er the sky,
And, unperceiv’d, unfolds the spreading day;
Before the ripen’d field the reapers stand,
In fair array; each by the lass he loves,
To bear the rougher part, and mitigate
By nameless gentle offices her toil.
At once they stoop, and swell the lusty sheaves…

Notice how Dickinson’s adjective “Ascetic” (monklike, abstinent) contrasts with the “lusty” sheaves of autumn, which are now “Gone.”

A reference to William Cullen Bryant’s 1832 poem “The Death of the Flowers,” also set in autumn:

The wind-flower and the violet, they perished long ago,
And the brier-rose and the orchis died amid the summer glow;
But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood,
And the yellow sun-flower by the brook, in autumn beauty stood…

Recall Hamlet’s description of his mother from Act 1, Scene 2:

Heaven and earth,
Must I remember? Why, she would hang on him
As if increase of appetite had grown
By what it fed on…

This extended stage direction exists with minor variants across the Second through Fourth Quarto versions of the play, as well as the First Folio. Its wording contains some intriguing resonances with the themes of the play; here, for example, “show of protestation” anticipates Gertrude’s line below: “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”

Assuming the directions are from Shakespeare’s own hand, they add a tantalizing piece of evidence to the long-running scholarly debate as to whether he intended his plays to be read as well as seen.

“Globules” here not only extends the blood metaphor but displays Dickinson’s startlingly precise, even technical vocabulary. A “globule” is a round particle or drop.

The composition of blood-globules was still a matter of scientific uncertainty and debate in the 19th century. Here is a Belgian scientist’s paper “On the Globules of Blood” from about 20 years before Dickinson’s poem.

The “Alleys” here may be alleyways in a town, but could also refer to tree-lined lanes in the countryside.

not…profeanely: a wry apology for the mildly blasphemous humor that follows.

the accent…nor man: i.e., their accent may resemble that of “heathens” but not Christians, and their movements don’t resemble those of any living person.

Nature’s journeymen: some of Nature’s apprentices who are not yet masters of their craft.

Hamlet’s description of a bad actor “strutt[ing] and bellow[ing]” anticipates Macbeth’s bleak metaphor for human life in general:

…a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more…