Dickinson/Anthon Correspondence: Poem 332

poems from dickinson to kate anthon

Thomas Johnson's Note on Poem 332

MANUSCRIPTS: There are two, both written about 1862. The fair copy reproduced above (Bingham 98-4B-22) is a redaction of the copy in packet 26 (H 47c):

There are two Ripenings -
One - of Sight - whose Forces spheric round
Until the Velvet Product
Drop, spicy, to the Ground -
A Homelier - maturing -
A Process in the Bur -
Which Teeth of Frosts - alone disclose -
In still October Air -

2. round] wind
7. Which Teeth] that Teeth
8. In] on far -
8. still] far -

The fair copy adopts all but one of the suggested changes. ED sent another fair copy, now lost, to Mrs. Kate Scott Turner (later Mrs. John Anthon). Katie visited Sue in Amherst several times and the poem may have been sent across to her during one of the visits. Katie made a transcript of it (H B 126) which shows the text to be identical with that of the fair copy above except for one word:

8. In] On

PUBLICATION: The copy to Mrs. Turner is in Letters (ed. 1894), 147; (ed. 1931), 145; also LL (1924), 207. The same text, printed as two five-line stanzas with an altered line arrangement, is in FP (1929), 200, and in later collections of the poems. All printings follow the text of the Turner (Anthon) trancript except Letters (1931), whichi substitutes "In" for "On" (line 8).

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