MANUSCRIPTS: There are two, both written about 1875. That reproduced above is in a letter (Bingham) written to Samuel Bowles, signed "Emily." It begins: "Dear friend. The Paper wanders so I cannot write my name on it, so I give you Father's Potrait instead." The poem then follows. Edward Dickinson had died 16 June 1874, and the poem may have been composed on the first anniversary of his death. By a slip of the pen, ED made "On" (line 10) read "One." The fair copy to Bowles is a redaction of the rough draft (Bingham 96-1) written in pencil on a half-sheet of note paper:

As Summer into Autumn slips
And yet we sooner say
The Summer than the Autumn - lest
We turn the sun away

And count it almost an affront
The Presence to concede
Of one however lovely - note
The one that we have loved

So we evade the charge of Years
On one attempting shy
The Circumvention of the shaft
Of Life's Declivity.

PUBLICATION: The letter to Bowles is in Letters (ed. 1894), 222; (ed. 1931), 208; also LL (1924), 285.