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poems sent from dickinson to higginson
Thomas Johnson's Note on Poem 1540
MANUSCRIPT: There are four copies of this poem. They are somewhat variant in text and they span many years. The copy reproduced above is the latest and is in the handwriting of late 1882; it is in the Department of History and Archives, Des Moines, Iowa. The earliest copy is that in packet 92 (Bingham 78a), written in late 1865. It is a semifinal draft in eight stanzas. All three later fair copies omit stanzas 3-6; one may therefore assume that ED permanently discarded them. This is the first:
As imperceptibly as Grief
The Summer lapsed away -
Too imperceptible at last
To feel like Perfidy -
A Quietness distilled -
As Twilight long begun -
Or Nature - spending with Herself
Sequestered Afternoon -
Sobriety inhered
Though gaudy influence
The Maple lent unto the Road
And graphic Consequence
Invested sombre place -
As suddenly be worn
By sober Individual
A Homogeneous Gown.
Departed was the Bird -
And scarcely had the Hill -
A flower to help His straightened face
In stress of Burial -
The Winds came closer up -
The Cricket spoke so clear
Presumption was - His Ancestors
Inherited the Floor -
The Dusk drew earlier in -
The Morning foreign shone -
The courteous, but harrowing Grace
Of Guest who would be gone -
And thus, without a Wing
Or service of a Keel -
Our Summer made Her light Escape
Unto the Beautiful -
32. Unto] into
What appears to be the first fair copy (Bingham 109-2) was written sometime in 1866:
As imperceptibly as Grief
The Summer lapsed away,
Too imperceptible at last
To feel like Perfidy.
A Quietness distilled
As Twilight long begun
Or Nature spending with Herself
Sequestered Afternoon -
The Dusk drew earlier in
The Morning foreign shone
A Courteous, but harrowing Grace
As Guest who would be gone -
And thus, without a Wing
Or service of a keel
Our Summer made her light escape
Into the Beautiful.
During the summer of 1866 she enclosed a copy (BPL Higg 14) together with three other poems in a letter (BPL Higg 60) to T.W. Higginson; the letter is postmarked 9 June:
As imperceptibly as Grief
The Summer lapsed away
Too imperceptible at last
To feel like Perfidy -
A Quietness distilled
As Twilight long begun
Or Nature spending with herself
Sequestered Afternoon.
The Dusk drew earlier in
The Morning foreign shone
A Courteous yet harrowing grace
As Guest that would be gone
And thus without a Wing
Or service of a keel
Our Summer made her light escape
Into the Beautiful.
The variant readings show this pattern (using line countings from the Iowa copy):
packet copy
4. feel
11. The
11. but
12. Of
12. who
16. Unto] into
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early fair copy
feel
A
yet
As
who
Into
|
Higginson
feel
A
yet
As
that
Into
|
Iowa
seem
A
yet
As
that
Into
|
PUBLICATION: The poem was first published in Atlantic Monthly, LXVIII (October 1891), 456. in an article which Higginson wrote dealing with the letters and poems he had received from ED. It there reproduces the copy to him. It was first collected later that year in Poems (1891), 168, where it derives from the early fair copy, with "seem" (line 4) adopted from the Iowa copy, then in Mrs. Todd's possession. The packet copy is reproduced in New England Quarterly, XX (1927), 13-14, where the suggested change is rejected.
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