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MANUSCRIPTS: The fair copy reproduced above (BPL Higg 7) was enclosed with two other poems in the second letter that ED wrote to T. W. Higginson (BPL Higg 51), postmarked 25 April 1862. The semifinal copy in packet 23 (H l28a) was written late in 186I:
There came a Day-at Summer's full-4. Resurrections] Revelations 7. While our two Souls that] As if no Soul the 8. Which] That 10. falling] figure / symbol 21. leaked] failed All deletions and suggested changes are in ink and entered at the time the poem was set down except "Revelations," which is in pencil in the handwriting of about 1878. A second fair copy, now lost, is reproduced in facsimile on two pages preceding the title page of Poems (1891). The handwriting is so nearly identical with that of the copy to Higginson that one concludes it was almost certainly written during the spring of 1862:
There came a day-at Summer's full-There are three textual differences in the two fair copies:
7. the] that In each case ED has used in the fair copy above the original reading of the packet copy, even though those readings had been presumably canceled. One surmises it was made prior to the cancellations. The evidence for believing that the packet copy may have been set down early in January is derived from an unpublished letter (now owned by Miss Julia S. E. Dwight) written to the Reverend Edward S. Dwight, her former pastor. The letter can be dated early January 1862, and in it ED has adapted the final stanza to honor the memory of Mrs. Dwight who had died the preceding September:
Sufficient troth-that she will rise-PUBLICATION: The poem was first published, with stanza four omitted, in Scribner's Magazine, VIII (August l890), 240, titled "Renunciation." It derives from a copy supplied by Sue. Lavinia possessed the packet copy and protested its publication by Sue, though Sue mistakenly believed she had the right to publish such poems in her possession as Emily had sent her. It seems almost certain, therefore, that the text published in Scribner's derived from a copy, now lost, which had been sent to Sue. Textually it differs from the copy to Higginson in four places:
3. were] was Though the three holographs discussed above show variant readings, they do so by way of selection from among the suggested changes in the packet copy. All four of the altered readings in Scribner's are unique in that one printing. The poem, by permission of E. L. Burlingame, the Scribner's editor, was included among Poems (1890), 58-59, titled "Renunciation," when the volume was issued in November (see AB, 59). The missing stanza was restored. The text derives from the packet copy, with all the suggested changes adopted. When the poem next appeared in CP (1924), 152-153, it reproduced the same text with one exception: "soul" reverted to "sail" as it had been printed in Scribner's. Mrs. Bianchi, who prepared that edition and the subsequent ones, in which that reading obtains, had the packet copy for her use. It is true that in that copy the word "soul" bears a superficial resemblance to "sail."
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