MANUSCRIPTS: The copy reproduced above is incorporated in a letter (H H 42) written to Mrs. J. G. Holland in late May 1877. The penciled draft (Bingham 97-2), written at the same time and set down on the back of a discarded letter, is the text from which the fair copy presumably derives. ED did not adopt her proposed change:

Bees are Black, with Gilt Surcingles -
Bucaneers of Buzz -
Ride abroad in ostentation
And subsist on Fuzz -

Fuzz ordained - not Fuzz contingent -
Marrows of the Hill -
Jugs a Universe's Fracture
Could not jar or spill -

7. Fracture] rupture