Dickinson/Norcross Correspondence: Poem 1298

poems sent from dickinson to frances and louise norcross

Thomas Johnson's Note on Poem 1298

MANUSCRIPTS: This poem survives in several stages of composition and in different versions. All copies were written about the same time, presumably in late May 1874. The copy reproduced above (Bingham 94-19) is as near being a fair copy as any; the alternative "event" seems to be one that ED clung to but never really adopted, as will appear in the discussion below. The earliest rough draft (Bingham 103-14), jotted down in pencil on the inside of a slit-open envelope, gives the first eight lines only:

The Mushroom is the Elf of Plants -
At evening it is not -
At morning - in a Truffled Hut
It stop upon a spot
As if it tarried always
And yet it's whole career
Is shorter than a snake's delay
And fleeter than a Tare

There is a second rough draft (Bingham 103-22) of stanza 2 only, set down in pencil on a scrap of wrapping paper:

As if it tarried always -
And yet it's whole career
Is shorter than [deleted: the] a snake's delay
was
And fleeter than a Tare -
alien place
covert place -

If the suggested change is for these lines, it perhaps is for the final two words in the second line: it was never adopted. She began again. In ink she composed four stanzas (Bingham 98-4B-21) thus:

The Mushroom is the Elf of Plants -
At Evening it is not -
At Morning in a Truffled Hut
It stop upon a Spot
As if it tarried always
And yet it's whole Career
Is shorter than a Snake's Delay
And fleeter than a Tare -
'Tis Vegetation's Juggler -
The Germ of Alibi -
Doth like a Bubble antedate
And like a Bubble hie -
Had Nature any Plated Face
Or could she one contemn -
Had Nature one "Iscariot"
That Mushroom it is Him.

Having finished the stanzas, she added alternatives in pencil:

7. Delay] Event/ Reply

She deleted words in two lines and made replacements in pencil:

13. Plated] supple
15. one "Iscariot"] an apostate

She then added a fifth stanza in penil at the bottom of the sheet:

I feel as if the Grass was pleased
To have it intermit
This surreptitious scion
Of Summer's circumspect -

This she numbered "5" in the margin and placed "6" beside the preceding stanza. At this point presumably she made what she intended to be a fair copy - that reproduced above as the final text.

Late in May 1874 she answered a letter from T. W. Higginson (BPL Higg 88) in which she comments:

You kindly ask for my Blossoms and Books - I have read but a little recently - Existence has overpowered Books. Today, I slew a Mushroom. [L 413]

She then incorporates in the letter the newly composed "fifth" stanza - with a variant first line:

I felt as if the Grass was pleased
To have it intermit.
This Surreptitious Scion
Of Summer's circumspect.

The somewhat solemn and reflective mood of the letter may account for her withholding the poem as a whole, which is lighthearted. It was about this time, one conjectures, that she sent a copy of the poem to the Norcross cousins. Fanny Norcross wrote a letter to Higginson, at the time he and Mrs. Todd were engaged in editing the Poems, to give him access to verses he might not know about. The letter is among his papers (BPL Higg 135):

Dear Mr. Higginson,
I am impelled to send to you my cousins poem on the Mushroom and also this gem about a Spider.
I remember that you said you had not seen the first, and as I was reading it to a friend yesterday, I was [next page] I was so much impressed with its weirdness and originality, that I felt that you ought to see it at once.
The other is certainly one of the daintiest she ever wrote.
Yours respectfully
Frances L. Norcross.

She enclosed, along with "A Spider sewed at Night," a transcript of the following:

The mushroom is the Elf of Plants -
At Evening it is not -
At Morning in a Truffled Hut
It stops upon a Spot
As if it tarried always
And yet its whole career
Is shorter than a Snake's delay
And fleeter than a Tare -
'Tis Vegetation's Juggler -
The Joy of Alibi -
Doth like a Bubble antedate
And like a Bubble hie -
I feel as if the Grass were pleased
To have it intermit, -
This surreptitious Scion
Of Summers circumspect
Had Nature any outcast Face
Could she a Son contemn -
Had Nature an Iscariot,
That Mushroom - it is him -

The holographs from which Fanny Norcross made transcripts are lost. There are several variants, one or two of which may be misreadings. Certainly the changes in line 17-19 are ED's, for they reestablish "an Iscariot," discarded in the earlier draft. It is conceivable, but not in the mood of the poem, that "Joy" (line 10 ) is a substitute for "Germ." One may question whether ED wrote "stops" (line 4) or "were" (line 13), since the words are uniformly "stop" and "was" in all other copies where they appear, and are characteristic of her expression.

PUBLICATION: The five stanzas are in Poems (1891), 144-145, titled "The Mushroom." The poem follows the Norcross transcript except that "Joy" is replaced by "germ," a change perhaps made by Mrs. Todd who had the holographs to guide her. The variant stanza sent to Higginson is in Letters (ed. 1931 only), 305.

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