Writings by Susan Dickinson


back | close-up p1 | close-up p2 | note | search | index





           "Hyssop"

Lives blurred by grief
     and sin
Barred close from warmth
     and light
Visions of beauty win
Thro fancy's magic
     night.
----   ----   ----   ----   ----

Spent souls at close
     of fray
Shorn of all gifts but
     pain.
Shrink from the narrow
     Way -
And gaze at day
     again -
----   ----   ----   ----


In thews of grinding ice [lie?]
Fast in its death cold
     Seams,
Of warmth and sunny skies,
The Arctic castaway dreams.
----   ----   ----   ----
No instant's flash &
     gleam,
No brief reprieve from
     pain,
Or lapse in honey[dazey?] dream
For [?] those whom Love
     hath hath slain

Oct 18 - 1884.

H bMS Am 1118.95, Box 9


 Perhaps this is too sad
to send you. Please return
the scraps as Matty would
not like hers seen by any one.
I would like [Tony?] to copy
this to keep it with my own.

I was as much struck by
the title Matty gave hers
as anything -


back | close-up p1 | close-up p2 | note | search | index
Writings by Susan Dickinson Main Page
Image reproduced by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University.
Not to be reproduced in whole or in part without permission.
Transcription and commentary copyright 1998 by Martha Nell Smith,
Laura Elyn Lauth, and Lara Vetter, all rights reserved
Maintained by Rebecca Mooney  <rnmooney@umd.edu>
Last updated on January 25, 2008

 Dickinson Electronic Archives