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Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

I'm nobody! Who are you?


              1I'm nobody! Who are you?
              2Are you nobody, too?
              3Then there's a pair of us -- don't tell!
              4They'd banish us, you know.

              5How dreary to be somebody!
              6How public, like a frog
              7To tell your name the livelong day
              8To an admiring bog!

Notes

3-4] The existing manuscript version of poem 288 The Manuscript Books of Emily Dickinson, edited by R. W. Franklin in two volumes (Cambridge, Mass., and London: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1981: I, 209; fascicle 11; PS 1541 A1 1981 ROBA), moves "don't tell" to the beginning of line 4.

7] day: the existing manuscript reads "June".


Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.

Original text: Poems (1890-1896) by Emily Dickinson: A Facsimile Reproduction of the Original Volumes Issued in 1890, 1891, and 1896, with an Introduction by George Monteiro (Gainesville, Florida: Scholars' Facsimiles).
First publication date: 1861
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: RPO 1997
Recent editing: 2:2002/5/31

Composition date: 1861
Rhyme: abcb (off-rhyme)


Other poems by Emily Dickinson