RPO -- Emily Dickinson : The Snake

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

The Snake

1A narrow fellow in the grass

2Occasionally rides;

3You may have met him,--did you not,

4His notice sudden is.

5The grass divides as with a comb,

6A spotted shaft is seen;

7And then it closes at your feet

8And opens further on.

9He likes a boggy acre,

10A floor too cool for corn.

11Yet when a child, and barefoot,

12I more than once at morn,

13Have passed, I thought, a whip-lash

14Unbraiding in the sun,--

15When, stooping to secure it,

16It wrinkled, and was gone.

17Several of nature's people

18I know, and they know me;

19I feel for them a transport

20Of cordiality;

21But never met this fellow,

22Attended or alone,

23Without a tighter breathing,

24And zero at the bone.

Notes

11] child: the existing manuscript version of poem 986, 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: II, 1137-39; set 6c; PS 1541 A1 1981 ROBA), reads "boy".

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: 1866
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: RPO 1997.
Recent editing: 2:2002/6/7

Composition date: 1865
Rhyme: abcb (off-rhyme)

Other poems by Emily Dickinson