RPO -- Emily Dickinson : Tie the strings to my life, my Lord

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

Tie the strings to my life, my Lord

1Tie the strings to my life, my Lord,

2 Then I am ready to go!

3Just a look at the horses--

4 Rapid! That will do!

5Put me in on the firmest side,

6 So I shall never fall;

7For we must ride to the Judgment,

8 And it's partly down hill.

9But never I mind the bridges,

10 And never I mind the sea;

11Held fast in everlasting race

12 By my own choice and thee.

13Good-by to the life I used to live,

14 And the world I used to know;

15And kiss the hills for me, just once;

16 Now I am ready to go!

Notes

9] Bridges: the existing manuscript version of poem 279, 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, 339-40; fascicle 16; PS 1541 A1 1981 ROBA), reads "steepest".

16] Now: the existing manuscript version reads "Then".

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: 1896
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: RPO 1997.
Recent editing: 2:2002/6/7

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

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