A 523: etext transcription

One of the many brief extrageneric texts found among her late papers after her death, Dickinson's final intentions toward this fragment remain unknown. It may have been destined for incorporation into a poem, a letter, or another composition; alternatively, it may be an experiment in aphoristic form; or, possibly, a compressed lyric poem unrecognized as such because of the crudeness of its material container. Though the relationship between the texts on the opposite sides of the manuscript is unclear, both are composed in the same hand and the lines on A 523 rhyme with the lines on the A 523a. The lines on A 523a may complete the text on A 523, or, since the reverse side of a manuscript often appears to be a scene of revision, they may be variants for lines on A 523. One word on A 523a, here uncertainly transcribed as "Below," may read "Beloved"; it is composed sideways along the left edge of the paper and is partially lost beyond the tear. This single word may belong to an earlier text, lost beyond the tear, or to the present text, with which it also rhymes. For a different interpretation of textual boundaries, see T. H. Johnson, Letters (1958), PF 123, PF 121, respectively.