A 94-1 / 2: etext transcription

This poem was found among Dickinson's papers after her death. Though it was composed around 1875 (RWF) or 1877 (THJ), long after she had ceased binding her work into manuscript volumes, the poem has been carefully copied and may constitute evidence that Dickinson continued, at least on occasion, to prepare manuscripts for binding in the 1870s. For a rough-copy draft of the second stanza beginning "First at the | March," see A 127 (about 1877 [THJ, RWF]); for a fair-copy draft of the last lines of the poem beginning "Last to | adhere | When Summers | swerve away -," see A 298 (about 1877 [THJ, RWF]); for an identical fair-copy of the poem's final lines beginning "Last to | adhere | When Summers | swerve away -" and sent to Samuel Bowles, see A 711 (about 1877 [THJ, RWF]); and, for another, later fair-copy of the poem beginning "After all | Birds have | been investigated" and sent to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, see BPL Higg 35 (about 1877 [THJ, RWF]). For a related fragment, see A 255 (about 1877 [THJ, RWF]). In Poems (1998), R. W. Franklin suggests that A 255 was composed after A 298 and A 711, but before BPL Higg 35, since the fair-copy to Higginson reflects some of the changes introduced in the previous drafts. The definitive compositional history of the textual constellation, however, remains open to speculation.

Four editorial notations are penciled on the recto of A 94-1: at top, erased, MLT?: Blue Bird; upper right, MLT: Dupl.; upper right, MTB: NEQ; top, center, SHGD?: +; top, center: ?. The first notation records the characterization assigned by Dickinson to the poem in her letter to Thomas Wentworth Higginson; the second notation indicates that Todd was aware of at least one additional draft of the poem; the third notation indicates that the text—or a version of it—was published in NEQ 5 (1932): 220; and the pencil crosses may indicate Susan Dickinson's or, possibly, Lavinia Dickinson's ranking of the poem. The authorship and significance of the ? are not known.