A 95-12: etext transcription

This fair-copy poem-draft was found among Dickinson's papers after her death. Though it was composed around 1871 (THJ, RWF), several years 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 fair-copy of the poem sent to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, see BPL Higg 26 (about 1871 [THJ, RWF]); for a related fragment, see A 351 / 352 (about 1871 [RWF], about 1871 or last decade [THJ]). A variant version of the first stanza, not containing the trace-fragment, was sent to Susan Dickinson (H 322). The fragment may have catalyzed the composition of the poem; alternatively, it may have broken free from the poem sometime after its composition. It carries a variant reading not incorporated into any of the three versions of the poem. The definitive compositional history of the textual constellation remains open to speculation.

Three editorial notations are penciled on the recto of A 95-12: at top, center, SHGD?: ++; upper right, MTB: II; upper right: ?. The pencil crosses may indicate Susan Dickinson's or, possibly, Lavinia Dickinson's ranking of the poem; the notation II indicates that the text—or a version of it—was published in Poems, 2d ser. The authorship and significance of the ? are not known.