BPL Higg 26: etext transcription

This fair-copy poem was enclosed in a letter (BPL Higg 74; J L 368) sent to T. W. Higginson around 1871 (THJ, RWF). Dickinson enclosed three other poems with the letter: "When I | hoped I | feared -"; "The Days that | we can spare"; and "Remembrance has | a Rear and a Front." For a fair-copy draft of "Step lightly on this narrow spot" found among Dickinson's papers after her death, see A 95-12 (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 other extant versions of the poem. The definitive compositional history of the textual constellation remains open to speculation.