Work Metadata

Year

1868

Manuscript

Manuscripts: The fair copy reproduced above (H 345) is in pencil, signed "Emily." It was written about 1868 and probably sent to Sue. The worksheet draft (Bingham 98-1-7), also in pencil and written at the same time, is identical in its final text: The murmuring of Bees has ceased But murmuring of some Posterior, prophetic Has simultaneous come -- The lower metres of the Year When Nature's Laugh is done -- The Revelations of the Book Whose Genesis was June Appropriate Creatures to her change The Typic Mother sends -- As Accent wanes fades to interval With separating Friends Till what we could not see has come speculate has been face name been choose prove And thoughts we will not show More intimate with us become Than Persons that we know.

Recipient

Susan Dickinson

Publications

Publication: The first stanza only was published in Frederick H. Hitchcock, ed., The Handbook of Amherst, Massachusetts (Amherst, 1891), page 21. The first two quatrains are in Poems (1896), 136, titled "Aftermath." In the Centenary edition (1930) and later collections the lines are without stanza division. Mrs. Todd made a transcript of the poem in the late 1880's, presumably of the worksheet draft in her possession, and the eight lines printed in Poems derive presumably from that transcript. In both manuscripts and in Mrs. Todd's transcript line 8 reads: Whose Genesis was June In Poems one word is altered: was] is All four stanzas are published in New England Quarterly, XX (1947) 26, from the worksheet draft. In line 8 'was" is restored.