Browse alphabetically through more than 9,000 words in Dickinson’s poetry, as defined in the Emily Dickinson Lexicon, based in part on her dictionary, Webster's 1844 American Dictionary of the English Language.
Dickinson, Emily, 1830-1886. Death's waylaying not the sharpest, p. 2 (blank)
Death's Waylaying not the sharpest
Of the Thefts of Time -
There marauds a sorer Robber -
Silence - is his name -
No Assault, nor any menace
Doth betoken him.
But from Life's consum - mate
Cluster,
He supplants the Balm.
About 1874, in a note of sympathy to Catherine Dickinson Sweetser. The manuscript is now pasted into her copy of the first series of Poems (Rosenbach Museum and Library). On 21 January 1874 her husband, Joseph A. Sweetser, walked out of their home in New York City and disappeared. The poem and opening sentence constitute the entire message.
Sweetser, Great American Girls (1931), 135; collected into BM (1945), 249, as two quatrains, with a note acknowledging the earlier publication. Poems (1955), 899-900, from a transcript of A (Harvard/Jones Library); also CP (1960), 565; and Letters (1958), 521. (J1296)