Emily Dickinson - Letter 265 (7 June 1862) T. W. Higginson lyrics

Dear friend. Your letter gave no Drunkenness, because I tasted Rum before - Domingo comes but once - yet I have had few pleasures so deep as your opinion, and if I tried to thank you, my tears would block my tongue - My dying Tutor told me that he would like to live till I had been a poet, but d**h was much of Mob as I could master - then - And when far afterward - a sudden light on Orchards, or a new fashion in the wind troubled my attention - I felt a palsy, here - the Verses just relieve - Your second letter surprised me, and for a moment, swung - I had not supposed it. Your first - gave no dishonor, because the True - are not ashamed - I thanked you for your justice - but could not drop the Bells whose jingling cooled my Tramp - Perhaps the Balm, seemed better, because you bled me, first. I smile when you suggest that I delay "to publish" - that being foreign to my thought, as Firmament to Fin - If fame belonged to me, I could not escape her - if she did not, the longest day would pa** me on the chase - and the approbation of my Dog, would forsake me - then - My Barefoot-Rank is better - You think my gait "spasmodic" - I am in danger - Sir - You think me "uncontrolled" - I have no Tribunal. Would you have time to be the "friend" you should think I need? I have a little shape - it would not crowd your Desk - nor make much Racket as the Mouse, that dents your Galleries - If I might bring you what I do - not so frequent to trouble you - and ask you if I told it clear - 'twould be control, to me - The Sailor cannot see the North - but knows the Needle can - The "hand you stretch me in the Dark," I put mine in, and turn away - I have no Saxon, now - As if I asked a common Alms, And in my wondering hand A Stranger pressed a Kingdom, And I, bewildered, stand - As if I asked the Orient Had it for me a Morn - And it should lift it's purple Dikes, And shatter Me with Dawn! But, will you be my Preceptor, Mr Higginson? Your friend E Dickinson -