Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE LETTER, by EMILY DICKINSON Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Going to him! Happy letter! Tell him Last Line: "gesture, coquette, and shake your head!" Subject(s): Gays & Lesbians; Letters; Love; Homoeroticism; Lesbians; Gay Women; Gay Men | ||||||||
"Going to him! Happy letter! Tell him -- Tell him the page I didn't write; Tell him I only said the syntax, And left the verb and the pronoun out. Tell him just how the fingers hurried, Then how they waded, slow, slow, slow; And then you wished you had eyes in your pages, So you could see what moved them so. "Tell him it wasn't a practised writer, You guessed, from the way the sentence toiled; You could hear the bodice tug, behind you, As if it held but the might of a child; You almost pitied it, you, it worked so. Tell him -- No, you may quibble there, For it would split his heart to know it, And then you and I were silenter. "Tell him night finished before we finished, And the old clock kept neighing 'day!' And you got sleepy and begged to be ended -- What could it hinder so, to say? Tell him just how she sealed you, cautious, But if he ask where you are hid Until to-morrow, -- happy letter! Gesture, coquette, and shake your head!" | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...FEMALE MASCULINITY by WAYNE KOESTENBAUM THE ASS FESTIVAL by WAYNE KOESTENBAUM THE BOOK OF SCAPEGOATS by WAYNE KOESTENBAUM DOSSIER OF IRRETRIEVABLES by WAYNE KOESTENBAUM THIS ONE'S FOR YOU by JAN HELLER LEVI |
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