Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 68.djvu/460
clime of jasmines and mocking-birds, on the familiar robin:—
THE ROBIN.
The robin is the one
That interrupts the morn
With hurried, few, express reports
When March is scarcely on.
The robin is the one
That overflows the noon
With her cherubic quantity,
An April but begun.
The robin is the one
That, speechless from her nest,
Submits that home and certainty
And sanctity are best.
In the summer of 1863 I was wounded, and in hospital for a time, during which came this letter in pencil, written from what was practically a hospital for her, though only for weak eyes:—
Dear Friend,—Are you in danger? I did not know that you were hurt. Will you tell me more? Mr. Hawthorne died.
I was ill since September, and since April in Boston for a physician's care. He does not let me go, yet I work in my prison, and make guests for myself.
Carlo did not come, because that he would die in jail; and the mountains I could not hold now, so I brought but the Gods.
I wish to see you more than before I failed. Will you tell me your health? I am surprised and anxious since receiving your note.
The only news I know
Is bulletins all day
From Immortality.
Can you render my pencil? The physician has taken away my pen.
I inclose the address from a letter, lest my figures fail.
Knowledge of your recovery would excel my own.
E. Dickinson.
Later this arrived:—
Dear Friend,—I think of you so wholly that I cannot resist to write again, to ask if you are safe? Danger is not at first, for then we are unconscious, but in the after, slower days.
Do not try to be saved, but let redemption find you, as it certainly will. Love is its own rescue; for we, at our supremest, are but its trembling emblems.
Your Scholar.
These were my earliest letters from Emily Dickinson, in their order. From this time and up to her death (May 15, 1886) we corresponded at varying intervals, she always persistently keeping up this attitude of "Scholar," and assuming on my part a preceptorship which it is almost needless to say did not exist. Always glad to hear her "recite," as she called it, I soon abandoned all attempt to guide in the slightest degree this extraordinary nature, and simply accepted her confidences, giving as much as I could of what might interest her in return.
Sometimes there would be a long pause, on my part, after which would come a plaintive letter, always terse, like this:—
"Did I displease you? But won't you tell me how?"
Or perhaps the announcement of some event, vast to her small sphere, as this:
Amherst.
Carlo died.
E. Dickinson.
Would you instruct me now?
Or sometimes there would arrive an exquisite little detached strain, every word a picture, like this:—
THE HUMMING-BIRD.
A route of evanescence
With a revolving wheel;
A resonance of emerald;
A rush of cochineal.
And every blossom on the bush
Adjusts its tumbled head;—
The mail from Tunis, probably,
An easy morning's ride.