If ever the lid gets off my head 1
And lets the brain away
The fellow will go where he belonged－
Without a hint from me,
And the world－if the world be looking on－5
Will see how far from home
It is possible for sense to live
The soul there－all the time.
And lets the brain away
The fellow will go where he belonged－
Without a hint from me,
And the world－if the world be looking on－5
Will see how far from home
It is possible for sense to live
The soul there－all the time.
(F.585/J.1727)
[1] lid, off my head:: to free her brain-work, to publish.
[2] the brain:: her brain-work, poetry.
[3] The fellow:: the poem.
[4] Without a hint:: Dickinson didn't say her poems are riddles.
[5] if, looking:: how the world thinks of her poems.
[6] far from home:: her poetry is far from common.
[7] sense:: sense used to solve her riddles.
[8] to live, soul:: to make alive her poetry.
The President Tile of the Hatters "keeps a poet," and a pretty ingenious one too. It makes us sorry to see as bright brain-work as this employed upon a puff, but it shows the specific gravity of poetic talent in our community—the altitude at which it will stay suspended—and the lesson is bitterly profitable to young poets. There is many a youth dreaming that immortality is already within his grasp who could not carve out and polish a production like the following. ─ The New Mirror, Volume III (1844)
