Too Late

DELAYED, till she had ceased to know,
Delayed, till in its vest of snow
Her loving bosom lay;
An hour behind the fleeting breath,
Later by just an hour than death —
Oh, lagging yesterday!

Could she have guessed that it would be;
Could but a crier of the glee
Have climbed the distant hill;
Had not the bliss so slow a pace, —
Who knows, but this surrendered face
Were undefeated still?

Oh, if there may departing be
Any forgot by Victory
In her imperial round,
Show them this meek apparelled thing,
That could not stop to be a king;
Doubtful, if it be crowned!

Time and Eternity II, 2
Johnson 58 | Franklin 67

■→IN POLISH

Text compared with the fascicle and prepared for publication by Teresa Pelka, available under any of the following licenses:
■Creative Commons License 4.0, BY-SA 3.0, and License 2.5.

■→Poems, first print by Higginson and Todd, page 110;
Victory capitalized as in fascicle copies F67A and P90-77 (F67B or J58). Stanzas 1 and 3: thematic semicolon; stanza 1: coda dash alone; stanza 2: premise and consequent comma and dash, cf. the ■→Notes for the Outlet.

■→Notes for Emily Dickinson’s poetry;
Poems one-by-one print and fascicle comparison,
■→Resource for Emily Dickinson’s poetry;
■→Google Drive, manuscript fascicles.

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