Baffled for just a day or two
Emily Dickinson
Baffled for just a day or two— Embarrassed—not afraid— Encounter in my garden An unexpected Maid. She beckons, and the woods start— She nods, and all begin— Surely, such a country I was never in!
Of note
In the late 1850s, Dickinson sent a copy of this poem, signed "Emilie," to her friend Elizabeth Holland. Thomas Johnson's edition of her poems records that the sheet still has a rosebud tied to it, with the ribbon threaded through slits in the paper. The poem itself wasn't published until 1945.
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TEXT PROVENANCE · First published 1945 in Bolts of Melody: New Poems of Emily Dickinson · Text from UPenn’s Johnson-numbered transcription, checked against the autograph manuscript (c. 1859).
Autograph manuscript (about 1859), Johnson transcription cross-check
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