Episode 137: Emily Dickinson's "A narrow Fellow in the Grass"

Lucky Words

Enough with the heavy Wordsworth! (OK, not forever, but for a little while, at least.) You have probably read this poem before; it's often read in schools. But don't let that turn you off: look at how Dickinson uses her awesome, creative diction here; note how she describes the snake without using any conventional descriptors of a snake. Its clever-quotient is high, but it doesn't feel twee or too-clever-by-half.

TEXT OF POEM

"A narrow Fellow in the Grass", by Emily Dickinson

A narrow Fellow in the Grass
Occasionally rides -
You may have met him? Did you not
His notice instant is -

The Grass divides as with a Comb,
A spotted Shaft is seen,
And then it closes at your Feet
And opens further on -

He likes a Boggy Acre -
A Floor too cool for Corn -
But when a Boy and Barefoot
I more than once at Noon

Have passed I thought a Whip Lash
Unbraiding in the Sun
When stooping to secure it
It wrinkled And was gone -

Several of Nature’s People
I know, and they know me
I feel for them a transport
Of Cordiality

But never met this Fellow
Attended or alone
Without a tighter Breathing
And Zero at the Bone.