Emily Dickinson
Letter to Mrs. J G Holland, Early June 1884
Sweet friend
I hope you brought your open Fire with you, else your confiding Nose has ere this been nipped -
Three dazzling Winter Nights have wrecked the budding Gardens, and the Bobolinks stand as still in the Meadow as if they had never danced -
I hope your Heart has kept you warm - Should I say your Hearts, for you are yet a Banker -
Death cannot plunder half so fast as Fervor can re-earn -
We had one more, "Memorial Day," to whom to carry Blossoms -
Gilbert had Lilies of the Valley, and Father and Mother, Damson-Hawthorn -
When it shall come my turn, I want a Buttercup - Doubtless the Grass will give me one, for does she not revere the Whims of her flitting Children?
I was with you in all the loneliness, when you took your flight, for every jostling of the Spirit barbs the Loss afresh - even the coming out of the Sun after an Hour's Rain, intensifies their Absence -
Ask some kind Voice to read to you Mark Antony's Oration over his Playmate Caesar -
I never knew a broken Heart to break itself so sweet -
I am glad if Theodore balked the Professors - Most such are Mankins, and a warm blow from a brave Anatomy, hurls them into Wherefores -