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Annotated by:
- Aull, Felice
- Chen, Irene
- Date of entry: Dec-10-1996
- Last revised: Aug-29-2006
Summary
The narrator, who has narrowly escaped death, feels as if there were "odd secrets . . . to tell" to the world of the living. She speculates about her next (and last) encounter with death, anticipating it with curiosity, and resigning herself to the "slow tramp [of] the centuries."
Miscellaneous
First published: 1891
Primary Source
Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson
Publisher
Avenal
Place Published
New York
Edition
1982
Editor
Mabel Loomis Todd & T. W. Higginson
Commentary
This is an uncanny rendering of what we call a near-death experience. "I saw my life flash before me," in modern parlance, is in Dickinson’s telling, "Just felt the world go by!" and she is "one returned."