by Kay Turner, Thames and Hudson 1996
''late April 1852''
So sweet and still, and Thee, Oh Susie, what need I more, to make my heaven whole?
Sweet Hour, blessed Hour, to carry me to you, and to bring you back to me, long enough to snatch one kiss, and whisper Good bye, again.
I have thought of it all day, Susie, and I fear of but little else, and when i was gone to meeting it filled my mind so full, I could not find a chink to put the worthy pastor; when he said ''Our Heavenly Father,'' I said ''Oh Darling Sue''; when he read the 100th Psalm, I kept saying your precious letter all over to myself, and Susie, when they sang - it would have made you laugh to hear one little voice, piping to the departed. I made up words and kept singing how I loved you, and had gone, while all the rest of the choir were singing Hallelujahs. I presume nobody heard me, because I sang so small but it was a kind of comfort to think I might put them out, singing of you. I a'nt there this afternoon, tho', because I am here, writing a little letter to my dear Sue, and I am very happy. I think of ten weeks - Dear One, and I think of love, and you, and my heart grows full and warm, and my breath stands still. The sun does'nt shine at all, but I can feel a sunshine stealing into my soul and making it all summer, and every thorn, a rose. And I pray that such summer's sun shine on my Absent One, and cause her bird to sing!
You have been happy, Susie, and now are sad - and the whole world seems lone; but it wont be so always, ''some days must be dark and breary''! you wont cry any more, will you, Susie, for my father will be your father, and my home will be your home, and where you go, I will go, and we will lie side by side in the kirkyard.....
Emilie -
- EMILY to SUSAN. The American poet, Emily Dickinson, wrote many passionate letters to Susan Gilbert in the mid-19th century. Gilbert eventually married Dickinson's brother. That even seems to have cooled Susan's ardor, but Emily retained devoted for decades. This excerpt is reprinted by permission of the publishers from The Letters of Emily Dickinson, edited by Thomas H. Johnson, Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Copyright 1958, 1986 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.
