Dear friend.

Your letter gave no Drunkenness, because I tasted Rum before - Domingo comes but once - yet I have had few pleasures so deep as your opinion, and if I tried to thank you, my tears would block my tongue -

My dying Tutor told me that he would like to live till I had been a poet, but Death was much of Mob as I could master - then - And when far afterward - a sudden light on Orchards, or a new fashion in the wind troubled my attention - I felt a palsy, here - the Verses just relieve -

Your second letter surprised me, and for a moment, swung - I had not supposed it. Your first - gave no dishonor, because the True - are not ashamed - I thanked you for your justice - but could not drop the Bells whose jingling cooled my Tramp - Perhaps the Balm, seemed better, because you bled me, first.

I smile when you suggest that I delay "to publish" - that being foreign to my thought, as Firmament to Fin -

If fame belonged to me, I could not escape her - if she did not, the longest day would pass me on the chase - and the approbation of my Dog, would forsake me - then - My Barefoot-Rank is better -

You think my gait "spasmodic" - I am in danger - Sir -

You think me "uncontrolled" - I have no Tribunal.

Would you have time to be the "friend" you should think I need? I have a little shape - it would not crowd your Desk - nor make much Racket as the Mouse, that dents your Galleries -

If I might bring you what I do - not so frequent to trouble you - and ask you if I told it clear - 'twould be control, to me -

The Sailor cannot see the North - but knows the Needle can -

The "hand you stretch me in the Dark," I put mine in, and turn away - I have no Saxon, now -

        As if I asked a common Alms,
        And in my wondering hand
        A Stranger pressed a Kingdom,
        And I, bewildered, stand -
        As if I asked the Orient
        Had it for me a Morn -
        And it should lift it's purple Dikes,
        And shatter Me with Dawn!
But, will you be my Preceptor, Mr Higginson?

                                                                                                 Your friend

                                                                                              E Dickinson -