by Neil Deo

Created on: July 17, 2008   Last Updated: July 21, 2008

In this poem, Emily Dickinson seems to get reacquainted with Mr. Narrow Fellow. The use of personification is striking and singularly well-done.

Dickinson wrote mainly for herself. Few writers enjoyed the creative act of observing, note-taking and crafting with words as she did, and her rather limited movement outside of her home and church, made writing rather an essential connecting activity for an universal soul. This poem, A NARROW FELLOW IN THE GRASS, reveals quintessentially Dickinsonian characteristics of style and substance. The poem itself, below, is the version contained in the collection published by her niece, Martha Dickinson Bianchi (COMPLETE POEMS, Boston. 1924).

Emily Dickinson (183086). Complete Poems. 1924.

Part Two: Nature

XXIV

A NARROW fellow in the grass
Occasionally rides;
You may have met him,did you not?
His notice sudden is.

The grass divides as with a comb, 5
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. 10
Yet when a child, and barefoot,
I more than once, at morn,

Have passed, I thought, a whip-lash
Unbraiding in the sun,
When, stooping to secure it, 15
It wrinkled, and was gone.

Several of nature's people
I know, and they know me;
I feel for them a transport
Of cordiality; 20

But never met this fellow,
Attended or alone,
Without a tighter breathing,
And zero at the bone.

Dickinson had a respectful, curious, almost transcendental attitude to nature. She did correspond, meet with and debate with Emerson during her lifetime. Although only 20 of her 1775 poems ever received titles during their writing, contemporary critics and readers refer to these poems by first line-titles. The "narrow fellow" in the grass refers to a snake, or several of the kind she encountered through childhood and adulthood in New England. The curious thing is that Dickinson does not use the word "snake" at all. She challenges herself to use words and images so starkly, briliantly and originally, that the reader knows she speaks of wriggling, slithering snakes! The opening lines suggest that this "fellow" is almost like some gentleman, out for his gentlemanly ride across the fields. Note that "ride" may be a double entendre, and some poets/readers have seen allusions to men throughout this poem. I choose to take most of her words at face-value.

Many of Dickinson's poems - noted for their conciseness - includes titles/subjects sparingly but yet she clearly conveys her feelings for her

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