Hi! I was reading the poems for tomorrow and I was reading her poem 1096 on page 443 that made me think fondly of our Walt Whitman! Reading this poem, I imagined Whitman as the “narrow Fellow in the Grass”, as “Nature’s people”, and as someone she has never met when she said “But never met this Fellow, Attended or alone”.

Poem 1096

A narrow Fellow in the Grass

Occasionally rides-

You may have met him? Did you not

His notice instant is

The Grass divides as with a Comb-

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-

But when a Boy and Barefoot

I more than once at Noon

Have passed I thought a Whip Lash

Unbraiding in the Sun

When stooping to secure it

It wrinkled And was gone-

Several of Nature’s People

I know and they know me

I feel for them a transport

of Cordality

But never met this fellow

Attended or alone

Without a tighter Breathing

And Zero at the Bone

Meeting Whitman in Dickinson
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