Publication - is the Auction (788) | The Poetry Foundation

Publication - is the Auction

Of the Mind of Man -

Poverty - be justifying

For so foul a thing

Possibly - but We - would rather

From Our Garret go

White – unto the White Creator -

Than invest - Our Snow -

Thought belong to Him who gave it -

Then – to Him Who bear

It's Corporeal illustration - sell

The Royal Air -

In the Parcel - Be the Merchant

Of the Heavenly Grace -

But reduce no Human Spirit

To Disgrace of Price -

Notes:

The Poetry Foundation often receives questions about Emily Dickinson's poems. Read a note from the digital archive editor about Dickinson's "errors."

Copyright Credit: THE POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON: READING EDITION, edited by Ralph W. Franklin, Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Copyright © 1998, 1999 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Copyright © 1951, 1955 , by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Copyright © 1979, 1983 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Copyright © 1914, 1918, 1924, 1929, 1930, 1932, 1935, 1937, 1942 by Martha Dickinson Bianchi. Copyright © 1952, 1957, 1958, 1963, 1965 by Mary L. Hampson.

Source: The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Reading Edition, ed by Ralph W. Franklin (Harvard University Press, 1999)