A+narrow+Fellow+in+the+Grass


 * Narrow Fellow**

The **title "A Narrow Fellow in the Grass"** is one of only a handful of her poems published during her lifetime, "A Narrow Fellow in the Grass" has always been one of Emily

Dickinson's best known and most admired poems. When the poem was published without Dickinson's knowledge in the Springfield Daily Republican (Feb. 14, 1866), it was entitled **"The Snake."** If no one has questioned the accuracy of the uncalled-for answer that this title gives to the riddle that the poem can be construed to pose, neither has anyone bothered to guess at just what sort of snake the poet had in mind, for there is not much description to go on--only that the creature is **"spotted"** and that it is large enough to make (to the human  eye) noticeable changes in the grass when it "rides" by. Since, to the poet, the snake looks like "a **Whip lash / Unbraiding in the Sun**," it need not be any bigger or more unusual than a good-sized garter snake. Still, especially when one comes upon such a snake unexpectedly, the experience is imposing enough to **shorten one's breath** and to **chill one to the bone** (Montiero 1).

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