A narrow Fellow in the Grass

This week, I will like to take a step away from The Sound and the Fury and take a look
at one of the poems we had to read for class previously. (We just took one hour to write a
surprise timed writing in class.) The poem that I will like to talk about is from our poetry packet
a few weeks ago called "A narrow Fellow in the Grass" by Emily Dickinson.

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,
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.
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,
It wrinkled, and was gone.

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

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

I got very excited about this poem because I finally somewhat understood what the author was talking about. The first time I read it for class, I had no idea what she was it was supposed to mean or who/what the
narrow fellow in the grass was. But after reading it several times, I had a feeling that she was
talking about a snake. After figuring out the subject of this poem, I reread the poem again and
it all made sense.

The snake was the narrow fellow in the grass which smoothly passed through the grass, dividing it, just like
the the teeth of a comb. It seems to be that the narrator becomes a boy, barefoot out in nature.
He is a boy in love with nature because he is frequently outside during noontime. This boy is unafraid
of the snake, stooping to hold the slithering animal. However, it seems that the narrator, unlike the boy,
is afraid of the snake. She is unable to meet the snake without becoming tense and afraid.

The part of the poem that allowed me to understand the Dickinson was talking about a snake
was the last line of the poem: "And Zero at the Bone-" It just made sense that the author would
be talking about a snake. A snake=no bones.... maybe that wasn't what Dickinson was trying
to point at, but that is the part where I finally figure out the puzzle.

After realizing that the subject of the poem was a snake, I liked the poem. It was similar to a riddle, with
many clues. And once you figure out the riddle, the poem makes a lot more sense. At least this poem
had clues hinting me to the meaning of the poem. Some of the poems however, don't have any of this.
It just seems as if the authors poured out their emotions in words, without trying to make any sense of
it or get a point across to the readers. (Exactly how I think Faulkner wrote The Sound and the Fury.)Whatever word came across their mind was what they
wrote down on paper...and that was the poem.-I don't like poems like that. I wish it had a concrete
and clear meaning to it. Something someone can understand and FEEL although they may not be
able to relate to it.