Can keep the soul alive—
Not portly, mind!
But breathing, warm,
Conscious, as old Napoleon
The night before the crown!
The resemblance of these first four lines to the now popular quatrain of Omar Khayyám is noteworthy, as Emily so far as can be proved never saw the translations of Fitzgerald, though they were published in England in 1858. Her Sister Sue never saw them until the Houghton Mifflin & Company American edition in 1888, two years after Emily's death; nor were they among her books.
She was always eager to respond to Susan's criticism, and when the first pencilled copy was sent over of the poem, "Safe in their alabaster chambers," it was returned with profound admiration, but this comment, "The second verse is not frosty enough yet." To which Emily replied next day:
Perhaps this would suit you better, Sue?
Grand go the years in the crescent above them,
Worlds scoop their arcs
And firmaments bow,
Diadems drop and Doges surrender
Soundless as dots on a disc of snow.
Is this frostier?
Springs shake their sills
But the echoes stiffen,
Hoar is the window and numb the door,
Tribes of Eclipse in tents of marble
Staples of Ages have buckled there.
The first variant was chosen, and so appears as a third stanza, in Volume One of the published poems. "In this Wondrous Sea" was sent to Susan in 1848 when she was
