Light is sufficient to itself –

Audio: 

This is one of 295 poems Dickinson wrote in 1863, her most productive year. She kept this copy, along with a later draft from 1865.

 

Light is sufficient to itself –
If others want to see
It can be had on Window panes
Some hours of the day –

But not for Compensation –
It holds as large a Glow
To Squirrel in the Himmaleh
Precisely – as to me –

Light is sufficient to itself –
Poem, ca. 1863
Amherst College Archives & Special Collections