• As Summer into Autumn slips And yet we sooner say "The Summer" than "the Autumn," lest We turn the sun away, And almost count it an Affront The presence to concede Of one however lovely, not The one that we have loved - So we evade the charge of Years On one attempting shy The Circumvention of the Shaft Of Life's Declivity.

    Emily Dickinson: As Summer into Autumn slips
And yet we sooner say
"The Summer" than "the Autumn," lest
We turn the sun away,

And almost count it an Affront
The presence to concede
Of one however lovely, not
The one that we have loved -

So we evade the charge of Years
On one attempting shy
The Circumvention of the Shaft
Of Life's Declivity.
    Emily Dickinson, Martha Dickinson Bianchi (1971). “The Life and Letters of Emily Dickinson”, p.285, Biblo & Tannen Publishers