How many times these low feet staggered (238)

How many times these low feet staggered -

Only the soldered mouth can tell -

Try - can you stir the awful rivet -

Try - can you lift the hasps of steel!

Stroke the cool forehead - hot so often -

Lift - if you care - the listless hair -

Handle the adamantine fingers

Never a thimble - more - shall wear -

Buzz the dull flies - on the chamber window -

Brave - shines the sun through the freckled pane -

Fearless - the cobweb swings from the ceiling -

Indolent Housewife - in Daisies - lain!

Notes:

Note to POL students: The inclusion or omission of the numeral in the title of the poem should not affect the accuracy score. It is optional during recitation.

Copyright Credit: Reprinted by permission of the publishers and the Trustees of Amherst College from The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Variorum Edition, Ralph W. Franklin, ed., Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, © 1998 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. © 1951, 1955, 1979, 1983 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Permission conveyed through Copyright Clearance Center, Inc.

Source: The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Variorum Edition (Harvard University Press, 1998)