Retrospect by Emily Dickinson

'T was just this time last year I died.

I know I heard the corn, / When I was carried by the farms, -- / It had the tassels on.

I thought how yellow it would look / When Richard went to mill; / And then I wanted to get out, / But something held my will.

I thought just how red apples wedged / The stubble's joints between; / And carts went stooping round the fields / To take the pumpkins in.

I wondered which would miss me least, / And when Thanksgiving came, / If father'd multiply the plates / To make an even sum.

And if my stocking hung too high, / Would it blur the Christmas glee, / That not a Santa Claus could reach / The altitude of me?

But this sort grieved myself, and so / I thought how it would be / When just this time, some perfect year, / Themselves should come to me.