A Charm Invests a Face

A Charm Invests a Face - context Summary

Composed in 1862

Written in 1862 and first published posthumously in 1891 in Poems by Emily Dickinson, Second Series, this short lyric belongs to Dickinson’s middle period. The poem frames a private, aesthetic experience — a charm or ideal that exists more fully as image than as encounter — using the motif of a veiled woman who keeps desire intact by avoiding direct meeting. Its publication after Dickinson’s death shaped readers’ reception, placing it among many concise, introspective lyrics that circulated in edited collections rather than the poet’s own arrangements.