All Overgrown by Cunning Moss
poem 148
All Overgrown by Cunning Moss - context Summary
Tribute to Charlotte Brontë
Written in 1859 as a personal tribute to Charlotte Brontë, Dickinson’s short lyric mourns the novelist whose burial site at Haworth is imagined as “the little cage of Currer Bell.” The poem registers Dickinson’s admiration through condensed, reverent images: Christ‑like suffering (Gethsemane
), a triumphant arrival in an afterlife (Asphodel
), and Eden’s music greeting Brontë. It frames Brontë’s literary life as a spiritual passage and was later published posthumously in 1890 in Fascicle 13.
All overgrown by cunning moss, All interspersed with weed, The little cage of Currer Bell In quiet Haworth laid. Gathered from many wanderings Gethsemane can tell Thro’ what transporting anguish She reached the Asphodel! Soft falls the sounds of Eden Upon her puzzled ear Oh what an afternoon for Heaven, When Bronte entered there!
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