Surgeons must be very careful

By Emily Dickinson

Surgeons must be very careful

   When they take the knife!

   Underneath their fine incisions

   Stirs the Culprit—Life!

Composition Date: ca. 1859.Form: abcb1. For the existing manuscript version of poem 108, see The Manuscript Books of Emily Dickinson, edited by R. W. Franklin in two volumes (Cambridge, Mass., and London: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1981: I, 122; fascicle 7; PS 1541 A1 1981 ROBA).