Y'ello?

In yesterday’s post, I shared one of Emily Dickinson’s riddle-poems, “You’ll know her by her foot.” 
 
In some of her riddle poems, Dickinson does not divulge the subject.  For example, in “A Route of Evanescence,” she never uses the word “hummingbird.”  However, in the final stanza of “You’ll know her by her foot,” she divulges that the poem is about a robin.

I came upon this poem when, in an earlier post, I’d discussed Dickinson’s practice of composing variations of her poems.  I had cited the modern-day example of Elton John’s re-write of “Candle in the Wind,” re-worked as “Goodbye England’s Rose,” and in exploring that revision, I stumbled upon a word with which I was unfamiliar: “threnody.”
 
At some point, I checked to see if Dickinson had ever used that word in any of her poems, and voila – there it was in “You’ll know her by her foot”; at least, the word was used in one version of the poem. You can read all about that in yesterday’s post, HERE. 
 
Additionally, that poem includes another word which I’d not seen before:  gamboge (pronounced ɡamˈbōj or ɡamˈbo͞oZH).
 
 “Gamboge” is a shade of yellow, and in the poem, the word is used in that very clever initial image in the opening two stanzas where Dickinson describes the robin’s foot:

​You'll know Her – by Her Foot –
The smallest Gamboge Hand
With Fingers – where the Toes should be –
Would more affront the sand –

Than this Quaint Creature's Boot –
Adjusted by a stem –
Without a Button  I –could vouch –
Unto a Velvet Limb –

Dickinson then goes on to describe the bird’s vest and jacket, its cap, and its voice (which – depending on the version of the poem you read – delivers “threnodies of pearl” or “arguments” of pearl”; Dickinson also considered using the words “extasies” (sic) and “revenues” of pearl). 

The poem is a wonderful ode t the robin!