Our patient was an unknown author, having spent much of her writing years as a recluse. Fewer than a dozen of her poems found their way to print, all of them anonymous, before she died of unknown causes. After her death, upon the discovery of over 1,800 poems stored in her bedroom, she is now recognized as one of the great English-language poets.

She was born in the early 1800s to a New England Puritanical couple, whose home she described as one of “freedom, love, gayety and good talk.” Little is known, however, of the author’s childhood. Her relationship with her parents and others with whom she was close, like much of her life, is obscure.

As a child, she was diagnosed with consumption and treated for it over a course of two years. In 1847, at the age of 17—after seven years of academic study—she entered an institute of higher education for women. She left after three terms, possibly secondary to unwelcomed religious pressure. A repeated theme in her young life was loneliness.

 In 1863, at the age of 33, she began having visual difficulties marked by light sensitivity and aching of her eyes. She noted that sometimes her “sight got crooked” and that her vision was “like the sherry in the glass that the guest leaves.” She also wrote, “Terror—since September—I could tell to none—”

“Daisy,” as she referred to herself, devoted the majority of her life to writing poetry, yet she was known in her college town not as a poet but more as a gardener. The gardens around her residence, called the Homestead, were her joy. Our patient reached out to a well-known editor, hoping he would be her mentor. He thought her poems were “formless and spastic” and urged her not to publish them. Her poetry centered on life, love, nature, time, and eternity.

In her thirties, for reasons unknown, our patient became more reclusive, earning the nickname in her hometown as “the Myth.” In a letter, she spoke of illness, loneliness, terror of family distances, and frustrated love, of turning to the things of nature in her despair over humans. She was also recognized, for reasons unknown, for always dressing in white. She rarely left her house, nor would she meet face to face with visitors. When company would arrive, she would race away, but she would listen in while sitting in the dark at the top of the stairs. She enjoyed riddles and apparently enjoyed being one. Yet despite her life challenges, her poetry was often optimistic and encouraging.

If I can stop one heart from breaking,

I shall not live in vain;

If I can ease one life the aching,

Or cool one pain,

Or help one fainting robin

Unto his nest again,

I shall not live in vain.

At the age of 52, she was deeply affected by the passing of nine family members and friends, including her beloved nephew, who lived next door. On the night of his death from typhoid fever, our patient left her home for the first time in 15 years to see if she could help him. Some felt that she never fully recovered after his death. Suffering from fatigue, vomiting, and “a terrible pain in the back of her head,” she sought medical attention. “The physician says I have nervous prostration.” Her life was at times consumed with great grief: “the dying have been too deep for me. Before I could raise my heart from one, another has come.” 

At the age of 54, she suffered a “revenge of the nerves” with spells of unconsciousness, which occurred on several occasions up until her death. In mid-January of 1886, at the age of 56, our patient’s health worsened. By her own account, she was “taken very ill, bereft of book or thought.” In May of that same year, she lost consciousness again and was noted to have a distinct pattern of “stertorous breathing.” She would die two days later. Her physician sat with her on the day of her death, as she lay convulsing and comatose.