A year after her death, the speaker remembers exactly what the world looked like as she left it: cornfields with tassels, carts gathering pumpkins, red apples wedged in stubble. She died at harvest time, and from some quiet beyond, she feels the pull of that bright season. She wanted to get out, to follow Richard to the mill, but something held her will — a gentle yet firm boundary between the living and the dead. The mood is eerie but not terrifying; it aches with the loss of ordinary things. She wonders who missed her least, whether her father set an extra plate at Thanksgiving, if her stocking’s height blurred the Christmas glee. But that line of thought only grieves her, so she turns it around: maybe one year, on just this day, she herself will come back. The poem hovers between homely detail and ghostly longing, suggesting that the distance might be thinner than we think.
'Twas just this time, last year, I died. — Summary
'Twas just this time, last year, I died. I know I heard the Corn, When I was carried by the Farms -- It had the Tassels on --
I thought how yellow it would look -- When Richard went to mill -- And then, I wanted to get out, But something held my will.
I thought just how Red -- Apples wedged The Stubble's joints between -- And the Carts stooping round the fields To take the Pumpkins in --
I wondered which would miss me, least, And when Thanksgiving, came, If Father'd multiply the plates -- To make an even Sum --
And would it blur the Christmas glee My Stocking hang too high For any Santa Claus to reach The Altitude of me --
But this sort, grieved myself, And so, I thought the other way, How just this time, some perfect year -- Themself, should come to me --