"I started Early – Took my Dog" is a poem by Emily Dickinson written in 1862 and published in 1891, as part of her second posthumous collection, Poems: Second Series. Dickinson's poems were rescued from obscurity, following her death, by her sister Lavinia. They were subsequently published by Mabel Loomis Todd and T.W. Higginson. Like much of Dickinson's poetry, this poem features some hallmarks of her unusual style.
The poem recounts the speaker's trip to the sea and her subsequent imagining of the ocean as an individual. As she delves deeper into her experience, the speaker envisions it with a mixture of wonder and fear. She offers descriptions of mermaids and ships, in an attempt to capture the many layers of the water. She is simultaneously pulled further out and deeper in by a mysterious, animating force. The speaker then attempts to retreat and is pursued by the personified sea figure. She eventually escapes as the sea withdraws from her on the solidity of the shoreline.
The poem follows an ABCB rhyme scheme while making frequent use of capitalization and dashes. Its use of notably strange language and its references to oceanic imagery mark its attempt to capture the eeriness of the sea. In personifying the water as a man, Dickinson is also able to underscore a point about women's vulnerability to the cruelty of men in her time. The poem functions almost like a fairy tale, using a supernatural conceit to address a real-world concern.
