"Whose cheek is this?

" By Emily Dickinson [Analysis]

Whose cheek is this?[1] What rosy face[2] Has lost a blush today?[3] I found her -- "pleiad" -- in the woods[4] And bore her safe away.[5] Robins, in the tradition[6] Did cover such with leaves,[7] But which the cheek --[8] And which the pall[9] My scrutiny deceives.[10]
Poem 82 [F48] "Whose cheek is this?" Analysis by David Preest [Poem]

Emily sent this poem as a pencilled note to Sue. At the top of it was mounted a tiny picture of a bird, and the thread which probably attached a flower to the note still remains. In the traditional story robins covered the dead bodies of the 'Babes lost in the Wood.' A 'pall' is the funeral garment for a dead body. The 'lost Pleiad' was explained in the note on poem 23. But that is as far as the facts take us. All else is guesswork. Did Emily find in the woods a flower which seemed to be lost or dead, which, when she got it home, was so far gone that she could not tell the difference between its flower ('the cheek') and its leaves ('the pall')?
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