Dickinson often used alliteration and other repeated vowel and consonant sounds within lines and across lines and stanzas as alternatives to formal rhyme. In this poem, for example, the repetition of the sound "s" suggests the slithering of a snake. Alliteration is used effectively in "Attended or alone" and "breathing/bone" in the final stanza. Note, too, the echoing consonant and vowel sounds in stanza three's "A floor too cool for corn," and the prevalence of the long "o" sound in the concluding stanza underscoring the word "zero."
A Narrow Fellow in the Grass