Emily Dickinson – One Day
The simplicity of Emily Dickinson’s poem One day comes alive in images of the ordinary things of life. Through the eyes of an inquisitive child, Emily takes the reader on a mental journey from the miracle of sunrise to the mystery of sunset.
She begins the poem with a statement: I’ll tell you how the sun came up. Your knowledge and confidence of this greatness is worth sharing. The explanation of it is defined in the metaphorical image that the sun rises one tape at a time. Layers of colored stratus in the sky are represented as ribbons. It connotes a sense of vanity, to which the morning sky is entitled, because -honestly- everything in creation deserves some merit or value.
The morning sky is the color of amethyst because your next thought tells us that the steeples swam in amethyst. The word ‘bell tower’ is a spiritual word. It suggests physical height and spiritual depth. The idea of the tall building ‘swimming’ against the amethyst background is caught up in the concept of movement. The morning air is alive and moving, giving the impression that the steeples sway in the wind.
After the natural colors of dawn and the morning wind have been described, the poet impresses the reader with how quickly nature reacts to these signs. She says that News of the rising sun how the squirrel ran. Indeed, nature wakes up as fast as a squirrel runs. (The speed of a squirrel is hotly debated, but many people will say they run at an average of about 10 miles per hour.) The message this beautiful image conveys is that once the sun rises, everything happens quickly. In effect, this symbolizes the hectic pace of the day that we have to deal with, from the moment we wake up.
The rhythm of the first verse is fast and light. The tone is cheerful and full of promise. It continues in the second verse where The hills unleash personified their hats. As the sun rises and the morning air begins to warm, the mist, which is the metaphorical hood, over the hills evaporates. So the bobolinks start singing The bobolink is a small American songbird. Something that is really special about sunrise is the sunrise chorus. What else can birds do besides sing when they wake up? And whatever the habitat, the birds sing to it.
At the end of the second verse, Emily blames the sun for everything that has happened. She says it’s the sun that made the ribbons fly, the steeples swim, the squirrels run, the hills untie their hats, and the birds sing. The sun miraculously gives life to the morning. It is a message that symbolizes birth; the beginning.
The pace then begins to change in his statement: But how it got, I don’t know.. The mood is dampened by the mystery of the sunset. There seemed to be a purple staircase, up which the yellow boys and girls climbed all the time, until, when they reached the other side, a gray-clad dominie gently lifted the bars and led the herd away.
As the sun sinks below the horizon, sunlight enters the atmosphere at a lower angle, and depending on the concentration of atmospheric particles in the path of incoming sunlight, clouds appear yellow, pink, and purple. . The yellow clouds are the puffy cumulus clouds. These playful clouds remind the poet of children climbing up a style. The purple style is a band of stratus clouds that persists almost parallel to the horizon.
Then, when the day is done, a dominie takes the children away. Literally, the dominie could be a clergyman or a schoolteacher who, like a shepherd, leads the flock home to safety. In a figurative sense, it is the night, the darkness, that puts an end to the day (or life). The gray color symbolizes mourning: the end of a beautiful day; death. It also reminds the reader of the fact that the poet does not know how the sun sets. The color enhances the mystery. Figuratively speaking, people do not know what happens after death. Night bars represent a sense of security. This gives hope to the reader.
The reference that the sun is masculine, like the dominie, magnifies the Creator and gives the verse a spiritual tone. It is as if the poet wanted the reader to meditate on the spiritual meaning of sunset. If sunrise is the beginning, birth, surely then sunset is the end, death.
The poem has a very unconventional broken rhyme. His use of metaphors is vivid and spiritual. Emily Dickinson’s insight into nature and life was original and profound. Her works are descriptive and show the power of her imagination. This is truly a very beautiful poem which, like many of her other poems, deals with the themes of life, death and immortality.