Can anyone interpret the meaning of this poem?
I’ll tell you how the sun rose — by Emily Dickinson
I’ll tell you how the sun rose,
A ribbon at a time.
The steeples swam in amethyst,
The news like squirrels ran.
The hills untied their bonnets,
The bobolinks begun.
Then I said softly to myself,
"That must have been the sun!"
But how he set, I know not.
There seemed a purple stile
Which little yellow boys and girls
Were climbing all the while
Till when they reached the other side,
A dominie in gray
Put gently up the evening bars,
And led the flock away.
I don’t get the message of this poem. What’s she trying to say?
She’s just describing what it’s like to see the sun rise and see it set.
"A ribbon at a time" could mean the morning rays looked like ribbon to her.
"The steeples swam in amythyst"
Some sunrise skies are purple.
"The hills untied their bonnets"
Wildflowers opened to the light.
A stile is a staircase that lets someone get in or out of a fenced yard without a gate, as it has stairs on both sides of the fence. She is saying that the sun’s ascent and descent over the earth is like bright children going over a stile. A dominie in gray that led the flock away is like the gray clouds that seem so drab after the light stops touching them.
She’s just describing what it’s like to see the sun rise and see it set.
"A ribbon at a time" could mean the morning rays looked like ribbon to her.
"The steeples swam in amythyst"
Some sunrise skies are purple.
"The hills untied their bonnets"
Wildflowers opened to the light.
A stile is a staircase that lets someone get in or out of a fenced yard without a gate, as it has stairs on both sides of the fence. She is saying that the sun’s ascent and descent over the earth is like bright children going over a stile. A dominie in gray that led the flock away is like the gray clouds that seem so drab after the light stops touching them.
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In my opinion, she is trying to describe how time flies, our journey through life.
I think she is saying that we progress through life, a moment at a time. And that sometimes time flies so fast that we do not realize it.
When it will end we will never know. But we should continue on living it and enjoying it. Climbing the moutain of life to reach our goals on the top.
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The first answer is correct, I feel like the second part it begins "But how he set, I know not "is the sun setting.The sunrise has hope, awe in it. The sunset is is sorta sad I guess because the little yellow girl & boys have to disappear gently into the night. Beautiful poem
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The "boys and girls" could be enigmatic in many ways, as well as "playing the part" of the the sun’s cycle around our globe.
"How he (the sun) set, I know not", may indicate the writer is/was in a dream-state, unaware of the reality while observing the frivolity of the play. "Till they reached the other side", could very well be she has reached the end of her sleep. The "bars" could possibly be those of a corral, partitioning the "sheep of sleep" who are led away for another night to "count"; the "bars" could infer, at the same time, the "gentle" safety of a child’s crib, entering focus with ones awakening and "barring" the fantasies of dreaming.
Yet a fourth simile could reference "the flock" of sleep as the fluffy clouds dissipating with the warming sun’s reys.
Poetic comparison need not be of dualities alone, nor perfectly synchronous. They can have nuance. Analogies can be double or triple entandre as well. Hints of another feeling or perspective can be sprinkled in to "flavor" an idea or statement. In fact, E, Dickenson may have been illustrating here the similarities between dreaming and poetry, in that the imagery is often INcongruent.
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