In my collaboration with Emily, the sun is personified and the rise itself is addressed as a very spiritual experience. Every single time I’m lucky enough to witness it, the rays of the sun infuse my heart and mind with gratitude and the recognition of the vital nature of the morning miracle that occurs each day.
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Originally titled “A Day (I’ll tell you how the Sun rose-), was one of 4 poems that Emily sent to Thomas Wentworth Higginson in 1862, asking him to be her friend and advisor after seeing an article authored by him in The Atlantic Monthly. In it, he offered advice to young writers. Although his actual response to her letter and future correspondences with Emily have not survived, it is common knowledge that he did not like her poetry. He criticized her inexact rhymes and erratic rhythms. Even so, their correspondence spanned 24 years and they are said to have met in person only twice. After their first meeting in 1870, Higginson wrote in a letter to his wife,”I never was with anyone who drained my nerve power so much”, apparently finding her utterly exhausting. Perhaps this was due to the fact that everyone she considered a friend, outside of family, had moved away from Amherst, and she truly was lonely for friendship.
Like my own poem, Emily’s expounds on the beauty of the sunrise, mentioning animals, children and colors, but then goes on to connect the end of day, the sunset, to Christian symbology, referencing a “flock” (of people) being led away, somewhere, at the end of life, by a “Dominie” (a clergyman).
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#318 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
That 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 —
Peace, Love and Poetry
CR 9-6-26
