A Light Exists in Spring
A Light Exists in Spring - context Summary
Published Posthumously in 1891
This poem was published posthumously in 1891 in Poems by Emily Dickinson, Second Series. It presents a brief, focused account of an elusive spring light and color that appears before March, described as beyond scientific explanation and prompting a near-spiritual feeling. The poem records the light’s arrival and quiet departure, leaving a melancholic residue: a "quality of loss" that interrupts ordinary contentment. As a context note, its placement in the second series helped shape late-Victorian readers’ sense of Dickinson as a poet of private revelation and compressed, paradoxical emotion.
Read Complete AnalysesA light exists in spring Not present on the year At any other period. When March is scarcely here A color stands abroad On solitary hills That science cannot overtake, But human naturefeels. It waits upon the lawn; It shows the furthest tree Upon the furthest slope we know; It almost speaks to me. Then, as horizons step, Or noons report away, Without the formula of sound, It passes, and we stay: A quality of loss Affecting our content, As trade had suddenly encroached Upon a sacrament.
Feel free to be first to leave comment.