As If Some Little Arctic Flower
poem 180
As If Some Little Arctic Flower - meaning Summary
Innocence Meets Exotica
The poem sketches a simple imagined journey: a tiny Arctic flower wanders from polar regions into distant, sunny lands—strange crowds of flowers and foreign birds—and even into Eden. Dickinson presents this vivid, improbable voyage only to insist that nothing literal happens; the point rests on the reader’s inference. The scenario invites reflection on displacement, contrast between origin and surroundings, and how meaning is projected onto a small, passive subject. The poem is less a story than a prompt: it stages an image and asks the reader to supply its significance.
Read Complete AnalysesAs if some little Arctic flower Upon the polar hem Went wandering down the Latitudes Until it puzzled came To continents of summer To firmaments of sun To strange, bright crowds of flowers And birds, of foreign tongue! I say, As if this little flower To Eden, wandered in What then? Why nothing, Only, your inference therefrom!
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