Emily Dickinson

God Made a Little Gentian

poem 442

God Made a Little Gentian - meaning Summary

Outsider Beauty Vindicated

The poem follows a small gentian that aspires to be a rose and is mocked during summer for failing to fit that ideal. Late in the season it blooms a striking purple that silences mockery, but only after frost prepares the conditions. The final question to the Creator — whether it should bloom — frames the flower's distinct timing and beauty as dependent on particular circumstances and a divinely sanctioned purpose.

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God made a little Gentian It tried to be a Rose And failed and all the Summer laughed But just before the Snows There rose a Purple Creature That ravished all the Hill And Summer hid her Forehead And Mockery was still The Frosts were her condition The Tyrian would not come Until the North invoke it Creator Shall I bloom?

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