I Think the Hemlock Likes to Stand
poem 525
I Think the Hemlock Likes to Stand - meaning Summary
Affinity for Cold Solitude
The poem personifies a hemlock tree as preferring harsh, snowy, northern environments where austerity and cold suit its nature. Dickinson contrasts wild, nourishing conditions with cultivated, softer societies for which the tree is insignificant. The hemlock thrives on winds and frost while human diversions and refinement are irrelevant to its being. The poem suggests a quiet natural order in which organisms prosper by belonging to their proper climates rather than to human tastes.
Read Complete AnalysesI think the Hemlock likes to stand Upon a Marge of Snow It suits his own Austerity And satisfies an awe That men, must slake in Wilderness And in the Desert cloy An instinct for the Hoar, the Bald Lapland’s necessity The Hemlock’s nature thrives on cold The Gnash of Northern winds Is sweetest nutriment to him His best Norwegian Wines To satin Races he is nought But Children on the Don, Beneath his Tabernacles, play, And Dnieper Wrestlers, run.
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