Sunset at Night Is Natural

Sunset at Night Is Natural - meaning Summary

When Order Is Overturned

The poem observes a mismatch between expected cosmic order and jarring reversals. Dickinson contrasts ordinary cycles—sunset, midnight—with unnatural inversions like a sunset at dawn or midnight at noon to suggest disorientation when familiar patterns break. She then contrasts human scientific ability to predict eclipses with a more unsettling, unforeseen disruption that would show even divine timing to be fallible. The poem raises questions about certainty, the limits of prediction, and the unsettling consequences when the universe or its presumed overseer fails to conform to expectation.