Emily Dickinson

The Wind Took Up the Northern Things

The Wind Took Up the Northern Things - meaning Summary

Storm as Reordering Force

The poem depicts a powerful wind as an agent that rearranges the world—moving regions, overturning order, and briefly devouring familiar boundaries. After a violent, almost cosmic disturbance, life cautiously returns: nature reasserts its systems, smoke rises from homes, and birds resume flight. The poem reads as a compact observation of destruction and restoration, suggesting resilience and the quiet intimacy that follows a shared, disruptive event.

Read Complete Analyses

The Wind took up the Northern Things And piled them in the south – Then gave the East unto the West And opening his mouth The four Divisions of the Earth Did make as to devour While everything to corners slunk Behind the awful power – The Wind – unto his Chambers went And nature ventured out – Her subjects scattered into place Her systems ranged about Again the smoke from Dwellings rose The Day abroad was heard – How intimate, a Tempest past The Transport of the Bird –

default user
PoetryVerse just now

Feel free to be first to leave comment.

8/2200 - 0