Emily Dickinson

You’ll Know It as You Know ‘Tis Noon

poem 420

You’ll Know It as You Know ‘Tis Noon - meaning Summary

Recognition Beyond Words

Dickinson’s brief lyric argues that knowledge of God or ultimate realities comes through direct perception rather than verbal definition. She compares knowing God to knowing noon or the sun: recognition is immediate, felt as "glory." The poem claims the mightiest truths assert themselves by presence and effect, not by labels. Divine power communicates through natural phenomena—lightning, sun, sea—so experience and intuition, not theological speech, reveal the divine. The final exhortation, "Consult your Eye," urges readers to trust sensory and immediate apprehension as evidence of transcendence.

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You’ll know it as you know ’tis Noon By Glory As you do the Sun By Glory As you will in Heaven Know God the Father and the Son. By intuition, Mightiest Things Assert themselves and not by terms I’m Midnight need the Midnight say I’m Sunrise Need the Majesty? Omnipotence had not a Tongue His listp is Lightning and the Sun His Conversation with the Sea How shall you know? Consult your Eye!

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