A Day

I’ll tell you how the sun rose, __
A ribbon at a time.
The steeples swam in amethyst,
The news like squirrels ran.

The hills untied their bonnets,
The bobolinks begun.
Then I said softly to myself,
“That must have been the sun!”

But how he set, I know not.
There seemed a purple stile
Which little yellow boys and girls
Were climbing all the while

Till when they reached the other side,
A dominie in gray
Put gently up the evening bars,
And led the flock away.

Important takeaways:

• A poem written by American female poet Emily Dickinson (1830 – 1886)
• Rhyming scheme: abcb (4 quatrains)
• Description of sunrise and sunset with the help of imagery.
• Passage of life from birth to death.
• Growth of a child from innocence to experience.

Summary plus Interpretation

The poem ‘A Day’ by Emily Dickinson is a description of a beautiful day as experienced by a child through his/her sense perceptions. The speaker child describes the beginning and the ending time of the day, namely, the sunrise and the sunset. She perceives the sunrise through the images formed by the sense of sight and the sense of hearing. She sees sunrays appearing like a ribbon, church steeple shining in amethyst color and the hills turning green with sunlight and also sees and hears bobolinks chirping. Then, she realizes the sun has risen. All this happens so fast that the child likens it to the very fast run of a squirrel. Here, metaphorically, sunrise is the birth of a child who, after the birth, seems to be growing very fast.

Similarly, the speaker child perceives the sunset in the form of little yellow boys and girls climbing the purple stile over the horizon and finally disappearing in gray color. They are then assumed to be led away by the God as the shepherd leads his flock away to their resting place in the evening time. Here, metaphorically, sunset is the death of a man. When the speaker says that she doesn’t know or understand how the sun sets, the poet is suggesting that the sunset happens as mysteriously as the death falls upon a man.

This poem can also be interpreted as the growth of a child from innocence to experience – experience of life from birth to death.

GLOSSARY

steeples (n.): tall towers with a spire on top, rising above the roof of a church
amethyst (n.): purple precious stone used in making jewelry
bonnets (n.): hats tied with strings under the chin, worn by babies and women
bobolinks (n.): songbirds with large, somewhat flat heads, short necks and short tails
dominie (n.): a school master (Scottish); a pastor or clergyman (US)
stile (n.): a set of steps that help people to climb over a fence or wall, especially in the village

Q. Write a short summary of the poem ‘A Day’ by Emily Dickinson.

Ans. ‘A Day’ by Emily Dickinson is a poem that describes sunrise and sunset through a child’s perspective. The child perceives the sunrise through her senses of sight and hearing. When the sun rises, its rays look like ribbons, which travel very fast like the run of squirrels. When the sunrays fall over the churches, the steeples look covered in amethyst. Likewise, the hills turn green and the birds start chirping. These events and experiences make the child realize that the sun has risen. However, the child finds the sunset mysterious. She sees something happening over the horizon: the yellow and purple stiles slowly turning gray and finally disappearing into darkness. The child doesn’t understand how it all happens. Metaphorically, sunrise is the birth and growth of a human being which we experience beautifully and understand quite clearly. But sunset refers to the death of a human being which is as mysterious as the sunset itself.