SPRING+HAS+SPRUNG

Before you thought of spring, Except as a surmise, You see, God bless his suddenness, A fellow in the skies Of independent hues, A little weather-worn, Inspiriting habiliments Of indigo and brown. With specimens of song, As if for you to choose, Discretion in the interval, With gay delays he goes To some superior tree Without a single leaf, And shouts for joy to nobody But his seraphic self! Emily Dickinson spent most of her lifetime in her house, the winters must have been very cold, and spring probably meant a fresh start and a new sense of self-fulfillment when the house warmed up in the spring. It makes you wonder; as she got older did she yearn for more friends and more purpose in her life. In the poem she talks about this tree that grows older and weathers and in it’s final days has no leaves on it’s tree when spring rolls around to feel happy about. In reality, the tree in the poem symbolizes a man’s journey from beginning to end and as he gets older and dies he realizes on his final days that he has no friends at his funeral because his whole life he has been superior and ignorant to everyone around him.