Analysis of A Light Exist in Spring by Emily Dickinson

Context:Emily Dickinson is an American poet, and her poems were churned during her solitude, living and thought-stirring letters that she had written to her father and sister-in-law. These letters were the only mean of communication between her and the world outside. Emily used to be mesmerized by nature, and used to write about her dreams and thoughts about nature. She writes her poems with brilliant imagery, and uses nature as the metaphor for all her poems. This poem is one of the letters that she had written to her father. She speaks about life and death about this poem, and also about the presence of God in our life as light, and the troubles as darkness. This poem is a religious one and is written about the cycle of life and death, and the memories left behind associated with the person. She presents her thoughts in beautiful metaphors of the weather, again a cycle of nature, to represent the cycle of life and death in nature. She speaks about the Spring as the weather which brings everything to life, and the Winters a weather where everything loses life and dies. She observes how the light shows her new things around her, that are close and distant from her, and how she gets to see something new and beautiful. But she is unable to understand how these people disappear, like the light disappears in the horizon as the day ends, and they leave behind hollowness and darkness. She calls this an unfair to the sanctity. She thinks this deal is not right; the cycle of life and death, light and darkness. She fails to see any kind of science or theory that could explain this to her. She believes that only the human heart and the human mind could understand such feelings, and its unexplainable.

Rhyme Scheme and Structure: Dickinson has followed the rhyming scheme a b c b in the poem. For example:

Then as Horizons step
Or Noons report away
Without the Formula of sound
It passes and we stay —

Here in these lines, the word “away” rhymes with the word “stay” which are the second and the fourth line of the stanza.

The poet has tried to bring our attention the important words like “Noon”, and “Light” by putting them in title case. This helps the readers to put a little more attention on the words, and the poet could express her thoughts better by following it.

The poet has also broken her lines in such a way that the reader can pause, and understand the flow of the expressions in the poem. The poet has stopped in the places where she wants to capture a fragment of expression, and hence, capture the entire frame of an expression in four lines.

The punctuations in the poem are another important factor which has helped the poet to express her views and narrow it down. The punctuations helps the reader to stop at places where the poet wants the reader to, and understand the meaning and importance of the lines, or the importance of the word.

Imagery: The poet has used brilliant imagery in this poem, where she is writing about the smallest details of nature to bring out the complete image of the poem. For example, in the lines:

Then as Horizons step
Or Noons report away
Without the Formula of sound
It passes and we stay —

The poet is trying to express how the light marks the beginning and end of a day, where the lights descends on the horizon, like its sweeping away, without making a single hint of sound or noise. As it passes away, leaving us behind with the darkness, keeping us waiting for the light to appear sooner next. It leaves us behind, and emerges from a horizon and leaves from the same.

Symbols:Nature is used as a symbol, metaphor to express the feelings of the poet. The elements of nature have been used as symbols to draw a verbal picture of the entire poem. For example: Horizons, Noons, Solitary Fields, etc., which help the poet to bring out an entire picture of her expressions and helps the readers in understanding what the poet feels.

Theme: The theme of the poem “A Light exists in Spring” is religious, which is about the cycle of light and dark, day and night, life and death, etc. The poet is trying to express her ideas on how the life and death come and go, leaving her with the memories of the dear ones, like the light comes and touches everything around her, show her something new, something which is distant or close. She says that no science or logical theory could explain how and why the human mind feels any kind of feeling for them, be it sadness, or melancholy. She says that the feelings are only felt and understood by humans, and no one can explain why. The poet brings metaphors from the nature, like the weather, light, and the cycle of day and night to bring out her expressions. The poet is trying to convey how unfair this cycle of birth and death is, as it leaves behind the memory of the people, and nothing more.

Deep Meaning: The deep meaning of this poem is that the birth and death is a cycle just like the day and night. It brings something new in our life, shows us different things, and when the day get over, we are left only with memories. The poet has used beautiful metaphor from nature to express her emotions in this poem.