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Emily DickinsonA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
The second stanza uses an elaborate metaphor about how time can be measured with physical objects. In this case, different yarn-like balls represent the months of a year. To make these months move faster, the speaker says they will tie them into balls and then store them separate from another to make it easy for them to measure the time. This gives the speaker some sense of power over time and an ability to break it down into parts instead of having to deal with all of it together, as it would be if the balls merged.
The fly and the bee act as symbols for time and the difficulty and burden it places on people. The progression from the annoying yet harmless fly to the annoying and dangerous bee shows how time grows in strength the longer one has to endure it. Not only does the bee present a constant danger, but it also lurks and prepares to strike at any time, adding to the already large amount of dread the speaker feels at the thought of losing their love forever. The bee is also a goblin, which traditionally is a creature that steals.
By Emily Dickinson
A Bird, came down the Walk
Emily Dickinson
A Clock stopped—
Emily Dickinson
A narrow Fellow in the Grass (1096)
Emily Dickinson
Because I Could Not Stop for Death
Emily Dickinson
"Faith" is a fine invention
Emily Dickinson
Fame Is a Fickle Food (1702)
Emily Dickinson
Hope is a strange invention
Emily Dickinson
"Hope" Is the Thing with Feathers
Emily Dickinson
I Can Wade Grief
Emily Dickinson
I Felt a Cleaving in my Mind
Emily Dickinson
I Felt a Funeral, in My Brain
Emily Dickinson
If I Can Stop One Heart from Breaking
Emily Dickinson
If I should die
Emily Dickinson
I heard a Fly buzz — when I died
Emily Dickinson
I'm Nobody! Who Are You?
Emily Dickinson
Much Madness is divinest Sense—
Emily Dickinson
Success Is Counted Sweetest
Emily Dickinson
Tell all the truth but tell it slant
Emily Dickinson
The Only News I Know
Emily Dickinson
There is no Frigate like a Book
Emily Dickinson