Emily D. for Today

The morns are meeker than they were —
The nuts are getting brown —
The berry's cheek is plumper —
The Rose is out of town.

The Maple wears a gayer scarf —
The field a scarlet gown —
Lest I should be old fashioned
I'll put a trinket on.

c. 1858; Johnson pg 11

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We immediately notice the rhyme scheme in today's poem is more regular than the past two I've selected. Looking at the eight lines as a whole, I read it as a, b, c, b, d, b, e, b. I am assuming, based Emily's later works, that "on" is intended as an "eye rhyme" for "gown", et al.

If you are not a recovering English major, you may wonder what I mean by "eye rhyme." This is also sometimes called "slant rhyme" but I prefer the former, colloquial, term, because it explains itself so neatly. Which is to say, an "eye rhyme" are two words that look like they should rhyme, but don't.

Well, of course only the hammiest Irish character actor would pronounce "on" so it rhymes with "gown". That's where the "slant" comes in – the words might have only a consonant and vowel in common. As I mentioned yesterday, there are times when one can't be certain how liberal to be when anticipating Ms. Dickinson's intended rhymes. But, since this a, b, c, b pattern is fairly common in Emily's work, I believe I'm on safe ground.

The meter is similar to yesterday's poem: mostly iambs, like "The morns are meeker than they were". But there is some variance in meter. The line that sticks out, for me, is the final line: "I'll put a trinket on". See the problem? It seems to be missing a beat, even though it has the same number of syllables as the fourth line in the first stanza (its logical mate). Count Chockula might make it sound like iambs, but I'm darned if I can using ordinary speech patterns.

Is this intentional? I can hardly claim to read Emily Dickinson's mind, but an argument could be made. The sprung rhythm does emphasis that final word, which alerts us to the difference between "trinket" and the "gay" apparel of the natural world in the previous lines.

It's a charming poem. To the best of my memory, it's not one that normally appears in anthologies. But, again, we begin to see more marks of Emily's developing poetic voice.