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Emily Dickinson's Collected Poems

Part Three: Nature 73. I'll tell you how the sun rose

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.