A light exists in spring

Emily Dickinson

Teacher card

Published: 1890, in Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series, Complete
Length: 20 lines, 88 words, 1 word in 9 is long
Year band: Reading load: Years 7–8. A guide from word length, not a curriculum level.
Themes: spring, sun
Time: 5–10 min, depending on the activity

The text

A light exists in springNot present on the yearAt any other period.When March is scarcely here

A color stands abroadOn solitary hillsThat science cannot overtake,But human nature feels.

It waits upon the lawn;It shows the furthest treeUpon the furthest slope we know;It almost speaks to me.

Then, as horizons step,Or noons report away,Without the formula of sound,It passes, and we stay:

A quality of lossAffecting our content,As trade had suddenly encroachedUpon a sacrament.

Emily Dickinson (died 1886), Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series, Complete (1890), lines 8575–8598 of Project Gutenberg ebook #12242. Public domain in Australia: the author died before 1955. Copied word for word and checked against the ebook.

What to do with it

One link and one task line for each activity. Send a student the one you want them to do, or print this page and hand it round; each link has a QR code.

Its lines are dealt for the sky in the weather poemsin weatherline · 20 lines · about 5–10 min
Task for students (you can change the sentence before you print; nothing is saved)See where weatherline takes lines from this poem, then read today's poem the sky has chosen.
See where weatherline takes lines from this poem, then read today's poem the sky has chosen.
weatherline.popplepoetry.com/sources#di-light

Send the whole hand-out

This page’s link. Students open it, read the text and pick what to do; nothing asks them to sign in.

Link for the whole text

https://popplepoetry.com/find/dickinson-light-exists-in-spring · popplepoetry.com