These are the days when birds come back

Emily Dickinson

Teacher card

Published: 1890, in Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series, Complete
Length: 18 lines, 99 words, 1 word in 14 is long
Year band: Reading load: Years 5–6. A guide from word length, not a curriculum level.
Themes: autumn, sun
Time: 5–10 min, depending on the activity

The text

These are the days when birds come back,A very few, a bird or two,To take a backward look.

These are the days when skies put onThe old, old sophistries of June, —A blue and gold mistake.

Oh, fraud that cannot cheat the bee,Almost thy plausibilityInduces my belief,

Till ranks of seeds their witness bear,And softly through the altered airHurries a timid leaf!

Oh, sacrament of summer days,Oh, last communion in the haze,Permit a child to join,

Thy sacred emblems to partake,Thy consecrated bread to break,Taste thine immortal wine!

Emily Dickinson (died 1886), Poems by Emily Dickinson, Three Series, Complete (1890), lines 1863–1885 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 · 18 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-days

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-these-are-the-days-when-birds-come-back · popplepoetry.com