In this poem, Dickinson personifies summer as a woman who struggles to overcome the coldness of late spring.
Emily Dickinson’s poem, “I know a place where Summer strives,” consists of three stanzas. Each stanza has the rime scheme ABCB. The poem offers a unique look at the arrival of the summer season.
First Stanza: “I know a place where Summer strives”
In the first stanza, the speaker makes the puzzling claim that she knows “a place where Summer strives.” This remark is startling; one does not think of seasons as having the ability to “strive.” Only people are capable of striving. But in this poem, the speaker makes it clear that she is personifying Summer; Summer becomes a woman who is endeavoring to accomplish the arrival of the summer growing season.
Unlike those who find the arrival of each season an automatic transition that is hardly noticeable, this speaker makes it clear that sometimes the Summer growing season is won by fits and starts.
The speaker says that Summer “strives / With such a practised Frost.” Late spring can remain cold in New England, where Dickinson, resided. So it would seem that summer sometimes had a difficult birth, contending with frost and even snow. But Summer makes a great effort, and her endeavors result in bringing back the flowers, which seemed lost during the winter.
Second Stanza: “But when the South Wind stirs the Pools”
The speaker then asserts that for all the difficult attempts a situation arises that offers a helping hand to Summer in bringing the season to full bloom. The “South Wind stirs the Pools” and a summer storm blows up.
But Summer then still has some doubt about her success, and she has a promise to keep in delivering summer qualities of warmth and fertility But then the rains begin, and Summer does absolutely arrive.
Third Stanza: “Into the lap of Adamant—”
Summer “pours soft Refrains // Into the lap of Adamant”; she strives fiercely to arrive. She brings rain to the plants that will flourish during the growing season, which she had promised. Although the rains will transform the landscape into a brilliant grassy green for the summer growing season, the woman, Summer, will go about tending her garden, and the mud on her shoes will harden like “Quartz.” And Summer will wear “Amber” shoes.
But happily, her striving will have succeeded: the flowers will be back, the frost will have departed, the summer rains will be giving nourishment to the plants, the “spices,” and even the mud on the Summer-gardener’s shoes will harden to a lovely amber.
Other Dickinson articles:
- “A Bird came down the Walk”: Dickinson’s Frightened Beads
- Dickinson’s Spiritual Intoxication
- Dickinson’s Riddles
- Looking Back from Eternity
- The Nun of Amherst
- Emily's Brain
