A light exists in spring
Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)
first published 1896

Cold Library · Open Stacks · S-004020 · https://coldlibrary.com/s/004020
Rights: First published in 1896 in Poems, Third Series, after the author’s death in 1886; the editor, Mabel Loomis Todd, died in 1932. Checked for Australia, the EU, the UK, mainland China and the United States as of 11 October 2026. Guidance, not legal advice.
Source: Project Gutenberg, https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/12242/pg12242.txt (retrieved 2026-10-11)
Generated 2026-10-14 from https://coldlibrary.com/en/open-stacks/dickinson-a-light-exists-in-spring

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A light exists in spring
  Not present on the year
At any other period.
  When March is scarcely here

A color stands abroad
  On solitary hills
That science cannot overtake,
  But human nature feels.

It waits upon the lawn;
  It shows the furthest tree
Upon 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 loss
  Affecting our content,
As trade had suddenly encroached
  Upon a sacrament.