Emily Dickinson: "Nature, the gentlest mother"

Hello Bloggers,

This week we're going to continue reading the works of Emily Dickinson. Dickinson wrote many poems that speak of nature. The poem I read for today is titled "Nature, the gentlest mother". In this work Dickinson personifies Nature and gives it the tender nurturing abilities of a mother. In comparison to a mother, as mentioned in the poem, nature is patient with children. She is not weak nor mean, but she is mild in her temperament when performing discipline. Nature controls the wild or hasty creatures, and she sweetly and tenderly prepares the earth for sleep.  

I have to admit that this work made me think about the Transcendentalists that we have read such as Emerson and Thoreau. There is something about nature or creation that inspires individuals and leads them to write about its existence. Such with Emerson as with Dickinson, the character of nature is always perceived as good or helpful to the human race. Though recognizably iconic, her writing of Nature as a mother is kind and thoughtful.

NATURE, the gentlest mother,
Impatient of no child,
The feeblest or the waywardest,—
Her admonition mild
In forest and the hill	5
By traveller is heard,
Restraining rampant squirrel
Or too impetuous bird.
How fair her conversation,
A summer afternoon,—	10
Her household, her assembly;
And when the sun goes down
Her voice among the aisles
Incites the timid prayer
Of the minutest cricket,	15
The most unworthy flower.
When all the children sleep
She turns as long away
As will suffice to light her lamps;
Then, bending from the sky,	20
With infinite affection
And infiniter care,
Her golden finger on her lip,
Wills silence everywhere.