Lyric Poem · Nature
Before you thought of Spring
1Before you thought of Spring
2Except as a Surmise
3You see — God bless his suddenness —
4A Fellow in the Skies
5Of independent Hues
6A little weather worn
7Inspiriting habiliments
8Of Indigo and Brown —
9With specimens of Song
10As if for you to choose —
11Discretion in the interval
12With gay delays he goes
13To some superior Tree
14Without a single Leaf
15And shouts for joy to Nobody
16But his seraphic self —
Full-text availability follows the United States display decision recorded below; status can differ elsewhere.
“Before you thought of Spring” by Emily Dickinson — quilloak.com/poems/before-you-thought-of-spring
Quick facts
- Poem
- Before you thought of Spring
- Poet
- Emily Dickinson
- Length
- 16 lines
- Form
- Lyric Poem
- Themes
- Nature, Spring, Peace
Craft notes
How this poem works
Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.
- Shape
- 16 lines · one 16-line stanza
- Line length
- Mostly 6-syllable lines (trimeter length).
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Text, source & rights
A traceable edition
Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.
- Author record
- Emily Dickinson1830–1886
- Source record
- PoetryDBBefore you thought of Spring by emily-dickinson, PoetryDB transcription
- Display decision
- Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
- Publication record
- Not recorded in the imported source
- Text fingerprint
- SHA-256 41272178b7876754…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.