Lyric Poem · Nature

I'll tell you how the Sun rose

by Emily Dickinson

I'll tell you how the Sun rose —

A Ribbon at a time —

The Steeples swam in Amethyst —

The news, like Squirrels, ran —

The Hills untied their Bonnets —

The Bobolinks — begun —

Then I said softly to myself —

"That must have been the Sun"!

But how he set — I know not —

There seemed a purple stile

That little Yellow boys and girls

Were climbing all the while —

Till when they reached the other side,

A Dominie in Gray —

Put gently up the evening Bars —

And led the flock away —

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“I'll tell you how the Sun rose” by Emily Dickinson — quilloak.com/poems/ill-tell-you-how-the-sun-rose

Quick facts

Poem: I'll tell you how the Sun rose
Poet: Emily Dickinson
Length: 16 lines
Form: Lyric Poem
Themes: Nature

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: Lines run 6-8 syllables (median 7). No single length dominates, which is normal once elision and contraction are in play.

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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: PoetryDBI'll tell you how the Sun rose 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 de95efb5b1a24091…
Editorial handling: Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.

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Lyric Poem Nature

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