Skip to content
QuillOak

Lyric Poem · Nature

We should not mind so small a flower

by Emily Dickinson

1We should not mind so small a flower —

2Except it quiet bring

3Our little garden that we lost

4Back to the Lawn again.

5So spicy her Carnations nod —

6So drunken, reel her Bees —

7So silver steal a hundred flutes

8From out a hundred trees —

9That whoso sees this little flower

10By faith may clear behold

11The Bobolinks around the throne

12And Dandelions gold.

Full-text availability follows the United States display decision recorded below; status can differ elsewhere.

Quick facts

Poem
We should not mind so small a flower
Poet
Emily Dickinson
Length
12 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
12 lines · 3 quatrains
Line length
Lines run 6-9 syllables (median 8), consistent with tetrameter. No single length dominates, which is normal once elision and contraction are in play.
The poem’s silhouette — approximate syllables per line, measured from the text above. Even bars mean a measured line; ragged bars mean the poem sets its own widths.

Want the rules this form is measured against? Read what makes a lyric poem, or run your own draft through the form checker to see the same measurements on your lines. How we measure · Report a mistake

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
PoetryDBWe should not mind so small a flower 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 10d97d4a0b2022d1
Editorial handling
Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
Jurisdiction-specific, never a worldwide claimRights policyReport a text or rights issue

More poems like this

More nature poems