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

Which 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.

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (1830-1886) was an American speaker. Dickinson lived much of her life in reclusive isolation. While she was a prolific private speaker, fewer than a dozen of her nearly 1 ,800 poems were published during her lifetime. Her poems are unique for the era in which she wrote; they contain short lines, typically lack titles, and often use slant rhyme as well as unconventional capitalisation and punctuation. Many of her poems deal with themes of death and immortality.

1. steeple: a tall pointed tower on the roof of a church, often with a spire on it
2. amethyst: a valuable purple coloured stone
3. stile: a set of steps that helps people climb over a fence or gate in a field
4. dominie: a pastor or clergyman