'Tis Sunrise — Little Maid — Hast Thou

'Tis Sunrise — Little Maid — Hast Thou
No Station in the Day?
'Twas not thy wont, to hinder so —
Retrieve thine industry —

'Tis Noon — My little Maid —
Alas — and art thou sleeping yet?
The Lily — waiting to be Wed —
The Bee — Hast thou forgot?

My little Maid — 'Tis Night — Alas
That Night should be to thee
Instead of Morning — Had'st thou broached
Thy little Plan to Die —
Dissuade thee, if I could not, Sweet,
I might have aided — thee —


     -Fr832, J908, fascicle 40, 1864


This poem begins in morning, with the speaker wondering why the “Little Maid” hasn’t risen. She was never one to sleep in. She had a “station in the day,” something to do. But now she’s still. 

By noon, the poet is more worried. “Alas — and art thou sleeping yet?” We get the feeling this “sleep” is deeper than just a nap. The world continues without her. The lily is waiting “to be Wed,” and the bee is looking for her. These are metaphors for the promise of love. The world is going on without the “Little Maid,” but she hasn’t taken her place in it. 

Then we reach the last stanza, and it’s night. “Alas / That Night should be to thee / Instead of Morning.” This isn’t sleep. The “Little Maid” is gone, maybe dead, and worse, by her own hand. The poet wonders, if she had spoken of her “little Plan to Die,” maybe she could have been talked out of it? Or, if not, at least she wouldn’t have been alone. (I wonder what else Dickinson might have meant by “aiding” the “little maid” with her “little plan” to die?)

The repetition of the word “little” in this poem, used four times, stands out. Calling her "Little" signifies that the maid is young and vulnerable. Repeating the adjective in the last stanza, “Thy little Plan to Die,” gives us a sense of tragic irony. Death is not little. But to the Maid, perhaps it seemed like it, just a small escape. Dickinson’s use of "little" carries a sense of a stunned sadness.

The word also gives the poem the tone of a nursery rhyme, which makes it even more haunting. It sounds at first like something you'd say to a child reluctant to get up, but then becomes something more terrible when we realize the girl is dead, and even more so when we find out it was planned. 

By repeating "little," the poem keeps circling back to her lack of agency. The girl is little against the big world. 

The form of the poem is worth a close look. It is is divided into three stanzas, each corresponding to a different time of day; sunrise’s hopeful beginning, noon's missed opportunity, night's irreversible ending. This mirrors the arc of a life, from childhood, to a delay, then to death. The structure is the story.

Also notice how the stanzas begin to fracture as the poem progresses. By the third stanza the lines are choppier and the punctuation grows heavy with commas and dashes, mimicking the stumbling cadence of sorrow. There is a sense of observation giving way to collapse.

The repeated address “My little Maid” at the start of each stanza is repetitive, like a chant, but each time the tone behind the words shifts. First there is a mild correction, then concern and, finally, grief.

The poem says to the despondent reader, don't don't be afraid to talk to someone, especially if you have Emily Dickinson around. And don't forget the promise of the Lily and the Bee. 

     -/)dam Wade l)eGraff

Notes:

1. The poem reminds me of Blake’s “Little Lamb, who made Thee,” with its repetition, and its use of “Thou.”  There is also an echo of "maid" there in the word "made." I’m convinced, by now, that Dickinson read and subsumed Blake. And like many of Blake's poems, this one is about innocence lost. 

2. There is another echo here, the nursery rhyme,

Little maid, little maid,
Whither goest thou?
Down in the meadow
To milk my cow.

It's as if Dickinson took the maid's imperative to "milk my cow," and all of its innuendo, and rebelled against it. That was no life for her. That helps makes sense of "I might have aided — thee —"

3. I've noticed that Dickinson has used the endearment "Sweet" a few times in the poems written in 1864. In at least one of these, the word "Sue" was replaced with "Sweet. This makes me wonder if this poem was possibly for Sue too, though I'm not sure what to make of that.