Emily Dickinson’s “A sepal, petal, and a thorn”

Emily Dickinson’s “A sepal, petal, and a thorn”

Emily Dickinson’s short poem, “A sepal, petal, and a thorn,” consists of only one cinquain, but its five lines pack a prayerful punch into its deceptive shortness.

Introduction and Text of “A sepal, petal, and a thorn”

Emily Dickinson’s short poem “A sepal, petal, and a thorn” begins as a riddle but concludes by identifying the speaker and subject of her narrative.  The speaker of this cinquain offers a brief description of a special environment observed by a seemingly outside observer.  However, the observer becomes clear when she is named and identified in the final surprising line.

A sepal, petal, and a thorn

A sepal, petal, and a thorn
Upon a common summer’s morn –
A flask of Dew – A Bee or two –
A Breeze – a caper in the trees –
And I’m a Rose!

Commentary on “A sepal, petal, and a thorn”

This awe-inspiring little drama demonstrates the poet’s amazing ability to observe fine details and then create finely crafted poems.

First Movement:  The Crowds of Summer

A sepal, petal, and a thorn
Upon a common summer’s morn –

The speaker begins her announcement by focusing on key elements in a special environment which include the parts of a flowering plant.  Most, if not all flowers, possess a physical part called a “sepal” or the green supporting element that holds the bloom and protects it as it keeps the flower of the plant intact.

The speaker then adds the important part of the flower called the “petal.”  The petals conjoined make up the distinct flower itself. It provides the particular shape and coloring that each flower affords to offer its beauty to the human eye.

The speaker then offers what at first seems to be an odd member of this group, when she adds “thorn.” Not many flowers possess thorns, but the mind of the audience is not permitted to dwell upon this odd addition, for the speaker adds the marvelous and pleasurable descriptor involving the time element for her announcement:  it is summer and the speaker frames the time as containing all that has been described, and then she places them together, “[u]pon a common summer’s morn.”

Thus far, the speaker has offered only two parts of a flowering plant with the addition of the strange and dangerous sounding element, the thorn.  But she has mitigated her simple list by placing those flowering parts at the wonderful time of year known a summer, and further beautified the environment by making it during the early part of the day or “morn[ing].”

Second Movement:  Unity in Rime

A flask of Dew – A Bee or two –
A Breeze – a caper in the trees –

The second movement of this marvelously simple, yet complicated, narration continues the catalogue-like listing of natural elements:  dew, bee, breeze, trees.  But to her drama she has added a fantastically adept rime-scheme that holds the element fast together in an almost divine unity.

The “dew” is held in a “flask”; thus she pronounces her creation, “[a] flask of Dew.”  A flask is a simple bottle-like container, usually associated with alcoholic beverages.  The speaker’s employment of such a container instead of “glass” or “cup” quite deliberately contributes to the intoxication of the beauty and unity of such a summer morning, which has motivated the speaker to enumerate the fine details upon which she is concentrating. 

The second half of this line, “A Bee or two” completes the rime unification that sparks her observation, which yields the intoxication caused by the beauty of the natural elements; therefore, arises, “A flask of Dew – A Bee or two –,” whose pleasurable rime rings in the mind as it presents the image of a couple of bees hovering over a beautiful flowering plant early in the day.

The second line of the movement presents an almost uncanny repetition of force through its image and rime as the first line:  again, the speaker has created a pleasurable rime that unifies the elements with the sparks of divine unity, “A Breeze – a caper in the trees.”  As “Dew” and “two” offered a perfect riming set, so do “Breeze” and “trees.”

The second movement then creates a little drama that could almost stand alone because it has offered an image that implies a flower, calling it a “flash of Dew” over which hover a pair of bees, set in an area where a breeze is blowing and whipping up a “caper” in the surrounding trees.  The employment of the term “caper” offers a magically wonderful element of mischief that the speaker infuses into her drama of a simple flower.

Third Movement:  Rose Reporting

And I’m a Rose!

In the final movement, the speaker announces her identity.  She is a “Rose.”  Little wonder that the accuracy and fidelity to detail have been so brilliantly portrayed; it has been the flower herself who is reporting. Unlike so many of Dickinson’s riddle poems in which she never condescends to name the subject of the riddle, this one proudly announces who the speaker is in direct terms.

After describing her environment of finely crafted elements–sepal, petal, morn, dew, bees, breeze, trees–the speaker then affords her audience the ultimate unity by stating directly and unequivocally who she is.  With this revelation, the mystery of the “thorn” in the first line is solved.

This masterfully crafted little drama offers the Dickinson canon one of its main features that demonstrate the ability of the poet to observe and create little masterful dramas out of her observations.  Her ability to make words dance as well as fill out images remains a staple in the Dickinson tool-kit of poetic expression.