as imperceptibly as grief

• the title is a similie comparing time to grief
• "the summer lapsed away" - the summer is a symbol of the past, the summer is a time of innocence and happiness


  it ends gradually
• "the morning foreign shone a courteous, yet harrowing grace"


  something you expect to be pleasant can actually be unsettling
• personifies summer as a "guest that would be gone" suggesting things leave / come to an end even if you don't want them too
• "without a wing or... a keel"


  suggests their departure was smoother than moving through air or water.
• the only full stop is at the end of the poem to show her acceptance / realisation the fifth stage of grief
• the rhythm mirrors everyday speech making it appear as honest th

  oughts
• "our summer made her light escape"

  possessive pronouns indicating personal experiences of loss while relating the reader

  escape shows how Emily Dickinson escaped from her strict puritan life style

  personifying summer
• she uses long dashes instead of conventional punctuation (ie. commas ) to create long pauses to show her reflective slow mood / tone. also to show her continuous feeling of grief.
• the poem is one single stanza which shows gradual change. a series of metaphors is also used to show how the speakers feelings about grief change gradually.
• the tone becomes more decisive after line 13. she comes to terms with how grief ends.
• Dickinson was an American poet who lived most her life in solitude after the death of several people close to her. she never married and had few freidnships
• this poem reflects Dickinson's fascination with illness and death