Among American poets attentive to nature, Emily Dickinson is both representative and idiosyncratic. Through her early education and her reading, Dickinson was exposed to new ideas, diverse philosophies and various perspectives about nature. She not only “climb[ed] the ‘Hill of Science’” to “‘view the Landscape o’er’” but witnessed there a “transcendental prospect / I ne’er beheld before! –” (Fr. 2[A]).[1] While her writings reflect the cultural influences of romanticism, natural theology, and Emersonian transcendentalism, Dickinson did not remain a passive receiver or advocate of these influences; rather, she balanced assimilation with interrogation, skepticism, disruption, and exploration. Consequently, her writings on nature, including those reflecting and questioning romantic, theological, transcendental, and scientific ideas, exemplify some contributions 19^th-century poetry can make to ecological consciousness and sustainability in the 21^st century.[2]

By drawing on the work of Daniel J. Philippon in “Sustainability and the Humanities: An Extensive Pleasure,” we can witness Dickinson’s writings not only interrogating nature by “defining and questioning definitions” (164), “theorizing and questioning theories,” “imagining and questioning the products of that imagining,” and “specifying and questioning specificity” (165), but also by revealing the complex interrelations of natural elements within the larger ecosystem. Her poems thus enable readers to “understand sequence and transitions, to see influence over time,” and, possibly, to “trace causes and consequences” (166). By exploring the ways in which Dickinson’s writings imagine and portray natural creatures, natural phenomena, the environment, and their interaction, I argue, Dickinson pays attention not only to enchantment and divinity in nature but also to such ecological concerns as respect for nature and nonhuman life forms, and to diverse perspectives on the changeable natural world, especially nonconformist ones unchained from theology. Skeptical of the human capacity to decipher the natural world, Dickinson’s works, particularly those showing both the knowledge and the aesthetic pleasure that natural species can offer, provide new grounds for opposing the exploitation and destruction of our biosphere.

Living on her father’s estate, a fourteen-acre property with a barn, perennial gardens, an orchard, a conservatory, a vegetable garden, field, and woods, Dickinson enjoyed proximity to a variety of habitats and the creatures they sheltered. Her library offered another kind of nearness to the natural world: along with her early study of geology and botany, the writings of contemporaries William Cullen Bryant, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Edward Hitchcock, Henry David Thoreau, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow encouraged her to appreciate the diversity of nature and what was behind its appearances through many lenses.

Fig. 1. Orra White Hitchcock’s pen and ink drawing on linen (31 x 52 cm.) of strata across Massachusetts.

This is one of 61 drawings done by the artist for use in Professor Edward Hitchcock's classes on geology and natural history.

Courtesy of the Amherst College Library, Archives & Special Collections.

Sometimes, Dickinson displays what she sees and feels about natural elements by anthropomorphizing them. In “Answer July” (Fr. 667A), for example, she dramatizes a conversation between natural creatures and seasons that suggests their interrelation. Her anthropomorphic imagination as well as her powers of observation find expression, too, in her delineation of sunset and sunrise in “The Day undressed – Herself –” (Fr. 495B), where the sun is personified as a lady undressing herself before bed, and “The Fingers of the Light” (Fr. 1015A), where a bright irresistible guest of the town wakes up its creatures. In this anthropomorphic presentation of the sunlight, the poet emphasizes that the biological clock of creatures corresponds with the sun.

Dickinson often extols the beauty and benevolence of nature as most romantics and transcendentalists do in their writings. In some of her verse, nature is defined as the gentlest mother, who is impatient of no child (Fr. 741A) but consoles one who takes “the Royal names in vain –” (Fr. 745A) and whose harmony as well as simplicity can elicit a feeling of certainty (Fr. 721A, B).[3] Nature is portrayed as so hospitable as to lavishly offer food and beauty equally to beggars and bees (Fr. 1106A). Additionally, nature is depicted as a divine world that is “thrown wide open to” the poet (L 458) who partakes not only its “sacred emblems” but also its “consecrated bread” and “immortal wine –” (Fr. 122A). Spring especially is portrayed as a time none “stir[s] abroad” without “a cordial interview” with the deity (Fr. 948A). Like the natural theologians and philosophers who were her contemporaries, Dickinson’s early poems suggest that beauty and sublimity in nature can not only lead to one’s experience of divine existence but also reveal a philosophy of life through encounters with such natural elements/beings as “the little Stone” (Fr. 1570B, E, F), a squirrel (Fr. 1407A), a lark (Fr. 86A), a “Brave Black Berry” (Fr. 548A), and a jay (Fr. 1596A, B, C).[4]

Encouraged by Emerson as well as Hitchcock, who believed “that the heart which is alive to nature’s beauties is well prepared to love the God of nature, as well as the God of revelation” (“The Highest Use of Learning” 21), Dickinson meticulously observed nature and sometimes found the proof of God’s existence and His promise of rebirth in it: “When Flowers annually died and I was a child, I used to read Dr. Hitchcock’s Book on the Flowers of North America. This comforted their Absence – assuring me they lived” (L 488). Not confined, however, to a religiously-oriented perspective grounded in theology, she often questions the perception of divine truths and the development of a divine consciousness through nature, insinuating that she would not know “what the Sapphire Fellows” do in the “new-fashioned world” (Fr. 213A). As suggested in her depiction that “Fainter Leaves” would dumbly testify to further seasons while human beings possessing souls “Die oftener – Not so vitally – ” (Fr. 457B), natural laws emphasizing cyclical patterns of renewal conflict with the Judeo-Christian conception of existence in which each successive moment is qualitatively different from the one before, and they progress linearly from birth to death, from creation to judgment day. With this recognition, Dickinson suggests that the attempt of either transcendentalist or romantic writers to find symbols of divinity and philosophical truths in nature (the “sovreign People” “fond of signifying”) is “fallible” (Fr. 893A). Ultimately, the signs of heaven in nature leave us in doubt about the alleged but never quite visible paradise: “But how Ourself, shall be / Adorned, for a Superior Grace – / Not yet, our eyes can see –” (Fr. 544A). Just as the speaker in “The Lilac is an ancient Shrub” (Fr. 1261A) argues that the celestial and natural flora are beyond the scope of human analysis, so Dickinson implies that divine truths cannot really be derived from natural phenomena as the natural theologians or transcendentalists believe: “The Scientist of Faith / His research has but just begun – / Above his Synthesis / The Flora unimpeachable / To Time’s Analysis –.” Accordingly, Dickinson ends the verse by proposing, “let not Revelation / By Theses be detained –” (Fr. 1261A).

Dickinson’s education also boosted her scientific understanding of both the natural world and religious doctrines, which explains her occasional display of Hitchcock’s arguments in her verse. Such an application of scientific knowledge to her understanding of the natural world is demonstrated in a range of poems, including “’Sic transit gloria mundi’” (gravitation Fr. 2[A]), “The Mountains – grow unnoticed –” (knowledge in geology to orogeny Fr. 768A), “Ashes denote that Fire was –” (chemistry, in the decoding of fire and ashes Fr. 1097A), and “To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee” (the pollination process Fr. 1779[A]). Like Hitchcock, who claims that chemistry would show that “combustion only changes the form of substances, and cannot annihilate a particle,”[5] Dickinson suggests that her century’s shattered trust in the afterlife may be reconstructed by its turn to science, specifically to the “Chemical conviction” that nothing is lost (Fr. 1070A/MS AC 92-11/12). Not completely conforming to the explications of Hitchcock, who describes modern science as the ally of Christian belief and avers its contribution to shaping and confirming Christian faith in the existence of a rational and intelligent Deity,[6] she sometimes introduces different discoveries or conclusions by means of scientific theories, reflecting her disinheritance from Hitchcock’s theory.

Fig. 2. AC 92-11/12, “The Chemical con- / viction,” about 1865.

Courtesy of the Amherst College Library, Archives & Special Collections.

Unlike Hitchcock, who emphasizes divine design in the natural world, or Emerson, who highlights the beauty and benevolence of nature in his writings, Dickinson’s observations are sometimes more clearly aligned with Charles Darwin’s concept of chance: the chance of random extinction (“A Single Clover Plank / Was all that saved a Bee / . . . / From sinking in the sky –” Fr. 1297A), the random luck of meeting with the “most triumphant Bird” that “sang for nothing scrutable” but “intimate Delight” (Fr. 1285C/MS AC 413), and the random fatality when frost “beheads” “any happy Flower” in “accidental power” (Fr. 1668A).[7] Rather than laws and order in the evolution of creatures, Dickinson perceives randomness, just as a butterfly emerges from a cocoon in a summer afternoon without a “Design” that the speaker “could trace” (Fr. 610A). Moreover, witnessing the struggle for life among the animals and plants in her surroundings as demonstrated in Letter 184’s birds and plants, as well as poems on a mouse (Fr. 485A), a bee (Fr. 1297A), and a flower (Fr. 1668A), Dickinson presents cruelty and chance as forces arising in the natural world. In an early poem (1859) on her experience of struggling with the forces of nature, she interestingly expresses an attempt to “institute an ‘Action’,’’ “vindicate the law,” and choose the gardener “‘Shaw’” (who occasionally worked for the Dickinsons) to be her counsel to defend the garden, a territory which she “called mine [hers],” when the Creator invaded the pretty acre and his “rival claim” “disturbed these amities” (Fr. 101A). Here the poet suggests that natural forces often operate in a way that may nullify human planning.

Fig. 3. AC 413, “The most triumphant / Bird,” about 1873.

Courtesy of the Amherst College Library Archives & Special Collections.

On the other hand, Dickinson also highlights the limits inherent in the new sciences as well as the uncertain applicability of natural philosophy. The poet shows that the theory of Darwinian evolution is unable to completely resolve the mystery of the “Arctic flower” in Eden that wanders “down the Latitudes” (Fr. 177A). She further concludes that the scientific theory may only offer inference, stating, “What then? Why nothing, / Only, your inference therefrom!” (Fr. 177A). Like Emerson, Dickinson believes there is something that an intelligent understanding or “Science cannot overtake” but “Human Nature feels” (Fr. 962B/MS AC 86-13/14).[8] Accordingly, unable to truly identify with the attempt of scientists (such as Louis Agassiz) to “classify everything, include natural phenomena in a particular system, and discolor the aura of mystery in the universe by giving it a precise scientific term,” the poet composed “a dialogic mockery of science” for its interference in the enchantment of nature in another poem (Fr. 117).[9] In this verse, the speaker questions specificity, complaining that “‘Arcturus’ is his other name – / I’d rather call him ‘Star’! / It’s very mean of Science / To go and interfere” (Fr.117B). Here Dickinson suggests that the poetic and mystical (aesthetic) pleasure in nature is excluded by scientifically-oriented understanding. “What once was ‘Heaven’” is “Zenith now,” and where the speaker “proposed to go” when “Time’s brief masquerade was done” is “mapped” and “charted” by the scientist (“a monster with a glass”) so that she wonders, “Perhaps the ‘kingdom of Heaven’s’ changed” (Fr. 117B).

In addition to challenging scientific explanations of nature, Dickinson also expresses doubts about the theological application of scientific knowledge about nature. For instance, unlike many contemporary natural theologians who viewed the metamorphosis of caterpillar to butterfly as an emblem of resurrection and employed the biological idea of a butterfly’s release from a cocoon to instruct children to take death as a peaceful and beautiful transformation, Dickinson questions such an illustration, because the butterfly accomplishes its metamorphosis during its life, while a man is said to do so after death. She remarks, “Peasants like me, / Peasants like Thee, / Gaze perplexedly” when seeing “Many a Worm” leap “so Highland gay” from a cocoon (Fr. 110B). With the development of the sciences, “Savants” obtain more knowledge about the universe. However, Dickinson avers that savants will not truly be able to illuminate all the darkness of the unknown despite their attempt to discolor the mystery of the world and the inscrutable galaxies of the eternal. Instead, they sometimes give people limited light to follow, thus undermining poetic imagination, individual perception, and understanding, as articulated in the quasi-dialogic inquiry in “If the foolish, call them ‘flowers’ –”(Fr. 179A). Here, Dickinson alludes to the logocentric tendency of natural theologians to regard many “Sciences” not “pursued by learned Angels” in “scholastic skies” as “superfluous” while elevating those that can verify beliefs to privileged positions (Fr. 179A). Dickinson’s skepticism and interrogation liberates her poems from limited scientific applications by disrupting natural theologians’ attempts to achieve a “harmony” between revealed/natural religion and the new sciences, to effect a “regulation” of scientific applications to “illustrate the glory” of God’s wisdom (Jean-François Lyotard, The Inhuman: Reflections on Time 96).[10]

Fig. 4. AC 86-13/14, “A Light exists in Spring,” about 1865.

Courtesy of the Amherst College Library, Archives & Special Collections.

Contemporary scholars such as Hitchcock, Emerson, William Smellie, Darwin, and Agassiz tended to believe in the human ability and power to comprehend the natural world in terms of a scientific, anthropomorphic, or transcendental approach.[11] Nevertheless, Dickinson manifests that human beings’ most ambitious attempts to understand nature, which keeps its secrets and is “dainty of Publicity,” ultimately fail (Fr. 677A); she questions exclusively human-centered or science-centered views of nature. Although people wield scientific knowledge or human imagination to explain or decode natural phenomena and, further, God’s creation, the poet depicts nature as refusing definition, like the waning hue of the sky at sunset that “Defied to be defined –” (Fr. 1416C). Dickinson suggests the limitations of a single perspective or theory as well as the impossibility of completely achieving truth or knowledge, echoing Socrates’s words “I know I do not know.” Accordingly, the mystery of cyclical renewal in nature is portrayed as not entirely accessible to limited human vision. So is the transformation of creatures; the secret of a bulb growing is cunningly hidden away from “sagacious eyes” and the evolution of a caterpillar to a cocoon and then a butterfly makes peasants “Gaze perplexedly” (Fr. 110A, B). Observing the amazing flying capability of the hummingbird whose “spokes” make “a dizzy music,” she states that even the scientific evidence of ornithology cannot explain it (Fr. 370A). Accordingly, when such a “Fairy Gig” reels “in remoter atmospheres –,” the poet-persona finds herself and her dog perplexed, declaring that the bird is “the best Logician” to give the answer to the scientific riddle by its real performance (Fr. 370A).

Recognizing the inadequacy of human capacities to unravel the enigma of nature, Dickinson expresses sublime feelings aroused: “There are that resting, rise. / Can I expound the skies? / How still the Riddle lies!” (Fr. 68); she definitively concludes that amazing natural creation undoes human wisdom (Fr. 1414A). This realization impels Dickinson’s constant observations of the natural world, in Robin Peel’s words, “with the scrutiny encouraged by those engaged in making a scientific record” (91), and through diverse lenses, including a view unchained from theology and human-centered perceptions. In “Touch lightly Nature’s sweet Guitar” (Fr. 1403A), Dickinson suggests that the mystery of nature has to be prudently treated without the imposition of human notions lest man should be scolded by natural creatures (“Or every Bird will point at thee”) for appearing capable of knowing the “Tune.” She discerns that individual human perceptions of natural phenomena/creatures are subjective: relative and interpretative, not absolute. Such relativity is illustrated in the figure of the worm. While apparently useless to human beings (“A needless life, it seemed to me”) the worm is a precious food for a little bird (“Until a little Bird / As to a Hospitality / Advanced and breakfasted –” [Fr. 932A]). A creature viewed as a “needless life” by man is in reality an essential part of a shared ecosystem. Dickinson’s description of awakening to the value of the “little Kinsmen” (“I pondered, may have judged, / And left the little Angle Worm / With Modesties enlarged.”) invites readers to reassess their attitudes toward natural beings (Fr. 932A). In “Cocoon above! Cocoon below!” (Fr. 142A), Dickinson depicts natural creatures as wise enough to know the universe themselves without the need of a human “‘Surrogate’” to expound the secret of nature for them. The poet further asserts that human beings are “Unqualified to judge” the “peculiar calling” of creatures but should remand them to nature to “justify or scourge –” (Fr. 1393A). Moreover, she notices that the elements of nature need not signify “particular spiritual facts,” just as four trees “Maintain” on “a solitary Acre” without “Design,” “Order, or Apparent Action –,” but open to the visits of the sun and wind (Fr. 778A).[12] Those trees have “No nearer Neighbor” but God; rather, the “Acre” offers them a place to grow while they give “Him – Attention of Passer by – / Of Shadow, or of Squirrel, haply – / Or Boy –” (Fr. 778A). What deed is theirs “unto the General Nature –” or what plan “They severally – retard – or further –” is all unknown (Fr. 778A/MS H 56): they merely exist. In the poem, Dickinson suggests the presence of God in nature but does not describe the natural elements/scenes as emblems of the divine plan as Emerson presents them in “Nature” or “The Method of Nature.” Dickinson’s presentation of this geographical scene is ecologically significant, for it suggests that even an unspectacular landscape has a right to existence.[13] The landscape may be common, but the interactions of its natural elements are important to the ecosystem of that place. In Dickinson’s presentation, either the “little Angle Worm” or the plain landscape is capable of affecting other natural elements and thus has its ecological significance even though not “associated to human nature” or “applied to the illustration of a fact in intellectual philosophy” as proposed in Emerson’s “Nature.”[14]

Fig. 5. H 56, “Four Trees upon a Solitary / Acre,” about late 1863, in Fascicle 37. Courtesy of the Houghton Library, Harvard University.

When a natural philosopher and transcendentalist with logocentric presuppositions moves toward a system of thinking, nature becomes the ally of his philosophy, lending all its “pomp and riches” to his “religious sentiment.”[15] In other words, nature is “‘exploited’ by the mind according to a purposiveness that is not nature’s, not even the purposiveness without purpose implied in the pleasure of the beautiful” (Lyotard, The Inhuman: Reflections on Time 137). In contrast, not expounding nature simply in a human-centered view or in a scientifically-oriented perspective, nor seeing nature or science as the ally of her religion/philosophy, Dickinson exhibits her humble, creative and meticulous observations on nature and unveils its diverse traits and aspects without setting up systems or conforming to the philosophies learned and the conventional mission of a poet. Finding it “difficult not to be fictitious in so fair a place” (L 330), the poet adopts the stance of creative observer/presenter of nature. Her poetry not only reflects the multifarious phases of nature in Amherst through its close attention to the phenomena, environment, and ecological messages of this region but it also inspires refreshing (green) perceptions of the natural world by offering aesthetic pleasure.

For example, there are fascinating depictions of seasons, whose variations are displayed with different colors and creatures. In “New feet within my garden go –” (Fr. 79A/MS H2), Dickinson charts the visible and audible evidence of the seasonal cycle. Noting the new feet going within the garden, the new fingers stirring the sod, the single troubadour upon the elm betraying its solitude, the new children playing upon the green, and the unseen creatures hibernating (“New Weary sleep below”), the poet highlights that spring still returns and so does winter (“the punctual snow” [Fr. 79A]). According to Dickinson’s description, “Spring is a happiness so beautiful, so unique, so unexpected” that the poet once declared not knowing what to do with her heart (L 389). The return of spring in Amherst, which is signified by the appearance of robins, phoebes, daffodils, grass, bees, birdsongs, and blossoms (Fr. 347A), the growth of the dandelion (its pallid tube, bud, and then shouting flower [Fr. 1565A]), and the array of the earth in green and “then a frock of all colors” “laced up with blossoms and grass” (L 86), will never fail regardless of human grief and suffering (Fr. 347A). Summer is delineated as a season composed of rainbows, a vision of semi-tropical gardens (“the World of Cashmere”), a peacock’s purple train, the butterfly’s resuming the whir of “last year’s sundered tune,” baronial bees marching on in “murmuring platoon” from “some old Fortress[es] on the sun,” a flock of robins standing (“as thick today / As flakes of snow stood yesterday –”) on fence, roof, and twig, the orchis revisiting the bog binding her feather on for the sun, and the countless forest creatures (“The Regiments of Wood and Hill”) standing in “bright detachment” autonomously (“Without Commander” Fr. 162B). Additionally, summer is the time to “tint the pallid landscape –”; the lilacs “bending many a year” will “sway with purple load,” the bees will hum, the wild rose redden in the bog, the aster set its “everlasting fashion” on the hill, and gentians frill till the end of the season (Fr. 374B). These two poems on summer reveal the ecological messages of some creatures in Amherst. Such creatures as butterflies, bees, robins, and phoebes flourish in summer. Many plants reappear in their habitats, such as the orchis and the wild rose in the bog. Toward the end of summer, peacocks finish shaping their tail feathers, and their stunning plumage gradually falls off. These messages can be helpful in tracing the seasonal and recurring changes in Amherst.

Fig. 6. H 2, “New feet within my garden go –,” about spring 1859, in Fascicle 3. Courtesy of the Houghton Library, Harvard University.

Dickinson suggests nothing can compete with the natural beauty of autumn in Amherst,[16] arrayed in cardinal hues. When summer “lapsed away” imperceptibly, and there were few flowers left on the hill, the maple decorated the road, making the somber place wear a single color (“Invested somber place – / As suddenly be worn / By sober Individual / A Homogeneous Gown –”), and the cricket inherited the land (“the Floor”) as birds migrated south. Day became shorter (“The Dusk drew earlier in –”), cool wind got closer and closer, and “A Quietness distilled –” in the evening (“As Twilight long begun –”); all these vividly present the scenes of early autumn (“Our Summer made Her light Escape / Unto the Beautiful –” [Fr. 935B]). In contrast, in her presentation of winter, Amherst is covered in white: austere snows hide the ground and the creatures hibernate deep below it (Fr. 921A). Winter can be so cold that rivers freeze (“Twice – a Winter’s Silver Fracture / On the Rivers been –”), so harsh that there is not a berry for a “wandering Bird” (Fr. 950A) and all the cattle starve (Fr. 532A).[17] In these writings where the distinct features of four seasons in Amherst are vividly pictured, nature is both benevolent and severe. Nature and the life of humans as well as other creatures change with seasons.

Along with her attention to the shift in seasons, Dickinson attends to the singular existences of natural creatures. Her education in botany and geography and experience of being an amateur botanist cultivate not only her acute observation of natural phenomena and their interrelation but also her ecological thinking.[18] She sometimes sounds like an environmentalist advocating for the preservation of the natural environment and respect for natural creatures. “Where bells no more affright the morn –” (Fr. 114A) suggests a nostalgia for the natural landscape before the interruption of “Factories.” “Who robbed the Woods –” (Fr. 57B) impeaches deforestation. In “His Bill is clasped–”(Fr. 1126A) as well as in “Split the Lark – and you’ll find the Music –” (Fr. 905A), the poet protests respectively against hunting for and dissecting birds. As Joseph Campbell says in the 1988 PBS documentary Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth: “If you want to change the world, you have to change the metaphor,” and Christopher Uhl argues that humans should change their perceptions about Earth (Nature) seeing it “with new eyes—the eyes of interdependence” (206);[19] ecological consciousness requires our changed attitudes toward nature and our awareness of the significance of natural elements. Dickinson’s nature poetry suggests that every natural creature has its right to life and intrinsic value.

Fig. 7. MS Am. 1118.11. A page from Emily Dickinson’s herbarium, assembled by the poet at age 14. Courtesy of the Houghton Library, Harvard University.

Dickinson implies that men take too much advantage of nature, thereby destroying the environment (“Who robbed the Woods / The trusting Woods? / The unsuspecting Trees –”) by deforesting, bearing away something attractively curious, and removing species which men think useless (“Brought out their Burs and Mosses –”). Some ecologically conscious people in the 21^st century try to give legal rights to forests and rivers. Dickinson, a 19 ^th-century American poet, ends the verse by raising a question: “What will the solemn Hemlock – / What will the Fir tree – say?” (Fr. 57B), which invites readers to attend to the rights of trees and to rethink the consequences of our destructive intrusion into the forest. Highlighting the vitality and importance of trees in nature, the poet insists that as long as trees are not eradicated, their vitality can be so powerful that they will persist (“they do not die”) even though nature “scalps” or “sears a Sapling” (Fr. 457A, B). Such a description of how trees remain productive over time suggests the sustainability of trees. In addition, as in “Four Trees – upon a solitary Acre –” (Fr. 778A) where the interactions of the natural elements in the plain landscape are depicted as ecologically significant, in “A Lady red, amid the Hill” (Fr. 137B) Dickinson observes that there is constant resurrection witnessed by and related to trees though the landscape appears still (“And yet, how still the Landscape stands!”), and the woods and trees (“the Hedge”) remain “nonchalant” as if the “‘Resurrection’” were “nothing very strange” (Fr. 137B). Suzanne Simard, a 21^st-century forest ecologist at the University of British Columbia, has discovered that trees and plants communicate and interact with each other via an underground web of fungi. Dickinson reveals that trees and many creatures communicate and interact with one another and the sun through their biological/ecological rhythms and natural cycles. The activity of trees as well as the sun activate other creatures:

The Trees like Tassels – hit – and swung –

There seemed to rise a Tune

From Miniature Creatures

Accompany the Sun – (Fr. 523A/MS H 158)

The “Sun shone whole at intervals, –” then half, or then utterly hid as if it “were optional” and “had Estates of Cloud.” While the “Estates of Cloud” are sufficient to conceal the sun eternally from view, “a whim” of the sun could nonetheless “let the Orchards grow –,” creating a habitat for forest creatures and a canopy of light and shade for the flowers. Here Dickinson proposes the significant role of trees: along with the sun, their growth helps the development and maintenance of an ecosystem. “An Antiquated Tree” (Fr. 1544A, B) further suggests even an ancient tree has its significance in nature. Being unable to provide shelter, the less luxuriant old tree is not a favorable perch for venerable birds; however, the crow often perches on a barren (old or dead) tree where it can see around clearly and thus avoid being attacked.

Fig. 8. H 158, “The Trees like Tassels – hit – / and swung –,” about spring 1863, in Fascicle 24. Courtesy of the Houghton Library, Harvard University.

In addition to trees, Dickinson argues that even the weed despised by men has its ecological significance and its place in the world, a place derided by humans but that the weed considers home. Unaware of its “station low” or “ignominy’s Name,” the weed lives the length of summer protected—“shield[ed]”—by its “fameless[ness]” (Fr. 1617A). Likewise, the poet insists that although the “smallest Housewife in the grass”—a wildflower—is ignored, superfluously blown and unnoticed “as a single dew”, its presence “made Existence – Home –” (Fr. 173A). Dickinson’s intuition that the presence of a wildflower (Fr. 173A) as well as the weed exist on their own terms even though they are considered to be superfluous anticipates what Edward O. Wilson advocates in The Future of Life—the value of each species:

Each species offers an endless bounty of knowledge and aesthetic pleasure. The creature at your feet dismissed as a bug or a weed is a creation in and of itself. It has a name, a million-year history, and a place in the world. . . . The ethical value substantiated by close examination of its biology is that the life forms around us are too old, too complex, and potentially too useful to be carelessly discarded. (131)[20]

As suggested in “We should not mind so small a flower –” (Fr. 82A), though being unspectacular, the small flower vitalizes the garden in spring, playing a significant role in the ecosystem. It intoxicates the bees and makes them reel because of its nectar. Whoever sees the little flower may behold the “Bobolinks around the throne / And Dandelions gold” (Fr. 82A). In “Bloom – is Result – to meet a Flower” (Fr. 1038A), the poet particularly expresses that to be a flower is not easy. In order to bloom (to survive), the flower has to “pack the Bud,” “oppose the Worm,” obtain its “right of Dew,” “Adjust the Heat,” “elude the Wind,” and “Escape the prowling Bee” (Fr. 1038A). 

Recognizing that all creatures, both high and low forms of life, are subject to death, the poet rejects the Great Chain of Being (the reputed hierarchy in nature) and argues for animal rights:

Death is the Common Right

Of Toads and Men –

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The privilege –

Why swagger, then?

The Gnat’s supremacy is large as Thine – (Fr. 419A)

In a verse on a rat, a creature most men hate, she makes a claim for its legal residence, suggesting the legitimacy of its being an integral part of nature:

The Rat is the concisest Tenant.

He pays no Rent.

Repudiates the Obligation –

On Schemes intent

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Neither Decree prohibit him –

Lawful as Equilibrium. (Fr. 1369B) 

She even pleads to “Papa above” to reserve within his kingdom a mansion for the rat which is “O’erpowered by the Cat” and “Snug[s] in seraphic Cupboards / To nibble all the day, / While unsuspecting Cycles / Wheel solemnly away!” (Fr. 151B).[21]