As Imperceptibly as Grief

'As Imperceptibly as Grief/ The Summer lapsed'

• She is comparing the passing of summer to grief 
• She uses seasons changing to represent the different stages of life  
• The passing of summer could also represent lost happiness 
• The adjective 'Imperceptibly' suggests that we don't notice life passing it just suddenly happens

'As Twilight long begun,/Or nature spending with herself /Sequestered Afternoon'

• She spent a lot of time on her own at home
• Many of her friends died young
• Many of her poems are about death
• She went through periods of depression

'And thus, without a Wing/Or service of a keel/Our summer made her light escape'

• Dickinson feels lost and helpless because she doesn't have a wing or keel which gives you direction
• Third person shows how she feels disconnected from happiness as if it is a person who has died and left her which relates to grief

grace, courteous, shone, beautiful / grief, harrowing, lapsed, perfidy

• Positive and negative semantic fields show how life can bring happiness and sadness

'The Dusk drew earlier in'

• Alliteration draws attention to the last bit of light which relates to death

'A courteous yet harrowing Grace/As Guest, that would be gone'

• Antithesis shows how people visiting her is very polite and enjoyable but it is painful when they leave suggesting that good is always followed by bad like how life is followed by death

'Our summer made her light escape/ into the beautiful'

• Personification represents the theme of the poem of people dying and leaving her but adjective 'beautiful' suggests that they are going to a better place and there is always hope

'The morning foreign shone - '

• Dashes suggest pauses and makes the line last longer which represents the slow passing of time

- Lines are mixed between 8 and 6 syllables which creates steady rhythm which represents the constant moving of time

- It begins by linking summer to 'grief' and ends linking it to 'beautiful' showing how her mindset changes as time passes the same way you move on from losing a loved one