The Butterfly's Day By Emily Dickinson Anaylsis

Hey! Everyone. I'm new to this, so let's hope this gets posted. Well, I'm doing an essay on one of Emily Dickinson's poem called The Butterfly's day. I have to analize it, but as we all know her poems are kind of difficult to understand. So I'm hoping this is the right place to ask for help. I understand the beginning part, where she's comparing a butterfly to a lady. They've both appeared from being hidden. But after that I seem to get lost. I don't know if she's talking about the butterfly in some stanza's or the lady.
From cocoon forth a butterfly
As lady from her door
Emerged — a summer afternoon —
Repairing everywhere,
Without design, that I could trace,
Except to stray abroad
On miscellaneous enterprise
The clovers understood.
Her pretty parasol was seen
Contracting in a field
Where men made hay, then struggling hard
With an opposing cloud,
Where parties, phantom as herself,
To Nowhere seemed to go
In purposeless circumference,
As 't were a tropic show.
And notwithstanding bee that worked,
And flower that zealous blew,
This audience of idleness
Disdained them, from the sky,
Till sundown crept, a steady tide,
And men that made the hay,
And afternoon, and butterfly,
Extinguished in its sea.

Emily Dickinson had an amazing imagination and loved to find and ascribe human characteristics to objects and animals around her (anthropomorphism). She also had the brilliance to create wonderful, whimsical poems to describe their human-like behaviors, such as she did with this poem.

You are correct. Whether in her mind or imagination or both, she observed a butterfly emerge from a cocoon which she saw instead as a prim and proper lady leaving her house for some “enterprise” that had no apparent objective. She was spotted flitting around with her little parasol (butterfly wings) opening and closing in a field where men were working in the hay. She apparently was observed struggling upwards (opposing cloud) at one point and generally going in circles like others in her particular sphere. It seemed to be some sort of show played out under a summer sun.

As a lady, she also seemed to snub the social class of the bees and flowers busy in the field below. Then, as the sun slowly set, the whole scene faded away in the twilight.

There is no deep metaphysical meaning; it is no more or less than a fun whimsical description of how a butterfly reminded her of a lady. I have enjoyed this poem for many years; it makes me feel warm and comfortable.

That's my opinion; hope it helps.

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