Emily Dickinson

Day's Parlor

THE day came slow, till five o'clock,
Then sprang before the hills

Hindered rubies

Light held back, then suddenly released—like gems under pressure or a gun firing. The violence of sunrise.

Like hindered rubies, or the light
A sudden musket spills.
The purple could not keep the east,
The sunrise shook from fold,
Like breadths of topaz, packed a night,

Breadths of topaz

Fabric-merchant language. Topaz comes in long strips ('breadths'), stored folded at night, unrolled for display at dawn.

The lady just unrolled.
The happy winds their timbrels took;
The birds, in docile rows,
Arranged themselves around their prince

Wind is prince

Birds don't control their own arrangement—wind does. The whole scene is staged by forces beyond the observer.

(The wind is prince of those).
The orchard sparkled like a Jew,—

Sparkled like a Jew

19th-century stereotype linking Jewish merchants with jewels and wealth. Problematic now; then, meant 'ornate, glittering, precious.'

How mighty 't was, to stay
A guest in this stupendous place,
The parlor of the day!
Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

Dickinson's Domestic Cosmology

The poem's central move: turning the universe into a parlor. Not a throne room, not a cathedral—a parlor, the formal receiving room in a middle-class home. Dickinson spent most of her adult life in her family's house in Amherst, Massachusetts, rarely leaving, often staying in her room. She's not diminishing the cosmos; she's claiming it as domestic space where she belongs.

The commercial metaphors matter. 'Breadths of topaz' uses fabric-merchant vocabulary—topaz as bolts of cloth measured in breadths (widths), packed away, unrolled for customers. The sunrise is a shopkeeper displaying goods. The orchard 'sparkled like a Jew' invokes the 19th-century association of Jewish merchants with jewelry and precious goods—offensive by modern standards, but Dickinson means ornate, glittering, valuable. Dawn is a transaction, nature is commerce, and she's the guest invited in.

That guest status is crucial. She doesn't own this parlor, doesn't run it—she's received into it. The winds and birds have a prince; the lady unrolls the sunrise; Dickinson watches. The poem's wonder comes from being allowed to stay in 'this stupendous place.' It's hospitality, not conquest. The whole elaborate production—the rubies, the topaz, the timbrels, the arranged birds—exists, and she gets to witness it. The exclamation at the end ('How mighty 't was, to stay') isn't about nature's power. It's about the privilege of being present.

Violence and Delay

The first stanza works by withholding, then exploding. 'The day came slow, till five o'clock'—four words of waiting. Then it 'sprang,' and suddenly we get hindered rubies and musket fire. The sunrise is both blocked ('hindered') and violent ('sprang,' 'spills'). A musket doesn't pour light; it spills it—accidental, sudden, like blood.

'Hindered rubies' does double work. Rubies held back (hindered from view), but also rubies that hinder—that block, that resist. The light wants out. This is Dickinson's physics: dawn as pressure release, morning as the thing that was trapped all night finally breaking through. The 'purple could not keep the east' in stanza two continues this—even purple (royal, powerful) can't hold the sunrise back.

Notice what happens after the violence: domestication. The lady unrolls topaz (controlled, deliberate). The birds arrange themselves 'in docile rows.' The winds take timbrels (tambourines—festive, musical, not weapons). The poem moves from explosion to order, chaos to parlor. But it remembers the musket. The room is beautiful because something wild got contained.