Emily Dickinson

Good morning, Midnight!

Greeting the opposite

"Good morning" to Midnight—she's greeting darkness at the wrong time of day. The reversal signals depression or rejection flipping her world upside down.

GOOD morning, Midnight!
I'm coming home,
Day got tired of me—
How could I of him?
Sunshine was a sweet place,
I liked to stay—
But Morn didn't want me—now—

Rejected by dawn

"Morn didn't want me—now—" The dash after "now" is classic Dickinson—it marks the moment of realization hitting. Morning itself has done the rejecting.

So good night, Day!

Permission to witness

"I can look, can't I?" She's asking permission just to watch sunrise. The question mark shows how rejection has made her doubt her right to even observe beauty.

I can look, can't I?
When the East is red?
The hills have a way, then,
That puts the heart abroad.

Heart displaced

"Puts the heart abroad"—18th-century usage where "abroad" means displaced or wandering. The hills at sunrise literally send her heart away from her body.

You are not so fair, Midnight—
I chose Day,

Diminished self

She calls herself "a little Girl" when asking Midnight to take her in. She's making herself small, childlike, helpless—the language of someone whose rejection has shrunk them.

But please take a little Girl
He turned away!
Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

The Personification Architecture

Dickinson builds this poem on a complete inversion: Day and Midnight are people who can want or reject you, while the speaker becomes an object to be passed between them. Notice the pronouns—Day is "him," Midnight gets direct address as "you," and the speaker reduces herself to "a little Girl" by the end.

The poem works like a rejection letter written as a custody negotiation. "Day got tired of me" is the core wound, stated plainly in line 3. Everything else is the speaker trying to manage that rejection with forced cheerfulness ("Good morning, Midnight!") and self-diminishment ("How could I of him?").

The repetition of the first two stanzas isn't just refrain—it's obsessive circling back to the rejection. She can't move past it. The second time through, we hear the false brightness more clearly. This is how rumination works: you repeat the same phrases, hoping they'll hurt less.

What "Abroad" Tells Us

"Puts the heart abroad" is the poem's technical center. In 19th-century usage, "abroad" meant displaced, scattered, away from home—not just traveling. The hills at sunrise don't inspire her; they exile her heart from her body.

This matters because the whole poem is about homelessness. She's "coming home" to Midnight because Day evicted her. But Midnight isn't home either—she admits "You are not so fair, Midnight." She's not choosing darkness; she's accepting it because she has nowhere else to go.

CONTEXT Dickinson wrote roughly 1,800 poems, most unpublished in her lifetime. Many deal with exclusion—from publication, from marriage, from the social world of Amherst. This poem's "Day" could be any of those rejections: the literary establishment, conventional domestic life, or even periods of mental clarity rejecting someone in depression.

The question "I can look, can't I?" is devastating precisely because it asks so little. She's not demanding re-entry to Day. She just wants permission to watch sunrise. Even that feels forbidden now.