How Happy is the Little Stone- Emily Dickinson

 Kakatiya University Warangal- Degree- Third year -Semester 5 -unit 1

How happy is the little stone

How happy is the little Stone

That rambles in the Road alone,

And doesn't care about Careers,

And exigencies never fears-

Whose coat of elemental Brown

A passing universe put on;

And independent as the Sun,

Associates or glows alone,

Fulfilling absolute Decree

In casual simplicity.

GLOSSARY

• ramble: to move about aimlessly or without any destination.
• exigency: an urgent situation (often requiring immediate action) elemental: related to the powers of nature; simple and primitive (but powerful) associate: to keep company with; to spend time with.
• decree: an official order ('absolute decree ' implies a command from God or the universe). Note on punctuation and capitalization: This poem does not follow standard conventions in its use of dashes and capitalization. Dickinson often capitalized words that were significant in terms of imagery or meaning. The dashes represent pauses.

About the author

Emily Dickinson was an American poet. Dickinson was unrecognized in her own time. She began writing poetry at a young age. She never married and lived as a recluse all her life. Though she wrote more than 1700 short poems, only seven were published in her lifetime.

 

About the poem

Dickinson's poems are unique, containing short lines, unconventional capitalization, pauses, and dashes. Many of her poems are melancholic, dealing with themes of death and immortality.

'How happy is the little stone' is an inspirational poem. The poem is full of poetic devices such as personification, simile adn imagery. addresses the theme of happiness. She emphasizes the pleasures of simplicity in life.

The poet uses an unconventional style, using dashes and capitalizing the first letter in each line. The rhyme scheme is AA BB CC. The poet shows how human life contrasts with the life of a little stone. Dickinson personifies a little stone, enjoying its stress-free, carefree, and solitary life. The speaker urges us to live a happy life free from stress and work pressure. She attributes human characteristics of happiness and other emotions to the little inanimate stone. The little stone is unworried by its direction as it moves or rolls aimlessly with the force of wind, water, or nature. It doesn't worry about its career, as humans do in their lives. The stone is as independent as the sun, which glows alone.

The poem suggests that we should take life as it is and not worry about the future. We should exist like a little stone, untroubled by the complexities of life.