In Lands I Never Saw-They Say

In lands I never saw-they say
Immortal Alps look down-
Whose Bonnets touch the firmament-
Whose Sandals touch the town-

Meek at whose everlasting feet
A Myriad Daisy play-
Which, Sir, are you and which am I
Upon an August day?

Emily Dickinson

Analysis of the Poem

Considering the layout of the poem it can be argued that it does not present anything unusual. 

Reading the title the intelligent reader may make some conjectures about the content of the text, for example he or she may wonder what lands it talks about. Furthermore, the repetition of the first line of the poem as a title suggests that the extract is part of a collection.

The poem is structured in two stanzas, each one presenting in four lines and therefore defined as quatrain.

The rhyme scheme of the poem is ABCB DAEA, where down rhymes with town in the first stanza, and say (first stanza) rhymes with play and day in the second stanza.

From the semantic point of view, different types of fields can be identified. The words firmament, immortal and everlasting come from the field of divinity. The nouns Bonnets and Sandals are capitalised and refer to the semantic field of clothes. In addition, lands, Alps and daisy belong to the field of nature.

Concerning the rhetorical level, it can be said that both the Alps and the daisies are personified as they are doing actions like human beings. The mountains are described as immortal and looking down, the daisies are playing. Moreover, in the second stanza, there is an assonance between meek and feet with the aim to connect the two words.

It is interesting to notice that the first stanza includes a description of the landscape, while the second stanza presents a direct speech, where the author makes a question.