Science Extra Credit Blog

The Wind Tapped
By: Emily Dickinson

The wind tapped like a tired man,
And like a host, "Come in,"
I boldly answered; entered then
My residence within

A rapid, footless guest,
To offer whom a chair
Were as impossible as hand
A sofa to the air.

No bone had he to bind him,
His speech was like the push
Of numerous humming-birds at once
From a superior bush.

His countenance a billow,
His fingers, if he pass,
Let go a music, as of tunes
Blown tremulous in glass.

He visited, still flitting;
Then, like a timid man,
Again he tapped--'t was flurriedly--
And I became alone.

The poem I chose to read was “The Wind Tapped” by Emily Dickinson. The type of weather discussed in this poem is the wind. Weather is used as personification in this poem, for example in the first line in the second stanza where it says, “A rapid, footless guest.” Some literary techniques that were used in this poem are personification, as I mentioned before, and similes. One example of a simile from the poem can be found in the second line in the third stanza, “His speech was like the push of numerous humming-birds at once from a superior bush.” I think that if this poem did not mention weather, it would not make sense because the whole poem involves weather and without it the poem would not be complete.
Dickinson’s poem does not really further my knowledge about the wind and weather in a scientific way. However, the way that the wind is personified and all that Dickinson writes about the wind almost being a friend to her, furthers my knowledge about how wind and weather can make you feel. The narrator in the poem treats the “tired man”, which is the wind, as a guest, and when the wind stops blowing and leaves, the poem ends “And I became alone” which shows how the narrator feels like there is almost an empty space and something is missing. I felt after reading “The Wind Tapped,” that the knowledge that Emily Dickinson has about the wind and about weather is how it can make you feel. Understanding this definitely did enhance the poem for me.