I'll Tell You How the Sun Rose

By Emily Dickson

I'll tell you how the sun rose,--
A ribbon at a time.
The steeples swam in amethyst,
The news like squirrels ran.
The hills untied their bonnets,
The bobolinks begun.
Then I said softly to myself,
"That must have been the sun!" 
 
But how he set, I know not.
There seemed a purple stile
Which little yellow boys and girls
Were climbing all the while
Till when they reached the other side,
A dominie in gray
Put gently up the evening bars,
And led the flock away.

This poem is about how each day begins and ends. With the way the sun rises and in the end the rays of the sun are brought to the other side of the world. 

The theme of the poem is to show you that life is the same each day. It starts the same way and ends the same way.

There are two stanzas and it does not have a rhyme pattern.

Symbolism is found in line 2 because ribbon would stand for the sun rays that were rising. It is also in line 5 where "the hills untied their bonnets" which would be like the sun rays peeking through the trees.

There is personification in lines 3, "The steeples swam in amethyst" where steeples were given the ability to swim and in line 5, "The hills untied their bonnets" where hills could untie things.

Imagery is also used in this poem as it starts in line 2, "A ribbon at a time" where the sun rays has just begun to show and continues in line 5, where more and more of the sun rays was lighting up the sky.

In line 3 and line 14 there are Allusions; Steeples, which are a church tower and Dominie, which is a clergyman.