"The Sky Is Low, The Clouds Are Mean" by Emily Dickinson

The personification of nature that Dickinson employs in this poem is simply beautiful. As always, she uses a few words to articulate so much and does it so well. It's so easy to visualize in one's mind's eye the scene that she is describing. And then with the last few words, Dickinson brings home the true point of the piece with the comparison of nature to humanity.

Click Here to Download this Program

Program Credits

Announcer: Thomas Lamar

Narrator: Nicole Rodrigues

Composer: Kevin Duncan

Sound Design & Mixing: Andrew Riffenburgh

Photography: Scott Ogle

Producer/Director: J.D. Sutter

Sound effects credit: creative commons sfx contributor, Dominic Smith

Analysis of "The Sky Is Low, The Clouds Are Mean"
Entry on Wikipedia for Emily Dickinson

Bio of Dickinson on Poets.org
Emily Dickinson Museum in Maryland

Emily Dickinson, circa 1846 image credit: Amherst College Library; retrieved from poets.org

"The Sky Is Low, The Clouds Are Mean" by Emily Dickinson

The sky is low, the clouds are mean,
A travelling flake of snow
Across a barn or through a rut
Debates if it will go.

A narrow wind complains all day
How some one treated him;
Nature, like us, is sometimes caught
Without her diadem.