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Emily DickinsonA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
“If you were coming in the Fall” is a lyrical ballad, similar to most of Dickinson’s poetry. Lyric poetry is a broad category, but this poem has many lyric qualities. It contains a single speaker who records an emotional personal narrative, the poem is short and written in form, and the poem is songlike in its rhythm and rhyme. In this sense, the poem follows the English Romantic tradition popularized by poets, such as William Wordsworth and John Keats.
The poem is also written in ballad stanzas with an ABCB rhyme scheme. The first and third lines use iambic tetrameter, four metrical feet comprised of one unstressed then one stressed syllable, while the second and fourth lines use iambic trimeter, a line of three metrical feet with the unstressed then stressed pattern. This alternating between metrical feet gives the lines a musical quality while the iambs give them a sing-song feeling.
While Dickinson certainly wrote during the Romantic era in America and was inspired by the Romantics, most critics don’t classify her as a Romantic poet. This poem is a good example of how she both uses Romantic notions and undermines them.
By Emily Dickinson
A Bird, came down the Walk
A Bird, came down the Walk
Emily Dickinson
A Clock stopped—
A Clock stopped—
Emily Dickinson
A narrow Fellow in the Grass (1096)
A narrow Fellow in the Grass (1096)
Emily Dickinson
Because I Could Not Stop for Death
Because I Could Not Stop for Death
Emily Dickinson
"Faith" is a fine invention
"Faith" is a fine invention
Emily Dickinson
Fame Is a Fickle Food (1702)
Fame Is a Fickle Food (1702)
Emily Dickinson
Hope is a strange invention
Hope is a strange invention
Emily Dickinson
"Hope" Is the Thing with Feathers
"Hope" Is the Thing with Feathers
Emily Dickinson
I Can Wade Grief
I Can Wade Grief
Emily Dickinson
I Felt a Cleaving in my Mind
I Felt a Cleaving in my Mind
Emily Dickinson
I Felt a Funeral, in My Brain
I Felt a Funeral, in My Brain
Emily Dickinson
If I Can Stop One Heart from Breaking
If I Can Stop One Heart from Breaking
Emily Dickinson
If I should die
If I should die
Emily Dickinson
I heard a Fly buzz — when I died
I heard a Fly buzz — when I died
Emily Dickinson
I'm Nobody! Who Are You?
I'm Nobody! Who Are You?
Emily Dickinson
Much Madness is divinest Sense—
Much Madness is divinest Sense—
Emily Dickinson
Success Is Counted Sweetest
Success Is Counted Sweetest
Emily Dickinson
Tell all the truth but tell it slant
Tell all the truth but tell it slant
Emily Dickinson
The Only News I Know
The Only News I Know
Emily Dickinson
There is no Frigate like a Book
There is no Frigate like a Book
Emily Dickinson