Comment 1 of 2, added on May 13th, 2009 at 4:50 PM.

Nature – Sometimes Sears a Sapling portrays the significance of the soul in
humans by comparing their deaths to the deaths of things in nature,
particularly trees. There is a contrast made throughout the whole poem
between the way trees die and the way humans die:
“Nature-sometimes sears a Sapling-
Sometimes-scalps a Tree-
Her Green People recollect it
When they do not die-

Fainter Leaves-to Further Seasons-
Dumbly testify-
We-who have the Souls-
Die oftener-Not so vitally-”

The first stanza displays the way most trees die. The might get burned or
chopped down, but when they do whatever remains of them, either a burned
trunk or just a stump, will grow again and have renewed life. The second
stanza makes the contrast. The last two lines compare the way humans die
to the image of the dying and reviving tree created in the first. “We who
have the Souls – Die oftener – Not so vitally –” means that people, who
unlike trees have an immortal soul, die more often than do trees, and when
someone dies, they do not come back to life. Dickinson is using the fact
that people do not come back to life as proof that there must be a Heaven
for the soul to have everlasting life in.


Chris Kline