A Day! Help! Help! Another Day!
Your prayers, oh Passer by!
From such a common ball as this
Might date a Victory!
From marshallings as simple
The flags of nations swang.
Steady — my soul: What issues
Upon thine arrow hang!

Analysis, meaning and summary of Emily Dickinson's poem A Day! Help! Help! Another Day!

4 Comments

  1. Danina says:

    Lol. I laugh because before I saw the comment above by Emily Hughes (2005) ;I had pretty much the same exact thoughts. Roughly 14 years later. Regarding Monday’s & today’s political climate. Main difference, my thoughts turned to the U.S. Our “president” . Emily Dickinson rings true 2005-2019 as true as her words rang the moment they were fresh on the page over century ago.
    It is quite astonishing to think of her sitting, so cut off, I imagine feeling irrelevant, un-empowered, sure her poems would die with her. Obtaining the obscurity she saw as a definite when her death came.
    She maybe at the top of my list of dead people i would love to spend an evening with. NYC no doubt. I would go bar hoping with her.Girl talk. If she could only see it now. Wemon’s lib. Gay rights. Her influence in literature. How she was in no way obscure, to be forgotten. Can you imagine her taking that in? Sad, she had no idea. How could she. How lucky are we that she exsisted?
    If she were not ahead of her time, we would be missing out now. But boy oh boy, was that girl born way too soon. Who knows what her genius would have accomplished today. Perhaps her footprint would be different but larger & reach further, in ways we can never begin to imagine. She’s a marvel.

    • Trujunco says:

      I loved your sentiments here and I agree that she was certainly more advanced than the age of general consciousness she was born to.
      I appreciate the era of her writing in It’s the use of the English language and have to assume we are experiencing some of the finest examples of it here. However, I am amusing myself with the image of Emily
      rolling out some Hip-hop. She definitely would be up to that challenge

      I think also she might have politely declined the romp in NYC as her isolation seems bent around the artist’s depression that brings about such creative surge. I am enamored in her world by the window but on second thought
      you’d be giving her a much-needed break I’m sure

  2. Emily Hughes says:

    This is a really powerful poem. i feel this way about the war in Afganastain. This is also the way I feel on mondays!

  3. Duct Tape Gitl says:

    the information about the poem states the poem was written/published in 1955.if this is true then it was not written by emily dickenson. it is possable in my oppinion that the poem was not found untill 1955. In this case it is possable that miss emily wrote this in a time of tragety. so by saying your prayers oh passer by she probably is saying that she needs a shoulder to cry on. As with all of miss emily’s poems there is usually another meaning. if anyone finds another meaning please email me i would love to know any hidden/ obvious meanings

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Do you have any comments, criticism, paraphrasis or analysis of this poem that you feel would assist other visitors in understanding the meaning or the theme of this poem by Emily Dickinson better? If accepted, your analysis will be added to this page of American Poems. Together we can build a wealth of information, but it will take some discipline and determination.