Emily Dickinson

I'm the little Hearts' Ease!

Hearts' Ease flower

Hearts' Ease is a wild pansy (Viola tricolor), a small, hardy flower that blooms in all weather. The name literally means 'comfort for heartache'—it was used in folk medicine for sadness.

I'M the little "Hearts' Ease!"
I don't care for pouting skies!

Pouting skies

Personification turns bad weather into a sulking child. The flower refuses to mirror the sky's mood—it blooms regardless.

If the butterfly delay
Can I therefore stay away?
If the coward bumblebee

Chimney-corner cowardice

The bumblebee hiding indoors by the fire becomes the opposite of the flower's resolve. Dickinson makes staying inside sound like moral failure.

In his chimney-corner stay,
I must resoluter be;

Resoluter grammar

'Resoluter' isn't standard English—'more resolute' would be correct. Dickinson coins the comparative form to sound more determined, breaking grammar rules to prove her point.

Who'll apologize for me?
Dear old-fashioned little flower,

Eden's fashion

If the Garden of Eden is 'old-fashioned,' then being old-fashioned means being eternal and perfect. She's redefining the insult as a compliment.

Eden is old-fashioned too!
Birds are antiquated fellows,
Heaven does not change her blue—

Heaven's constancy

The blue of heaven never changes—it's the standard for permanence. The flower's steadfastness mirrors divine consistency.

Nor may you, the little "Hearts' Ease",
Ever be induced to do.
Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

The Flower as Moral Example

Dickinson uses dramatic monologue—the flower speaks for itself, defending its nature against implied criticism. Someone has apparently called the Hearts' Ease 'old-fashioned,' and the flower turns this into a badge of honor.

The poem builds a hierarchy of courage. The butterfly delays (procrastinates), the bumblebee hides (actively retreats), but the flower must be resoluter. Notice that verb: 'must,' not 'chooses to be.' The flower presents its blooming as moral obligation, not personal choice. The question 'Who'll apologize for me?' suggests the flower would need to apologize for NOT blooming—for failing its nature.

CONTEXT Dickinson wrote this around 1859, during the height of Victorian flower language (floriography). But she's doing something unusual: instead of using the flower as a symbol, she lets it speak. The Hearts' Ease defends itself in first person, which was radical for flower poetry of the era.

The repetition of the entire first two stanzas at the end creates a refrain structure, like a folk song or hymn. The flower's declaration becomes a creed, something to be repeated and affirmed. What seemed like a simple statement at the start becomes a vow by the end.

Old-Fashioned as Eternal

The third stanza (lines 9-14) performs a rhetorical trick: it redefines 'old-fashioned' from criticism to praise by listing what else is old-fashioned. Eden (the original garden), birds (existing since creation), heaven's blue (unchanging since the sky was made)—all are 'antiquated' and therefore permanent.

Dickinson uses 'nor may you' in line 13, which is grammatically interesting. It's not 'nor can you' (ability) or 'nor will you' (prediction), but 'nor may you' (permission). The flower is forbidden to change, as if constancy were a divine command.

The poem argues that what moderns dismiss as 'old-fashioned' is actually eternal truth. The Hearts' Ease blooming in bad weather isn't stubborn or outdated—it's doing what flowers have always done, what they were designed to do. This connects to Dickinson's broader resistance to contemporary trends in poetry and religion; she often defended traditional forms and ideas by linking them to nature's permanence.