Emily Dickinson

Indian Summer

INDIAN SUMMER.
These are the days when birds come back,
A very few, a bird or two,
To take a backward look.
These are the days when skies put on

sophistries of June

A **sophistry** is a false argument that seems convincing. The warm weather is lying—it's not really summer anymore.

The old, old sophistries of June,—
A blue and gold mistake.
Oh, fraud that cannot cheat the bee,

fraud that cannot cheat

The bee knows better. Insects track actual seasons by temperature and daylight, not surface weather—they can't be fooled by a warm November day.

Almost thy plausibility
Induces my belief,
Till ranks of seed their witness bear,
And softly through the altered air
Hurries a timid leaf!

sacrament of summer days

Dickinson switches to **communion language**—sacrament, consecrated, emblems. She's treating the warm day like a religious ritual.

Oh, sacrament of summer days,
Oh, last communion in the haze,
Permit a child to join,

Permit a child to join

She's asking permission to take communion. In Dickinson's church, this was serious—she famously refused to join the church as a young woman.

Thy sacred emblems to partake,
Thy consecrated bread to break,
Taste thine immortal wine!
Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

The Religious Gamble

Dickinson grew up in a Congregationalist household during the Second Great Awakening, when religious revivals swept New England. Her father and siblings joined the church; Emily refused. She attended hundreds of services but never took communion—never made the public profession of faith required to join.

This poem risks that language. She calls Indian summer a "sacrament" and asks to "take communion" with it. For someone who wouldn't take communion in church, this is pointed. She's finding the sacred outside the church building.

The final stanza lists communion elements: "sacred emblems," "consecrated bread," "immortal wine." But she's not talking about Christ's body and blood—she's talking about warm air and late-season light. The blasphemy is quiet but deliberate. She's saying nature offers what the church promises.

What Indian Summer Meant in 1860s New England

Indian summer was a specific phenomenon in New England—a stretch of warm, hazy days in late October or November after the first frost. The term (problematic now, common then) referred to the brief return of summer-like weather.

Dickinson's details are exact: "ranks of seed" (gone to seed, not blooming), "altered air" (different quality of light), "timid leaf" (the last leaves falling). This isn't metaphorical autumn—it's the real thing, observed closely.

The poem hinges on "mistake" and "fraud." Indian summer looks like June but isn't. Dickinson knows it's temporary—the seeds and falling leaves prove it—but she wants to believe anyway. The whole poem is about choosing to be fooled, knowing you're being fooled, because the illusion is worth it.