The Full Text of “A Murmur in the Trees—to note—”
1A Murmur in the Trees—to note—
2Not loud enough—for Wind—
3A star—not far enough to seek—
4Nor near enough—to find—
5A long—long Yellow—on the Lawn—
6A Hubbub—as of feet—
7Not audible—as Ours—to us—
8But dapperer—more sweet—
9A Hurrying Home of little Men
10To Houses unperceived—
11All this—and more—if I should tell—
12Would never be believed—
13Of Robins in the Trundle bed
14How many I espy
15Whose Nightgowns could not hide the Wings—
16Although I heard them try—
17But then I promised ne'er to tell—
18How could I break My word?
19So go your way—and I'll go Mine—
20No fear you'll miss the Road.
The Full Text of “A Murmur in the Trees—to note—”
1A Murmur in the Trees—to note—
2Not loud enough—for Wind—
3A star—not far enough to seek—
4Nor near enough—to find—
5A long—long Yellow—on the Lawn—
6A Hubbub—as of feet—
7Not audible—as Ours—to us—
8But dapperer—more sweet—
9A Hurrying Home of little Men
10To Houses unperceived—
11All this—and more—if I should tell—
12Would never be believed—
13Of Robins in the Trundle bed
14How many I espy
15Whose Nightgowns could not hide the Wings—
16Although I heard them try—
17But then I promised ne'er to tell—
18How could I break My word?
19So go your way—and I'll go Mine—
20No fear you'll miss the Road.
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“A Murmur in the Trees—to note—” Introduction
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In Emily Dickinson's "A Murmur in the Trees—to note," a solemn speaker describes the peculiar things they've observed in the woods: hovering stars, eerie "Murmur[s]," and scurrying "little Men" making their way to secret dens. The world is full of such strange sights, the speaker says—or at least, it is if you're willing to see them. This poem, like nearly all of Dickinson's work, was published posthumously; Dickinson probably wrote it around 1862, but it didn't appear in print until the 1896 collection Poems.
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“A Murmur in the Trees—to note—” Summary
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Sometimes I notice a low muttering sound in the trees that's not quite loud enough to be the wind, or I see a star that's neither far away enough to go hunting after nor close enough to find.
Sometimes I observe a long yellow light on the grass and hear a busy sound like footsteps—not loud footsteps like our own, but neater, lighter, and more musical.
It's the sound of the fairy folk I see making their way home to their secret houses. If I were to describe all these strange sights (and more), no one would believe me.
I've seen many robins in roll-out beds, trying unsuccessfully to hide their wings under their nightgowns.
But I swore I'd never tell anyone about these sights, and how could I go back on my promise? So be on your way, and I'll go the other direction; you certainly won't miss your broad, open road.
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“A Murmur in the Trees—to note—” Themes
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The Magic and Mystery of Nature
The speaker of Emily Dickinson's "A Murmur in the Trees—to note" believes that there's a lot more to the world than cold reason and sensible explanations can contain. Their visions of scuttling fairy folk in the woods, mysterious lights in the sky, and low sun on a golden evening suggest that the natural world can feel riddled with strange, mysterious magic that exists beyond our understanding.
The speaker has had (or almost had) more than one encounter with a world that seems to run parallel to the normal, everyday one. Subtle, curious sounds and sights—a "Murmur in the Trees" that's a bit too quiet to be the wind, the pattering feet of "little Men" as they return to their secret homes—have convinced the speaker that the world is full of delightful, mysterious presences of which human beings may catch only the briefest glimpses.
The woods might hold whole fairy civilizations, in fact, and "Robins" might hide in the "Trundle bed" disguised as children. The beauty of nature isn't necessarily all supernatural, of course. To this speaker, even what might seem like ordinary moments, like a "long—long Yellow" slant of sunlight across a lawn, can feel both enchanted and enchanting.
In short, the speaker sees the natural world as being full of beauty, wonder, mystery, and the poem broadly suggests that those who can open their minds to the unknown will find that nature has much more to offer than first meets the eye. Even something as familiar as golden afternoon light can be a sign that the world is a magical place—if you know how to look at it.
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Openness to Enchantment
The speaker of Dickinson's poem has sensed countless strange and inexplicable things in nature, from mysterious stars that seem to hover just out of reach to "little Men" hurrying to their hidden homes at dusk. But not everyone can see what the speaker does. Most people, the poem implies, aren't born to strange sights, preferring to walk down a "Road" that there's "no fear" they might get lost on: the broad, dull path of common sense. The world is an enchanted place, this poem suggests, but only to those curious and perceptive enough to be enchanted.
Much magic, the speaker suggests, can only be perceived by those receptive and sensitive enough to know what they're looking for. If the speaker didn't know better, for instance, they might mistake a mysterious "Murmur in the Trees" for the "Wind." It's only because they're listening carefully that they know it's "not loud enough" to be that. Similarly, one has to believe that the magic hour in the late afternoon when "long—long Yellow' light falls across the lawn is really magic to know to look for "little Men" around that time.
If the speaker were to describe these wonders to most people, though, they know they'd "never be believed." People have to be alert to magic to find it in the world, the speaker suggests, willing to open their minds to the possibility that they might encounter something out of the ordinary. Most people aren't willing to do so.
"Go your way—and I'll go mine," the speaker thus tells the reader who isn't willing to enter an enchanted world. The speaker has no interest in taking the predictable, mundane "Road" that most people follow. Their allegiances lie with the magic they glimpse in nature, a magic they give their solemn "Word" they'll keep secret from those who don’t already know it's there.
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “A Murmur in the Trees—to note—”
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Lines 1-4
A Murmur in the Trees—to note—
Not loud enough—for Wind—
A star—not far enough to seek—
Nor near enough—to find—As the poem opens, the speaker pays careful attention as something peculiar happens nearby. There's a "Murmur in the Trees," they observe—a gentle sound, "not loud enough" to be a wind, though you might almost mistake it for one.
The speaker is sensitive to the sound's strangeness, but they're not alarmed, not wondering What on earth could that be? They know that there's something odd about this sound, but they accept it patiently, calmly, almost matter-of-factly: they merely "note" it.
As it happens, the murmur is only one of the odd things in the landscape around them. They also note:
A star—not far enough to seek—
Nor near enough—to find—This "star," in other words, tantalizes: it's not so far away that the speaker feels compelled to go hunting after it, but not so close that they feel they could reach it, either. It hovers at an ambiguous, unguessable distance. Maybe it's a real star; maybe it's just a glowing spark in the woods, a light carried by whatever is murmuring in there.
This vision of a winking star that looks both close and unreachable introduces this poem's emotional world. This will be an exploration of the mysterious, the inexplicable, and the magical. To this speaker, the world is full of presences that, while they never come "near enough—to find," are nonetheless real. Those who want to encounter such presences, these first lines suggest, will have to be open, sensitive, and patient, willing to accept sights that they'll never be able to explain or understand.
The speaker's parallelism in this first stanza prepares readers to understand how delicate such discernment might be. The murmur is "not loud enough—for Wind"; the star is "not far enough to seek." Perceiving magic in the world, then, demands an understanding of what isn't. The mysteries the speaker has described so far could be written off as the wind or an ordinary star. You'd have to know the wind and the stars very well to distinguish between them and the sounds and sights the speaker describes now.
Dickinson will use one of her favorite forms in this poem: the ballad stanza. That means that each of this poem's five quatrains is written in common meter, an alternating pattern of iambic tetrameter (lines of four iambs, metrical feet with a da-DUM rhythm) and iambic trimeter (lines of three iambs). Here's how that sounds in the first lines:
A Mur- | mur in | the Trees— | to note—
Not loud | enough— | for Wind—This rhythm turns up often in folk songs and hymns. Here, appropriately enough, Dickinson will use a familiar form to describe magic hiding in plain sight.
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Lines 5-8
A long—long Yellow—on the Lawn—
A Hubbub—as of feet—
Not audible—as Ours—to us—
But dapperer—more sweet— -
Lines 9-12
A Hurrying Home of little Men
To Houses unperceived—
All this—and more—if I should tell—
Would never be believed— -
Lines 13-16
Of Robins in the Trundle bed
How many I espy
Whose Nightgowns could not hide the Wings—
Although I heard them try— -
Lines 17-20
But then I promised ne'er to tell—
How could I break My word?
So go your way—and I'll go Mine—
No fear you'll miss the Road.
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“A Murmur in the Trees—to note—” Symbols
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The Road
The poem ends with a firm symbolic farewell to those who can't believe in the magic the speaker knows to be real. The speaker "promised ne'er to tell" about the things they've seen, especially not to those who doubt—and so, having gone against their "word" in this very poem, they send the person they're talking to on their way:
So go your way—and I'll go Mine—
No fear you'll miss the Road.The "Road," here, is not just a physical path, but a symbolic one: the clear, well-lit, signposted road of everyday common sense. The speaker's dismissal suggests that a lot of important things can only be perceived when you head off that road and onto rambling, brambly, twilit paths through the woods.
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“A Murmur in the Trees—to note—” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Imagery
Through subtle imagery, the speaker suggests that magic lies just beneath the skin of the natural world.
The poem opens on a "Murmur in the Trees" that the speaker is wise enough to take "note" of: there's something a little strange about it. You might think it's the wind, but if you're paying careful attention, you'll find it's "not loud enough" for that—a distinction so fine that you really have to know what you're listening for to grasp that you're hearing voices, not breezes.
Similarly, the "long—long Yellow" the speaker sees stretching across the "Lawn" vividly evokes rich late-afternoon sunlight falling over grass. But again, the speaker knows that there's something special about this light. Readers might here imagine the way the world looks when the light is low in summer and autumn. The speaker picks up on the gold-lit, enchanted feeling of those fleeting times to suggest that the "magic hour" really is magic. This image also suggests that magic appears in in-between times and places, like the hours when day and night shade into each other.
When supernatural beings finally put in a direct appearance, they introduce themselves through a "Hubbub—as of feet," a ruckus that isn't "audible" in quite the same way ordinary footsteps are; it sounds "dapperer—more sweet" than human plodding. Notice the way the speaker plays with onomatopoeia here: the word "dapperer" itself sounds like the patter of light feet over leaves.
All of this imagery is shifty, elusive, just on the edge of perception; even when the speaker hears fairies going about their business, the sounds they make simply aren't "audible" in the same way human noises are. Catching a glimpse of the enchanted world, the poem suggests, demands careful, patient attention, a respect for what you can sense out on the very boundaries of your understanding.
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Parallelism
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Irony
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Alliteration
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"A Murmur in the Trees—to note—" Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Murmur
- Hubbub
- Audible
- Dapperer
- Trundle bed
- Espy
- Ne'er
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A gentle, indistinct sound.
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “A Murmur in the Trees—to note—”
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Form
"A Murmur in the Trees—to note—" uses one of Dickinson's favorite forms: ballad stanzas. That means that each of this poem's five quatrains (or four-line stanzas) uses common meter and an ABCB rhyme scheme, just as many old folk songs and hymns do.
Dickinson used this shape all the time, for poems about everything from being drunk with joy to dying. The ballad stanza's plainness and flexibility must have appealed to her: in this unassuming shape, she could examine the whole sweep of human experience with deceptive simplicity.
That deceptive simplicity is especially fitting in a poem about the magic that lurks just inside, alongside, or behind everyday natural phenomena. Noticing late light spilling across the lawn and hearing a "Murmur" just a little too quiet to be the wind in the trees, the speaker has to know what they're looking for to understand that they're hearing fairy folk moving in the woods. The ordinary world, this speaker knows, is full of magic; so is this poem's ordinary form.
This poem also uses plenty of Dickinson's characteristic dashes. Thanks to all these caesurae, lines seem to hold their breath in astonishment.
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Meter
Like lots of Dickinson's verse, this poem is written in common meter. That means that its quatrains alternate between iambic tetrameter (lines of four iambs, metrical feet with a da-DUM rhythm) and iambic trimeter (just three iambs). This pattern gives the poem the swaying, to-and-fro rhythm that readers can hear in lines 3-4:
A star— | not far | enough | to seek—
Nor near | enough— | to find—Dickinson often wrote in common meter, using its simple rhythms as a plain cover for deep thought and feeling. A master of this meter, she also played around with its rhythms for effect—for instance, in line 8, when the speaker describes the sound of fairy feet. Their footsteps aren't as loud as ours, the speaker says:
But dapperer—more sweet—
Here, the poem mutes its beat a little. Rather than using the vigorous iambic trimeter that would usually fall here, Dickinson uses only two strong stresses, replacing one with the extra unstressed syllable in "dap-per-er." This quiet, subtle effect suggests the light-footed scurrying of the "little Men" the speaker watches.
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Rhyme Scheme
The poem's rhyme scheme runs like this:
ABCB
The second and fourth lines of each stanza rhyme with each other, while the first and third lines do not. This is the standard pattern for ballad stanzas.
Dickinson complicates this simple pattern with occasional slant rhymes—for instance, matching "wind" with "find" in the first stanza. Dickinson often used slant rhyme in her poetry, which is part of what gives much of her verse its curious music. Here, one moment of slant rhyme mirrors the speaker's meaning, too. When the speaker rhymes "word" and "Road" at the end of the poem, the rhymes part ways with each other just as the speaker parts ways with those who aren't willing to see magic in the world.
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“A Murmur in the Trees—to note—” Speaker
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The poem's speaker is at once solemn and full of excitement. Deadly serious about the signs of magic they see in the world, they're also delighted by them, relishing the "dapper[]" sounds of elfish feet and the sweetness of robins disguised in nightgowns. They feel more of an allegiance to the enchanted world than to the ordinary one, in fact; those who can't share their pleasure in the "murmur" of mystery are free to "go [their] way" down the broad road of reason, but the speaker won't be joining them.
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“A Murmur in the Trees—to note—” Setting
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This poem is set on the boundary between the everyday and the enchanted. The speaker seems to be sitting in an ordinary back garden, watching the "long—long Yellow" of late afternoon spill across the lawn and listening to what might almost be the wind in the trees. But they know better: that yellow light heralds the time of day when "little Men" scurry off to their secret homes; the "murmur" in the trees is no wind, but voices on the edge of hearing.
The speaker isn't the only one tiptoeing across the border between the human world and fairyland, either. The disguised "Robins in the Trundle bed" seem to be trying to pass themselves off as human children, hiding their wings beneath nightgowns. Those who know how to look, the speaker says, will observe that these kinds of border-crossings happen all the time.
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Literary and Historical Context of “A Murmur in the Trees—to note—”
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Literary Context
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) published almost nothing during her lifetime, and after 1865 she rarely even left her family home in Amherst, Massachusetts. But from within her circumscribed world, she explored the heights and depths of human experience through her groundbreaking poetry.
No one else sounds quite like Dickinson. Her poems use simple, folky forms—ballad stanzas, for instance—to explore profound philosophical questions, passionate loves, and the mysteries of nature.
While Dickinson didn't get too involved in the literary world of her time, she was still part of a swell of 19th-century American innovation. Her contemporary Walt Whitman (who became as famous as Dickinson was obscure) was similarly developing an unprecedented and unique poetic voice, and the Transcendentalists (like Emerson and Thoreau) shared her deep belief in the spiritual power of nature.
Dickinson herself was inspired by English writers like William Wordsworth and Charlotte Brontë, whose works similarly found paths through the everyday world into the sublime, terrifying, and astonishing. This poem's insistence that there are more things in heaven and earth than the rational mind can explain is as capital-R Romantic as John Keats.
After Dickinson died, her sister Lavinia discovered a trunk of nearly 1,800 secret poems squirreled away in a bedroom. Published at last, Dickinson's poetry became internationally famous and beloved. Dickinson's work and her life story still influence all kinds of artists.
Historical Context
Dickinson's vision of mysterious stars and "little Men" in the woods fit into the 19th century's renewed interest in the magical, mystical, and sublime. Artists like Christina Rossetti (Dickinson's near-exact contemporary across the pond), William Morris, and Richard Dadd explored fairyland in their works, finding in it a tantalizing wildness and strangeness—and a reflection of their own secret selves.
Some of this fascination with magic was a reaction against the growing dominance of reason, science, and materialism during the Industrial Revolution. In this period of rapid technological advancement, wonderful discoveries in medicine and biology came alongside destructive mining and logging, merciless working conditions in newly-built factories, and choking pollution.
Many artists of this era worried that humanity was beginning to see the world as something to be mastered and exploited; they feared that both the beauty and the spiritual power of nature might be lost forever to shortsighted greed. Poems like Dickinson's defy a worldview that would deny the inexplicable and refuse to see the fairies for the trees.
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More “A Murmur in the Trees—to note—” Resources
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External Resources
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The Poem in Manuscript — See a copy of the poem in Dickinson's hand.
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The Dickinson Museum — Visit the website of the Emily Dickinson Museum to find a treasure trove of information on the poet's life and work.
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The Poem Set to Music — Listen to an eerie musical interpretation of the poem.
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Dickinson's Legacy — Read an article about the unlikely survival of Dickinson's poetry, most of which was written on scraps of paper and concealed in a trunk.
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Dickinson's Influence — Read contemporary writer Helen Oyeyemi's appreciation of Dickinson.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by Emily Dickinson
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