I suppose the time will come — Summary

In just a few brief lines, Dickinson enlists herself as time’s playful assistant. She looks ahead to a warm, buzzing moment when birds fill the branches and bees drone loudly, and she wants to “Aid it in the coming”—to hurry that fullness along. But the mood shifts gently: for the next images she asks to “Hinder it a little,” slowing the corn’s silk tassels and the apple’s colorful, chintz-like skin. Then, with growing conviction (“I believe the Day will be”), she pictures a jay giggling over his new white house—perhaps a nest in a snowy landscape or the earth itself bright with winter. Even this happy discovery she asks to “halt a little.” The speaker is not anxious; she’s tenderly bossing time, as if inviting a friend to linger. The effect is intimate and buoyant, mixing eagerness with the wish to pause each lovely scene before it passes.