Spring is merely a notice delivered a month early, so Dickinson’s speaker tells her heart to quit its grey winter labor and take a bright, rosy seat. At first, this feels like a playful nudge toward hope—get ready, soften up. But the poem quickly sours. Flowers don’t keep a lasting home, and birds may charm our worries away, yet the real payoff for all this waiting, the longest day of the year, is just a bier—a platform for a coffin. The eagerness for warmth and bloom gives way to a blunt awareness that every season hurries toward death. The mood hovers between anticipation and resignation, as if the speaker is trying to cheer herself up while knowing perfectly well that even summer’s peak is nothing but a funeral prop. The language stays plain, but the thought is bracing.
The Notice that is called the Spring — Summary
The Notice that is called the Spring Is but a month from here -- Put up my Heart thy Hoary work And take a Rosy Chair.
Not any House the Flowers keep -- The Birds enamor Care -- Our salary the longest Day Is nothing but a Bier.