Dickinson’s speaker admits she can’t encounter spring without being deeply stirred—an “old desire” wakes up in her. That desire is a restless mix: a sense of hurry combined with a strange lingering, as if she’s both rushing toward the season and trying to hold back. She feels a kind of pressure, “a Warrant to be fair,” as though spring demands she match its beauty or live up to it somehow. In just a few lines, Dickinson sketches that bittersweet jolt—the way spring feels like a missed opportunity almost as soon as it arrives. There’s a quiet, almost competitive tension in her senses, something hidden in the season that she can’t quite grasp. And when spring slips away, she’s left with regret—remorse that she didn’t see more of it, didn’t soak it in fully. The mood is one of aching urgency and loss, the way intense beauty can leave you feeling you’ve failed to appreciate it enough.
I cannot meet the Spring unmoved -- — Summary
I cannot meet the Spring unmoved -- I feel the old desire -- A Hurry with a lingering, mixed, A Warrant to be fair --
A Competition in my sense With something hid in Her -- And as she vanishes, Remorse I saw no more of Her.