Emily Dickinson

A Day! Help! Help! Another Day!

Summary


"A Day! Help! Help! Another Day!" is a short poem that turns an ordinary morning into a battlefield. The speaker cries out for help, then asks a passer-by for prayers, sensing that a plain day, like a common ball, might hold the seed of a victory. The mood tightens line by line, from urgent plea to steadying self-command. In the closing lines the speaker braces her own soul, aware that great consequences hang on a single arrow.

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A Day! Help! Help! Another Day!
Your prayers, oh Passer by!
From such a common ball as this
Might date a Victory!
From marshallings as simple
The flags of nations swang.
Steady—my soul: What issues
Upon thine arrow hang!

Woman with a drawn bow at dawn, flags in the distance, illustrating Emily Dickinson's poem "A Day! Help! Help! Another Day!"
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Credits

Emily Dickinson was a 19th-century American poet from Amherst, Massachusetts, famous for her compact, dash-filled verse. This poem draws on military imagery, with flags, marshalling and arrows, to show how she saw inner struggle as a kind of war.