The Mountains – grow unnoticed –

The Mountains – grow unnoticed – 
Their Purple figures rise
Without attempt – Exhaustion – 
Assistance – or Applause – 

In Their Eternal Faces 
The Sun – with just delight 
Looks long – and last - and golden – 
For fellowship – at night – 
                                                768 (1863)

On its most basic and literal level, this poem describes the slow but steady growth of a mountain range. They continue on without being noticed or helped by anyone, without any effort on their part, and without any recognition for their accomplishments. These eternal mountains are illuminated by the delighted sun, who is seeking company, as they grow.

As with many of Dickinson’s nature poems, this one aims to portray nature as something separate from human society and understanding. The mountains are not only unnoticed because no one has sought them out, but because their rising is so slow and subtle that humans, as the finite beings that we are, are not able to notice and observe their changes. People and society are not even directly mentioned in the poem, we only see them through inferring that it is humanity that fails to notice, assist, or applaud the mountains.

The speaker of this poem acts as a third person narrator by describing the mountains in a relatively objective way. However, there is an irony right from the start in the opening line. Obviously, the growth of the mountains has been noticed by the speaker of the poem. 

Despite the lack of direct reference to people, Dickinson still seeks an understanding of nature through human context. In order to capture the feeling of nature's sublimity, she is forced to use human descriptions since there is no other option. In the poem she writes that these mountains not only have faces, but that they, as well as the sun, experience human emotions like longing and delight. 


The fact that this poem only has one fully rhyme in it is notable. This creates an emphasis on the words “delight” and “night” from lines 6 and 8. I think the poem makes the argument that since nature is eternal, it can only find companionship with itself, not with mortal humans. The full rhyme of the delight that the sun experiences from finding fellowship with the mountains during the night shows that the sun is unable to find that connection anywhere else. The slant rhyme in lines 2 and 4 emphasizes that the rising of the mountains can’t be applauded by those who are unable to notice it; only the sun can look upon them and find company. 

Blue Ridge Mountains

The alliteration on line 7 with “Looks long - and last” creates for the reader the same sense of longing that the sun is experiencing. The L and long vowel sounds force us to slow down as we read this line to understand the long search for fellowship between these two eternal natural forces.

Dickinson uses the diction of color twice in this poem to describe both of its two main subjects: the purple mountains and the golden sun. The color purple is connected to the idea of royalty, which is fitting for these “Eternal Faces.” Additionally, when looking at mountains, people usually see a purple or blue haze at their peaks. A perfect example of this phenomenon is the Blue Ridge Mountain range, named for the blue-ish color that seems to emanate from the peaks. The look of the sun is depicted as golden. Of course that is a color commonly attributed to the sun, but it also implies that the mountains the sun sees are themselves golden. The sun has found kinship with them and views them as a valuable thing worth treasuring, just as gold is.

Of course, there is an obvious paradox in the fact that the sun only find this connection with the mountains during the night. The sun is obviously not visible at night, so how is it only then that the sun finds fellowship shining on the mountains?  I think it goes back to the separation of nature and humanity. The mountains grow unnoticed due to their eternal and so subtle changes. Similarly, at night the sun goes unnoticed since it is not seen by humanity. Only when both the sun and the mountains are isolated from humanity and unnoticed, can they truly find fellowship in one another.