Fernando Pratagy Cavalheiro
Dr. Tilly
English 102-B59
21 February 2016
Sifting “It Sifts from Leaden Sieves”
Thesis: A good example of themed poem is “It Sifts from Leaden Sieves”, written by Emily Dickinson, which has a theme hidden in many metaphors. In this poem, the theme is not explicit and is intertwined with several other minor ideas.
I. The figurative language is strongly present in the “It Sifts from Leaden Sieves” poem, and it represents the strongest particularity.
A. The poem is filled with metaphor, as most of the descriptions or nouns are this figurative language.
1. The theme of this work, which is snow, is only represented by metaphors, and is never mentioned directly.
2. The metaphors are present throughout the body of the poem, and can be found in every stanza. B. The metaphors point to some other topics related to the supposed narrator’s point of view in a very indirect way.
1. The poem can have multiple meanings for the reader depending on what the audience is looking for.
2. The double meanings of the metaphors work as a riddle.
II. The theme of “It Sifts from Leaden Sieves” is the snow, but it also is ambiguous and can lead to different theme interpretations.
A. The stanzas by themselves do not picture snow, but when they are put together in one poem they describe snow accurately.
1. The audience may not realize the theme is snow after reading the first time.
2. The snow is described by its effects or by comparison of its similarities with other things by the use of metaphor.
B. The theme can be interpreted as a housewife or as nature being prepared to marriage by putting a white veil.
1. Several parts of the poem contain metaphors, and those metaphors are purposely similar to a housewife’s chores.
2. The word vail is misspelled on purpose, so the audience can see the relation of veil.

Fernando Pratagy Cavalheiro
Dr. Tilly
English 102-B59
21 February 2016
Sifting “It Sifts from Leaden Sieves”
Poetry is a very different form of literature that of prose and drama, as poems have unique features. One of the outstanding characteristics of poetry is that some poems have a theme, and that theme, when present, does not need to be explicit. A good example of themed poem is “It Sifts from Leaden Sieves”, written by Emily Dickinson, which has a theme hidden in many metaphors. In this poem, the theme is not explicit and is intertwined with several other minor ideas.
The strongest particularity of “It Sifts from Leaden Sieves”, by Emily Dickinson, is that the poem presents itself to the audience as a riddle. At first sight, the writer refers to “it” in the title without specifying the actual name of what “it” is, so the audience has question even before reading the first lines. On the following lines, the poem apparently describes events related to the “it” in the title, but never quite revealing or naming the subject. This subject is the very theme of the poem, and after reading the whole poem, the audience may be able to tell that it simply refers to snow. The events used by Dickinson to describe the snow, as the snow was the subject of the actions, can be defined as metaphors. Right at the first stanza, the writer describes the cloudy sky before a snowfall, for the sky looks darkened as the clouds pile up over other clouds with a lead like color. The metaphor consists of the snow connoted as flour being light and clean pouring out of a heavy and leaden sky, or sieve. On the second stanza, the snow metaphor is mixed with a hyperbole when the writer describes the height of the snowfall as being so intense that the powdered “it” of the title, after being sift through leaden sieves, cover plains so deep that they become an even terrain compared to mountains. On to the fourth stanza, the writer uses the metaphor of “a summer’s empty room” to refer to the crops that have been harvested after summer, but with stacks showing up over the snow. These are but a few of the metaphors and indirect references to the snow that Dickinson used, as they are present in every stanza. Although the audience can read the poem and have the words as their literal meaning, this meaning is not necessarily the one intended by the writer.
Despite the non-literal meaning of the poem represented by the snow metaphor, Dickinson also had other meanings in mind as she wrote the lines of “It Sifts from Leaden Sieves”. Hidden metaphors can be found if the audience takes a deeper and detailed look into the wording and the sound of the poem. The first and easiest hidden part of the theme to detect is comparison to a housewife in the first stanza. The writer describes the image as a substance like flour (snow) sifting from a metallic sieve (clouds), which is also how the audience would expect the writer to describe a housewife sifting flour to remove clumps for baking. The next line says that the substance “powders all the Wood” (Dickinson), meaning the housewife sifts the flour and it goes to a wooden container to be collected, as a comparison for snow falling in the woods, like a forest. Dickinson also describes in the third stanza how the snow whites and covers the ground as a veil covers the face, as in “Celestial Vail” (Dickinson). The writer seems to relate snow and whiteness to purity and beauty, and the “the wrinkles of the road[s]” (Dickinson) seem to vanish as the snow covers like a veil. The fact that nature covers itself in a white veil and looks pure and beautiful can cause the audience to interpret that the writer meant nature became pristine as a bride. Finally, the fifth and last stanza portrays not only the snow, but the ever changing seasons, as the white substance, a bracelet worn by a queen, “Ruffles Wrists of Posts” (Dickinson) And in an unexpected end, the “it” of the title, the theme of the poem, vanishes and melts away, as the artisans, like ghosts, can never be proved and must be seen, as they seem to always deny they ever existed.
Poetry does not consist of a hard and plain interpretation such as of drama and prose, and it can purposely have dubious interpretation. In fact, poetry is a literature riddle, as much of the meaning is hidden, and a feeling of achievement comes when the audience unveils the meaning behind the letters. “It Sifts from Leaden Sieves” is filled with metaphors and, from a housewife to a bride, the snow is compared to many other facts producing a rich theme, as well as a very diverse imagery.

Works Cited
Dickinson, Emily. "It Sifts from Leadon Sieves." Lynchburg: Liberty U, 2016. Blackboard. 21 Feb. 2016. Web.