Our Port A Secret By Emily Dickinson Analysis

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Emily Dickinson's poem asserts the claim that life is a risk both unavoidable and tumultuous; it is rushing water that every single person has no choice but to swim through. From the very beginning, Dickinson - by capitalizing time and personifying it as the owner of a "quaint stream" - correlates the passage of time to the flow of a river, both being continuous and seemingly unending.
By making time equivalent to a stream of water, Dickinson begins an extended metaphor for a journey through life. Time's stream is one that we have no choice but to sail, without guidance ("an oar") or direction ("Our Port a secret"). The missing punctuation throughout the poem until the final word forces the audience to read the poem in a single stream of conscious