The speaker of the poem acts as a guide, outlining the necessary elements for creation. They prioritize mental capacity over purely physical industry, arguing that imagination and internal vision are the most essential tools for generating something new. They maintain a direct, matter-of-fact tone throughout their instructions.

Emily Dickinson is an American poet whose work aligns closely with Romantic ideals of nature and psychology. She writes extensively from her family home, gradually isolating herself from society and communicating primarily through letters. Her reliance on her own internal thoughts produces hundreds of poems exploring self-reliance and the natural world.

The bee represents physical labor and industriousness within the poem's environment. It actively participates in a mutually beneficial cycle, using pollen to make honey and repopulate the fields. The poem asserts that while the bee's hard work has value, the prairie can still be created through imagination if the bee is absent.

The clover is a plant that provides sustenance and represents fertility within the natural habitat. It feeds the bee in an endless, continuous cycle of mutual support. Symbolically, clovers in this context link to Westward Expansion and the resources required for sustaining new life.

Lavinia is the youngest sibling in the Dickinson family and remains a constant companion to Emily. She shares the responsibility of nursing their sick mother through an extended illness. Following Emily's death, Lavinia takes on the vital task of gathering and publishing the vast collection of private poems her sister left behind.

Susan Gilbert is a close confidante of Emily Dickinson who eventually marries Emily's brother, Austin. She lives next door to the Dickinson family, keeping her tightly integrated into their daily lives. She introduces Emily to the works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and serves as one of the few people with whom Emily shares her private writing.

Austin is the oldest sibling in the Dickinson family. He marries Susan Gilbert, and the couple moves into the property directly adjacent to his parents and sisters, maintaining a physically close family structure in Amherst.

Edward Dickinson is the patriarch of the family and an active figure in his community. He holds the position of treasurer at Amherst College, a role his father held before him, and later serves a term in Congress. He provides the evangelical Calvinist environment in which his children are raised.

Emily Norcross Dickinson works primarily as a housewife for the Dickinson family. During the late 1850s, she suffers from a prolonged, unidentified illness that requires extensive nursing and care from her daughters.

Thomas Wentworth Higginson is a literary acquaintance and ongoing correspondent of Emily Dickinson. He receives a selection of her poems during her lifetime and later assists Mabel Loomis Todd in editing and transcribing the work for posthumous publication.

Benjamin Newton is a friend of Emily Dickinson during her formative teenage years. His gift of Emerson's writing sparks a significant intellectual and creative influence on her poetic development.