Stanza 1 Summary

Get out the microscope, because we’re going through this poem line-by-line.

We grow accustomed to the Dark –
When Light is put away –

Yep: the first line of the poem is also the title. Convenient, huh?
Notice her use of “We.” Looks like we are hanging out in the darkness with our poet. Hope someone brought a flashlight.
Maybe we don’t need one, actually. She says that our eyes will adjust to the darkness.
She’s not wrong; the human eye does adjust to different levels of light.
But our poet isn’t just talking about what literally happens to our eyes when exposed to different levels of light.
She’s talking about how we adjust emotionally to events. But then, what’s the dark supposed to represent? Read on.

As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp
To witness her Goodbye –

The way we adjust to these emotional changes is similar to when someone walks out into the night with a lamp to bid us goodbye.
As we leave, we adjust to the darkness and leave her light behind.
But what’s with the capitalization of Neighbor, Lamp, and Goodbye? Is Dickinson trying to emphasize these words for some reason?
It certainly makes them stand out. If you read the poem aloud, you might notice that the capitalization of certain words changes the way you say them. Perhaps she wanted us to linger on these images a little longer.