Brontë makes the distinct choice to use summertime imagery in "A Day Dream," in order to draw out her speaker's struggle to understand her unhappiness. This creates a useful contrast in the poem, as it shows the speaker at odds with the happy and harmonious scene occurring in front of her. While on the surface, summer would appear to be a bright and cheery time, subverting its meaning in a poem can produce positive tension. These clashing impressions are used in other poetic works to similar effect, as a summer setting presents the opportunity to explore moments that should feel celebratory but do not.
A famous example of this idea is found in Emily Dickinson's "As imperceptibly as Grief," as the speaker wrestles with her sadness about summer's conclusion:
As imperceptibly as Grief
The Summer lapsed away —
Too imperceptible, at last
To seem like Perfidy —
In this opening, Dickinson characterizes the passage of summer as something that slips through an individual's fingers, barely noticed but disappointing nonetheless. Here, she is exploring similar territory as does Brontë in "A Day Dream." The rest of the poem also depicts a cheerful summer day, but reveals a preoccupation with its end. This concern, laid out in this opening, largely overshadows the day itself.
In a more tragic example, Christina Rossetti's "A Dirge" offers an image of grief that is confused by the natural world:
Why were you born when the snow was falling?
You should have come to the cuckoo's calling,
Or when grapes are green in the cluster,
Or, at least, when lithe swallows muster
For their far off flying
From summer dying.
Why did you die when the lambs were cropping?
You should have died at the apples' dropping,
When the grasshopper comes to trouble,
And the wheat-fields are sodden stubble,
And all winds go sighing
For sweet things dying.
The speaker remarks on the particular tragedy of this person dying in summer, out of step with the seasons. She implies that there is something wrong with the way nature does not reflect the sadness of this loss. Rossetti, like Dickinson and Brontë, uses summer in the poem to highlight a disconnect between the speaker's circumstances and the natural world that surrounds her. All of these poems use the tension between the speaker's emotional state and the summer setting to draw out their main themes.
