"A little Madness in the Spring"

A little Madness in the Spring 

Is wholesome even for the King, 

But God be with the Clown --
Who ponders this tremendous scene --

This whole Experiment of Green --

As if it were his own!

F (1356), 1875

Like a great deal of Dickinson's work, this poem offers quite an array of different avenues for interpretation despite its rather compact, six-line, one stanza length. In her estimation of the trappings of what is colloquially known as "spring fever" she broaches upon man's relationship to nature, highlighting the idea that we do not truly own or understand it and condemning those who behave as if they do. 

Dickinson's usage of the term "Experiment of Green" to describe nature and its beauty is particularly interesting, as it may lead one's interpretation on divergent paths based on who exactly the "experimenter" is, in this case most likely boiling down to either a personification of Nature or God himself. On the one hand, she could be examining Nature's relative unpredictability in this role, positioning the motions of the seasons not as concrete phases that are set in stone, but as something subject to change, much like the dependent variable of a scientific inquiry. This is especially poignant in a modern context, as climate change becomes an increasingly pressing issue. There may soon come a day where the results of Nature's "experimentation" become wildly different from what we've grown accustomed to. The fact that much of the responsibility for that may lay upon the shoulders of generations of "Clown[s]" who treated Earth "As if it were [their] own" is hard to ignore. 

On the other hand, viewing God as the experimenter seems to welcome a connection to the deist philosophy that Dickinson would have likely had some exposure to, one that upholds the existence of a creator but believes that he has no real interaction with his creations. This kind of reading creates a compelling tension within the rest of the poem. How can God really "be with the Clown" who pridefully and greedily roams Earth if he is inherently distanced from humanity by principle? The notion that he cannot bleakly suggests that those who exploit the Earth for their own goals cannot be reached and are thus doomed to continue contributing to its downfall. 

American Progress, John Gast. 1872.
Offers a perspective of the positive view of manifest destiny.

On this token, a political reading is also pertinent. Dickinson lived through much of the era of westward expansion and would have been no stranger to the concept of manifest destiny, or the idea that acquiring more territory was a quest thoroughly ordained and endorsed by God. The hubris involved in the presiding collective view that portrayed land and nature as commodities to be conquered and controlled rather than admired and respected, coupled with the often violent and destructive ramifications these undertakings would have, is certainly not lost on her. She appears to recognize that this is partly human nature in the poem's opening lines, considering it "wholesome even for the King." But it is clear that when she says "A little" she is making the important distinction that there are boundaries that can be overstepped and that we must be mindful of them if the "tremendous scene" that nature provides us is to have any hope of enduring.