Sonnet 116: Let me not to the marriage of true minds

BY WI LLIAM SHAKES PEARE

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me prov'd,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.

[Summary: Sonnet 116

This sonnet attempts to define love, by telling both what it is and is not. In
the first quatrain, the speaker says that love—”the marriage of true
minds”—is perfect and unchanging; it does not “admit impediments,” and it
does not change when it find changes in the loved one. In the second
quatrain, the speaker tells what love is through a metaphor: a guiding star
to lost ships (“wand’ring barks”) that is not susceptible to storms (it “looks
on tempests and is never shaken”). In the third quatrain, the speaker again
describes what love is not: it is not susceptible to time. Though beauty fades
in time as rosy lips and cheeks come within “his bending sickle’s compass,”
love does not change with hours and weeks: instead, it “bears it out ev’n to
the edge of doom.” In the couplet, the speaker attests to his certainty that
love is as he says: if his statements can be proved to be error, he declares,
he must never have written a word, and no man can ever have been in love.

Analysis
Along with Sonnets 18 (“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”)
and 130 (“My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun”), Sonnet 116 is one of
the most famous poems in the entire sequence. The definition of love that it
provides is among the most often quoted and anthologized in the poetic
canon. Essentially, this sonnet presents the extreme ideal of romantic love:
it never changes, it never fades, it outlasts death and admits no flaw. What
is more, it insists that this ideal is the only love that can be called “true”—if
love is mortal, changing, or impermanent, the speaker writes, then no
man ever loved. The basic division of this poem’s argument into the various
parts of the sonnet form is extremely simple: the first quatrain says what
love is not (changeable), the second quatrain says what it is (a fixed guiding
star unshaken by tempests), the third quatrain says more specifically what
it is not (“time’s fool”—that is, subject to change in the passage of time), and
the couplet announces the speaker’s certainty. What gives this poem its
rhetorical and emotional power is not its complexity; rather, it is the force
of its linguistic and emotional conviction.

The language of Sonnet 116 is not remarkable for its imagery or metaphoric
range. In fact, its imagery, particularly in the third quatrain (time wielding a
sickle that ravages beauty’s rosy lips and cheeks), is rather standard within
the sonnets, and its major metaphor (love as a guiding star) is hardly
startling in its originality. But the language is extraordinary in that it frames
its discussion of the passion of love within a very restrained, very intensely
disciplined rhetorical structure. With a masterful control of rhythm and
variation of tone—the heavy balance of “Love’s not time’s fool” to open the
third quatrain; the declamatory “O no” to begin the second—the speaker
makes an almost legalistic argument for the eternal passion of love, and
the result is that the passion seems stronger and more urgent for the
restraint in the speaker’s tone.]

The main theme and analysis would start from here

In total, it is believed that Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets, in addition to the thirty-
seven plays that are also attributed to him. Many believe Shakespeare’s sonnets are
addressed to two different people he may have known.

The first 126 sonnets seem to be speaking to a young man with whom Shakespeare
was very close. As a result of this, much has been speculated about The Bard’s
sexuality; it is to this young man that Sonnet 116 is addressed. The other sonnets
Shakespeare wrote are written to a mysterious woman whose identity is unknown.
Scholars have referred to her simply as the Dark Woman and must have been written
about her identity.

Summary
In ‘Sonnet 116: Let me not to the marriage of true
minds,’ Shakespeare’s speaker is ruminating on love. He says that love never
changes, and if it does, it was not true or real in the first place.

He compares love to a star that is always seen and never changing. It is real and
permanent, and it is something on which a person can count. Even though the
people in love may change as time passes, their love will not. The speaker closes
by saying that no man has ever truly loved before if he is wrong about this.

Themes
Shakespeare used some of his most familiar themes in ‘Sonnet 116’. These include
time, love, and the nature of relationships. In the fourteen lines of this sonnet, he
delves into what true love is and whether or not it’s real. He uses a metaphor to
compare love to a star that’s always present and never changes. He is so confident
in this opinion that he asserts no man has ever loved before if he’s wrong.
Shakespeare also brings elements of time into the poem. He emphasizes the fact
that time knows no boundaries, and even if the people in the relationship change,
the love doesn’t.

Historical Background
Many believe the mysterious young man for whom this and many other
of Shakespeare’s sonnets were written was the Earl of Southampton, Henry
Wriothesly. Wriothesly was Shakespeare’s patron, and The Bard’s Venus and
Adonis and Tarquin and Lucrece were both dedicated to the young man.

Structure and Form

This is a true Shakespearean sonnet, also referred to as an Elizabethan or English
sonnet. This type of sonnet contains fourteen lines, which are separated into
three quatrains (four lines) and end with a rhyming couplet (two lines). The rhyme
scheme of this sonnet is abab cdcd efef gg. Like most of Shakespeare’s works, this
sonnet is written in iambic pentameter, which means each line consists of ten
syllables, and within those ten syllables, there are five pairs, which are
called iambs (one stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable).

Literary Devices
Shakespeare makes use of several literary devices in ‘Sonnet 116,’ these include
but are not limited to alliteration, examples of caesurae, and personification. The
first, alliteration, is concerned with the repetition of words that begin with the same
consonant sound. For example, “marriage” and “minds” in the first line and
“remover” and “remove” in the fourth line.

Caeusrae is used when the poet wants to create a pause in the middle of a line. The
second line of the poem is a good example. It reads: “Admit impediments. Love is
not love”. There is another example in line eight. It reads: “Whose worth’s
unknown, although his height is taken.” The “pause” the poet uses might be
marked with punctuation or intuited through the metrical pattern.

Personification is seen in the finals sestet of the poem. There,

Shakespeare personifies “Time” and “Love,” something that he does more than
once in his 154 sonnets. He refers to them as forces that have the ability to change
lives purposefully.

Detailed Analysis
While this sonnet is clumped in with the other sonnets that are assumed to be
dedicated to an unknown young man in Shakespeare’s life, this poem does not
seem to directly address anyone. In fact, Sonnet 116 seems to be the speaker’s—in
this case, perhaps Shakespeare—ruminations on love and what it is. The best way
to analyze Shakespeare’s sonnets is to examine them line-by-line, which is what
will follow.

In the first two lines, Shakespeare writes,

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments.

These lines are perhaps the most famous in the history of poetry, regardless of
whether or not one recognizes them as belonging to Shakespeare. Straight away,
Shakespeare uses the metaphor of marriage to compare it to true, real love. He is
saying that there is no reason why two people who truly love should not be
together; nothing should stand in their way. Perhaps he is speaking about his
feelings for the unknown young man for whom the sonnet is written. Shakespeare
was unhappily married to Anne Hathaway, and so perhaps he was rationalizing his
feelings for the young man by stating there was no reason, even if one is already
married, that two people who are truly in love should not be together. The second
half of the second line begins a new thought, which is then carried on into the third
and fourth lines. He writes,

Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove.

Shakespeare is continuing with his thought that true love conquers all. In these
lines, the speaker is telling the reader that if love changes, it is not truly loved
because if it changes, or if someone tries to “remove” it, nothing will change it.
Love does not stop just because something is altered. As clichéd as it sounds, true
love, real love, lasts forever.

The second quatrain of Sonnet 116 begins with some vivid and beautiful imagery,
and it continues with the final thought pondered in the first quatrain. Now that
Shakespeare has established what love is not—fleeting and ever-changing—he can
now tell us what love is. He writes,

O no, it is an ever fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken…

Here, Shakespeare tells his readers that love is something that does not shift,
change, or move; it is constant and in the same place, and it can weather even the
most harrowing of storms or tempests and is never even shaken, let alone defeated.
While weak, it can be argued here that Shakespeare decides to personify love since
it is something that is intangible and not something that can be defeated by
something tangible, such as a storm. In the next line, Shakespeare uses the
metaphor of the North Star to discuss love. He writes,

It is the star to every wand’ring bark,

Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.

To Shakespeare, love is the star that guides every bark, or ship, on the water, and
while it is priceless, it can be measured. These two lines are interesting and worth
noting. Shakespeare concedes that love’s worth is not known, but he says it can be
measured. How he neglects to tell his reader, but perhaps he is assuming the reader
will understand the different ways in which one can measure love: through time
and actions. With that thought, the second quatrain ends.

The third quatrain parallels the first, and Shakespeare returns to telling his readers
what love is not. He writes,

Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle’s compass come…

Notice the capitalization of the word “Time.” Shakespeare is personifying time as a

person, specifically, Death. He says that love is not the fool of time. One’s rosy
lips and cheeks will certainly pale with age, as “his bending sickle’s compass
come.” Shakespeare’s diction is important here, particularly with his use of the
word “sickle.” Who is the person with whom the sickle is most greatly associated?
Death. We are assured here that Death will certainly come, but that will not stop
love. It may kill the lover, but the love itself is eternal. This thought is continued in
lines eleven and twelve, the final two lines of the third quatrain. Shakespeare
writes,
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

He is simply stating here that love does not change over the course of time;
instead, it continues on even after the world has ended (“the edge of doom”).

Shakespeare uses lines thirteen and fourteen, the final couplet of Sonnet 116, to
assert just how truly he believes that love is everlasting and conquers all. He
writes,

If this be error and upon me proved

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

In this part of Sonnet 116, Shakespeare is telling his reader that if someone proves
he is wrong about love, then he never wrote the following words, and no man ever
loved. He is conveying here that if his words are untrue, nothing else would exist.
The words he just wrote would have never been written, and no man would have
ever loved before. He is adamant about this, and his tough words are what
strengthen the sonnet itself. The speaker and poet himself are convinced that love
is real, true, and everlasting.
 To His Coy Mistress
BY A NDRE W MAR VELL

Had we but world enough and time,

This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down, and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love’s day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires and more slow;
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.
But at my back I always hear
Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found;
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long-preserved virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust;
The grave’s a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace.
Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may,
And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapped power.
Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Through the iron gates of life:
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.

"To His Coy Mistress" is a poem by the English poet Andrew Marvell. Most
likely written in the 1650s in the midst of the English Interregnum, the poem
was not published until the 1680s, after Marvell's death. "To His Coy
Mistress" is a carpe diem poem: following the example of Roman poets like
Horace, it urges a young woman to enjoy the pleasures of life before death
claims her. Indeed, the poem is an attempt to seduce the titular "coy
mistress." In the process, however, the speaker dwells with grotesque
intensity on death itself. Death seems to take over the poem, displacing the
speaker's erotic energy and filling the poem with dread.

“To His Coy Mistress” Themes

“To His Coy Mistress” is a love poem: it celebrates beauty, youth, and sexual
pleasure. However, the speaker of the poem is haunted by mortality. Though
he imagines a luxuriously slow love that takes thousands of years to reach
consummation, he knows such a thing is impossible: he will die before it
can be accomplished. Death cannot be delayed or defeated; the only
response to death, according to the speaker, is to enjoy as much pleasure
as possible before it comes. He urges the woman he loves not to wait, to
enjoy the pleasures of life without restraint. The poem draws a contrast
between two kinds of love: the full, rich love that would be possible if
everyone lived forever, and the rushed, panicked love that mortal beings
are forced to enjoy.

The first stanza of the poem poses a question and explores a hypothetical
world: what would love be like if humans had infinite time to love? In
response, the speaker imagines a world of unlimited pleasure. For example,
he describes his mistress finding precious stones on the banks of the
Ganges; he describes himself spending two hundred years praising a single
part of her body.

The key to this paradise, then, is that the normal limitations of human life
have been removed. The sheer length of the mistress's and the speaker's
lives allows them to delay consummation of their love indefinitely: the
speaker announces that his mistress might “refuse / ‘Till the conversion of
the Jews”—which, in the Christian theology of Marvell’s time, was expected
to occur during the biblical Last Days. In this ideal world, the speaker feels
no urgency to consummate their relationship.

The speaker has no questions about whether his mistress deserves this
long courtship, but he does have qualms about its viability. He is, he notes
at the start of stanza 2, always conscious of the passage of time—and thus
of the fact that both he and his mistress will eventually die. Stanza 2
diverges from the beautiful dream of stanza 1, reflecting instead on the
pressing, inescapable threat of death.

Death, as the speaker imagines it, is the opposite of the paradise presented
in stanza 1: instead of endless pleasure, it offers “deserts of vast eternity.”
The speaker’s view of death is secular; he is not afraid of going to Hell or
being punished for his sins. Instead, he fears death because it cuts short
his and his mistress’s capacity to enjoy each other. In death, he complains,
her beauty will be lost and—unless she consents to have sex before she
dies—her virginity will be taken by worms. The language of this stanza is
grotesque. This is a poem of seduction, but it feels profoundly unsexy. The
speaker’s horror of death overshadows his erotic passion, but it also makes
the speaker seem more sincere: while at first it might seem that the
speaker is saying all these things primarily because he just wants to have
some sex, the despair in the poem implies that the speaker's arguments are
not mere rhetorical statements but rather deeply held beliefs and fears.

In the final stanza of the poem, the speaker finally announces his core
argument: since death is coming—and since it will strip away the pleasures
of the flesh—his mistress should agree to have sex with him soon. What's
more, he imagines that their erotic "sport" will offer compensation for the
pain and suffering of life. “Our pleasures,” he argues, will tear through “the
iron gates of life.” Though he does not imagine that their pleasure will defeat
death, he does believe that pleasure is the only reasonable response to
death. Indeed, he even says that enjoying pleasure is a way to defy death.
However, the grotesque language of stanza 2 may overwhelm the poem’s
insistence on the power of pleasure. If sexuality is a way to contest the
power of death, it nonetheless seems—even in the speaker's own
estimation—that death is an overwhelming, irresistible force.

Metaphysical poetry, such as To His Coy Mistress, is a subset of poetry

popularized in the late 17th century which focused primarily on the use of what is
known as ‘conceit’ – in layman’s terms, a type of comparison that is made between
two objects who are consciously nothing alike, therefore the relationship between
the two things being compared is completely and utterly confused.

Another tenet of metaphysical poetry was the rumination on topics far greater and
grander than easy definitions; love was popular, and so was religion, and faith, and
belief, and a variety of other topics along those lines. Most metaphysical
poets were seldom known in their day as metaphysical poets, did not form the
same sort of cohesive movement as the Romantics did in the late 18th century, and
were generally considered to be too finicky in their expression. Their work, though
emotional and moving, stopped short of expressing the wide ideals behind their
writing.

Andrew Marvell was a metaphysical poet writing in the Interregnum period. He sat
in the House of Commons between 1659 and 1678, worked with John Milton, and
wrote both satirical pieces and love poetry.

The metaphysical poets were men of learning, and, to show their learning was
their whole endeavour; but, unluckily resolving to show it in rhyme, instead of
writing poetry, they only wrote verses, and, very often, such verses as stood the
trial of the finger better than of the ear; for the modulation was so imperfect, that
they were only found to be verses by counting the syllables… The most
heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together; nature and art are ransacked
for illustrations, comparisons, and allusions; their learning instructs, and their
subtilty surprises; but the reader commonly thinks his improvement dearly bought,
and, though he sometimes admires, is seldom pleased.

Summary
‘To His Coy Mistress’ by Andrew Marvell is a beautiful love poem based on a
gentleman wooing his mistress to make love with him.

‘To His Coy Mistress’ by Andrew Marvell details the efforts of a man towards
insisting on his lover’s affection. The unnamed “Coy Mistress” refuses to sleep with
the gentleman in question, and his response is to tell her that, had he enough time,
he could spend entire centuries admiring her beauty and her innocence. However,
human life is short, he does not have enough time, and so they should enjoy each
other now while they still can, as no-one in death can embrace or feel pleasure.
Through loving one another, they can make the most of their brief time on earth, and
thus make something of themselves on earth.

Structure and Form

‘To His Coy Mistress’ by Andrew Marvell is written in iambic tetrameter, where the
lines consist of four iambic feet. This is not the more commonly used iambic
pentameter, which has five iambic feet. An iamb is an unstressed syllable, followed
by a stressed syllable. It is also interesting to note that ‘To His Coy Mistress’ itself
is written much like a poetic thesis, with the problem at the forefront, followed by
the current predicament, and ending with the solution, all from the point of view of
the lovelorn gentleman who is trying to get his beloved’s affection.

The lines in the poem are composed of closed couplet form. It means that each line
of the poem rhymes with the line next to it. Such a couplet form presents an idea in
the unit of two lines. It was famous in the Neoclassical period. Poets like Alexander
Pope, John Dryden, and Andrew Marvell were fond of this couplet form. They got
the inspiration for using neat and concise couplets from the classical writers of
Greece and Rome. However, the rhyme scheme of the poem is also very simple. The
lines of the poem contain the AABB rhyme scheme.

Literary Devices
‘To His Coy Mistress’ by Andrew Marvell contains various literary devices that
make the poetic persona’s arguments more appealing and emotionally forceful.
Likewise, in the poem, the poet implicitly compares “coyness” to “crime”. It is
a metaphor. Here, the poet thinks the coyness of the lady might kill the amorous
spirit of his persona. In “long love’s day”, there is an alliteration as well as
a personification. Here, the poet innovatively personifies love. The poetic persona
uses several hyperboles while wooing his lady love. Such an exaggerated overtone
is present in the following line, “Till the conversion of the Jews.”

The poet uses allusions in the following lines, “Love you ten years before the flood”
and “Till the conversion of the Jews”. The “flood” refers to Noah’s flood. The
second line contains a biblical allusion to the conversion of the Jews. In the poem,
“vegetable love” is a metaphor or specifically a metaphysical conceit. In the phrase,
“Time’s winged chariot” the poet, first of all, uses personification. It is also an
allusion as well as a metaphor. In the last line of the poem, Marvell personifies the
sun and says they “will make him run.”

Themes
‘To His Coy Mistress’ by Andrew Marvell hovers around several themes. The
major theme of the poem is carpe diem. Carpe diem is a Latin phrase that means
“seize the day!”. Andrew Marvell loved this theme and wrote many poems based
on it. In this poem, the poet says that waiting for the right moment to make love, is
nothing but the wastage of time. The poetic persona and his beloved should
indulge in physical love before their bodies start to become old. The main idea of
the poem is, enjoying the moment by forgetting about the future. There is nothing
in the future. So, the gentleman in the poem implores his lady love to seize the
moment and make love as they have never done before.

Another important theme of the poem is time. Here, the poet portrays time as
an antagonist between the lover and the beloved. It is always there to wash their
youthful vigor away. Time never waits for the lovers. It flows away in its way.
Lovers should not wait for the future as time never waits for them. With such an
excellent argument, the poetic persona tells his beloved to make love as soon as
they can. In this way, the poet utilizes the theme of time and its transience in favor
of the gentleman. He succeeds or not, it is up to the readers. But his arguments are
solid!
Different Interpretations
‘To His Coy Mistress’ by Andrew Marvell is a poem that dates back to the
Restoration period. At that time, the bounds and restraints of the Catholic ideals
were beginning to fall apart. The restoration of Charles II made Protestant religion
strong in England. The Whigs or the Parliamentarians tried to make it the official
religion of England. Hence, the poetry of that period reflected the political and
religious scenario. Marvell’s poems are the specimens of the sentiment of
Restoration England. His speaker reflects Protestant enthusiasm. It is the reason the
poet was fond of the theme of “carpe diem”.

In the Restoration period, England also flourished in her trade and commerce. It
reached its pinnacle in the Victorian era. The elements of the colonial expansion
are present in this poem. The reference to the “Indian Ganges”, reflects the
English mindset of expansion and celebration of national glory. Marvell also tries
to capture it in his poem.

There is another layer of physicality in the poem. It is solely based on lovemaking.

Though there is a spiritual aspect of the poem. The poet connects both in his poem.
According to him, these two kinds of love complement each other.

To His Coy Mistress as a Metaphysical

Poem
‘To His Coy Mistress’ by Andrew Marvell is a perfect example of Metaphysical
Poetry. Andrew Marvell, the poet, belonged to the second generation
of Metaphysical poets. John Donne was the fountainhead of the genre and he
influenced Marvell to adopt this unique style of the period. Andrew Marvell in this
poem employs several metaphysical conceits and other elements of the genre. First
of all, the far-fetched comparisons between coyness and crime, vegetables and
love, and time and chariot, make it a metaphysical poem.

However, the paradoxical sentences along with the forceful arguments of the
poetic persona take the poem to a next level. The stock images of romance are
tinged with metaphysical colors. The unfamiliar yet unique images in the poem
give it a brand new embodiment of love poetry. The image of lovers in the lines,
“Let us roll all our strength and all/ Our sweetness up into one ball” can be taken as
an example. The conceits, “iron gates of life”, “amorous birds of prey”, “Deserts of
vast eternity”, and “vegetable love” make this poem a specimen of metaphysical
poetry.

Detailed Analysis
Lines 1-20
Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, Lady, were no crime
We would sit down and think which way
To walk and pass our long love’s day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side
Shouldst rubies find: I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow;
A hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, Lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.

In these first lines, there are ten couplets, and mimics a traditional format – in this
case, the poem itself, although written in the form of a love poem, does not aspire
to such lofty heights; the gentleman wishes only for his lady to give in to his sexual
advances, and so the use of the traditional love elegy format (otherwise known as
‘carpe diem’ poetry) might seem as though it is ironically used. However, given
that this was written at a time when such emotion was not freely expressed, the
beauty of the language and the overwhelming focus on the woman’s beauty, the
respect is shown therein, makes the poem quite progressive for its time.

The man begins by explaining, to his lady, how he would go about worshipping
her if he had the time. He turns their love into far more than the poem can hold by
using expressions such as ‘love you ten years before the Flood’, thus allegorizing it
in almost Biblical terms, ‘vegetable love’, which shows how slow and how steady
it grows (hinting, as always, at a huge advancement), and then stating that ‘a
hundred years’ would be spent on praising her: her eyes, her forehead, two hundred
years to worship her breasts, and ‘thirty thousand to the rest’. Above all, To His
Coy Mistress does not denigrate or mock the lady’s appearance (such as in
Shakespeare’s ‘My Mistress’ Eyes are Nothing Like the Sun’) as this was not the
use of metaphysical poetry. The use of what is known as an erotic blazon – taken
directly from Petrarchan love poetry – deifies the lady of the speaker’s affection;
this is the truest form of love that the man feels as though he can manage.
Lines 21-32
But at my back I always hear
Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long preserved virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust:
The grave’s a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace.

In the next lines, the mood of To His Coy Mistress swings abruptly. In the first, there
was little haste or rush; the poet took his time describing the woman’s beauty, and
all the ways that she deserved to be worshipped, producing, therefore, a flowing,
relaxed poem that does not rush itself to the end. By these lines, however, the mood
shifts, and the poet is at once pleading and urgent, telling the lady that he hears
‘time’s winged chariot hurrying near’ (alluding to Greek mythology, another form
of deifying his lady love).

Here, the poet, though no less praising of his woman’s beauty, tells her that he does
not have the time to worship her as he sees fit; time is always hurrying closer and
closer. ‘Deserts of vast eternity’ await them, and her beauty will fade, her virginity
will ‘turn to dust’ along with her honour, and all the waiting will be, it is implied,
for naught. The feeling of foreboding, although light, is definitely there.
Lines 33-46
Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may,
And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapped power.
Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Through the iron gates of life:
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.

However, in the last set of lines, the mood brightens again; the poet has a solution!
They should embrace each other now, while they have the time, be together now
when they are young and beautiful, and not think about the future. ‘Now let us
sport while we may’, says the poet, urging his lady love to listen to him – ‘sport’ is
a commonly used word, in the 17th century, for sex. He compares them to
‘amorous birds of prey’, thus showing the natural and impulsive urges of their
nature – at once, they are both elevated above man and below him.

The last few lines take on the imagery of roiling passion: the poet wants to ‘tear
our pleasures with rough strife / through the iron gates of life’, thus somehow
elevating their own passion above life itself. Note that the last set of lines is the
most poetically proficient of all things, and though the feeling is very much a plea
to not waste the time that they have, the poet maintains a light-hearted tone through
to the end.

Historical Background
Most critics have considered the poem as a traditional carpe diem love poetry,
however, some critics believe otherwise: they see it as an ironic remark on sexual
seduction, and the light-hearted mood helps to support this view. Furthermore, they
also point out that the combination of death imagery with the light-hearted view is
itself indicative of metaphysical poetry, but perhaps not of carpe diem poetry, a
form of poetry which entrenched itself firmly in life.

There are several allusions to To His Coy Mistress made in other works, including
Annie Finch’s ‘Coy Mistress’, and T.S. Eliot‘s ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred
Prufrock‘, which is a poem written from the point of view of a neurotic young man
trying to approach a young lady at a party, and failing to do so.
 Ozymandias
By PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

I met a traveller from an antique land,

Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

Summary
The speaker recalls having met a traveler “from an antique land,” who told
him a story about the ruins of a statue in the desert of his native country.
Two vast legs of stone stand without a body, and near them a massive,
crumbling stone head lies “half sunk” in the sand. The traveler told the
speaker that the frown and “sneer of cold command” on the statue’s face
indicate that the sculptor understood well the emotions (or "passions") of
the statue’s subject. The memory of those emotions survives "stamped" on
the lifeless statue, even though both the sculptor and his subject are both
now dead. On the pedestal of the statue appear the words, “My name is
Ozymandias, king of kings: / Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” But
around the decaying ruin of the statue, nothing remains, only the “lone and
level sands,” which stretch out around it.

Form
“Ozymandias” is a sonnet, a fourteen-line poem metered in iambic
pentameter. The rhyme scheme is somewhat unusual for a sonnet of this
era; it does not fit a conventional Petrarchan pattern, but instead interlinks
 the octave (a term for the first eight lines of a sonnet) with the sestet (a
term for the last six lines), by gradually replacing old rhymes with new ones
in the form ABABACDCEDEFEF.

Commentary
This sonnet from 1817 is probably Shelley’s most famous and most
anthologized poem—which is somewhat strange, considering that it is in
many ways an atypical poem for Shelley, and that it touches little upon the
most important themes in his oeuvre at large (beauty, expression, love,
imagination). Still, “Ozymandias” is a masterful sonnet. Essentially it is
devoted to a single metaphor: the shattered, ruined statue in the desert
wasteland, with its arrogant, passionate face and monomaniacal inscription
(“Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”). The once-great king’s proud
boast has been ironically disproved; Ozymandias’s works have crumbled
and disappeared, his civilization is gone, all has been turned to dust by the
impersonal, indiscriminate, destructive power of history. The ruined statue
is now merely a monument to one man’s hubris, and a powerful statement
about the insignificance of human beings to the passage of time.
Ozymandias is first and foremost a metaphor for the ephemeral nature of
political power, and in that sense the poem is Shelley’s most outstanding
political sonnet, trading the specific rage of a poem like “England in 1819” for
the crushing impersonal metaphor of the statue. But Ozymandias
symbolizes not only political power—the statue can be a metaphor for the
pride and hubris of all of humanity, in any of its manifestations. It is
significant that all that remains of Ozymandias is a work of art and a group
of words; as Shakespeare does in the sonnets, Shelley demonstrates that
art and language long outlast the other legacies of power.

Of course, it is Shelley’s brilliant poetic rendering of the story, and not the
subject of the story itself, which makes the poem so memorable. Framing
the sonnet as a story told to the speaker by “a traveller from an antique
land” enables Shelley to add another level of obscurity to Ozymandias’s
position with regard to the reader—rather than seeing the statue with our
own eyes, so to speak, we hear about it from someone who heard about it
from someone who has seen it. Thus the ancient king is rendered even less
commanding; the distancing of the narrative serves to undermine his power
over us just as completely as has the passage of time. Shelley’s description
of the statue works to reconstruct, gradually, the figure of the “king of
 kings”: first we see merely the “shattered visage,” then the face itself, with
its “frown / And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command”; then we are
introduced to the figure of the sculptor, and are able to imagine the living
man sculpting the living king, whose face wore the expression of the
passions now inferable; then we are introduced to the king’s people in the
line, “the hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.” The kingdom is now
imaginatively complete, and we are introduced to the extraordinary, prideful
boast of the king: “Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” With that, the
poet demolishes our imaginary picture of the king, and interposes centuries
of ruin between it and us: “ ‘Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’ /
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay / Of that colossal wreck,
boundless and bare, / The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

‘Ozymandias’ is written by one of the greatest 19th-century British poets, Percy

Bysshe Shelley. It was first published in 1818 in The Examiner of London under
Shelley’s pen name, “Gilrastes.” In this sonnet, Shelley’s speaker encounters a
traveler from an antique land. The traveler describes the colossal wreckage of a great
pharaoh’s statue. He not only notices how the parts of the statue stand on the sand
but also depicts the surroundings. Collectively, the desert and the worn-out statue
hint at the central idea of the sonnet, the futility of human actions. It also taps on the
themes of the impermanence of power, fate, and the inevitability of rulers’ fall.

Summary
‘Ozymandias’ by P. B. Shelley describes a traveler’s reaction to the half-buried, worn-
out statue of the great pharaoh, Ramses II.
In this poem, the speaker describes meeting a traveler “from an antique land.” The
title, ‘Ozymandias,’ notifies the reader that this land is most probably Egypt since
Ozymandias was what the Greeks called Ramses II. He was a great and terrible
pharaoh in ancient Egypt.

The traveler tells a story to the speaker. In the story, he describes visiting Egypt.
There, he saw a large and intimidating statue of Ramses in the desert. He can tell
that the sculptor must have known his subject well because it is obvious from the
statue’s face that this man was a great leader, but one who could also be very vicious.
He describes his sneer as having a “cold command.” Even though the leader was
probably very great, it seems that the only thing that survives from his realm is this
statue, which is half-buried and somewhat falling apart.

Meaning
‘Ozymandias’ carries an extended metaphor throughout the entire poem. All
around the traveler is desert — nothing is green or growing; the land is barren. The
statue, however, still boasts of the accomplishments this civilization had in the
past. The desert represents the fall of all empires — nothing powerful and rich can
ever stay that strong forever. This metaphor is made even more commanding in the
poem by Shelley’s use of an actual ruler. He utilizes an allusion to a powerful ruler
in ancient Egypt to show that even someone so all-powerful will eventually fall.

Structure and Form

• Form: Sonnet
• Rhyme Scheme: ABABACDC EDEFEF

• Meter: Iambic Pentameter

‘Ozymandias’ is considered to be a Petrarchan sonnet, even though the rhyme

scheme varies slightly from the traditional sonnet form. Structurally all
sonnets contain fourteen lines and are written in iambic pentameter.

The rhyme scheme of ‘Ozymandias’ is ABABACDC EDEFEF. This rhyme scheme

differs from the rhyme scheme of a traditional Petrarchan sonnet, whose octave (the
first eight lines of the poem) usually has a rhyme scheme of ABBAABBA.
Its sestet (the final six lines of the sonnet) does not have an assigned rhyme scheme,
but it usually rhymes in every other line or contains three different rhymes.

Shelley’s defiance of this rhyme scheme helps to set apart ‘Ozymandias’ from
other Petrarchan sonnets, and it is perhaps why this poem is so memorable. The
reason he did this may have been to represent the corruption of authority or
lawmakers.

Literary Devices
Shelley plays with a number of figurative devices in order to make the sonnet more
appealing to readers. These devices include:

• Enjambment: Shelley uses this device throughout the text. For

example, it occurs in lines 2-8. By enjambing the lines, the poet creates
a surprising flow.
• Alliteration: It occurs in “an antique,” “stone/ Stand,” “sunk
a shattered,” “cold command,” etc.
• Metaphor: The “sneer of cold command” contains a metaphor. Here,
the ruler’s contempt for his subjugates is compared to the ruthlessness
of a military commander.
• Irony: Shelley uses this device in the following lines, “Look on my
Works, ye Mighty, and despair!/ Nothing beside remains.” The
following lines also contain this device.
• Synecdoche: In the poem, the “hand” and “heart” collectively hint at
the pharaoh, Ozymandias, as a whole. It is a use of synecdoche.
• Allusion: The line “My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings” is an
allusion to the actual inscription described in the Greek historian
Diodorus Siculus’s Bibliotheca historica.
Detailed Analysis
Line 1
I met a traveller from an antique land,

The text of ‘Ozymandias’ reads more like a story than a poem, although the line
rhymes do help to remind the reader that this is not prose. The speaker in the poem,
perhaps Percy Bysshe Shelley, tells the story from his point of view, using the
pronoun “I.”

In the first line, he talks about meeting a traveler from an antique country. At first,
this line is a tad ambiguous: Is the traveler from “an antique land,” or did he just
come back from visiting one? The reader also does not know where the speaker
first met this sojourner. The title indicates which land the traveler has visited.
Greeks called Ramses II a powerful Egyptian pharaoh, Ozymandias. So, it is easy
for the reader to recognize the “antique land” is Egypt, one of the oldest
civilizations in the world.

Lines 2-4
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

These lines are much clearer than the first, however, and it is clear to the reader
what, exactly, is occurring in the sonnet. The rest of the poem is actually written
in dialogue; the traveler recounts his experiences in Egypt to the poet’s persona.

Lines two through fourteen are only one sentence in length, as well. These lines
also contain some of the most vivid and beautiful imagery in all of poetry. Shelley
was such a masterful writer that it does not take much effort on the reader’s part to
imagine the scene in this piece clearly.

In lines two through four, the traveler describes a statue he saw in Egypt. Through
the eyes of the traveler, the reader sees two massive legs carved from stone lying in
the desert sand. Nearby, the face of the statue is half-buried. The face is broken,
but the traveler can still see the sculpture is wearing a frown and a sneer. From
this, he is able to tell that this ruler probably had absolute power, and he most
definitely ruled with an iron fist. It is also easy to interpret that this ruler probably
had a lot of pride as the supreme leader of his civilization.

Lines 5-8
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

The traveler then turns his attention to the sculptor who made the statue. He
comments that whomever the sculptor is, he knew his subject very well. Anyone
could say that the artist had exceptionally captured the passions of the ruler.
Though the pharaoh is long dead, he exists through the creation of a mere sculptor.
So, who is more powerful in this case? Undoubtedly, it is the sculptor.
He also seems to be commenting in line seven that while there is an end to living
beings, art is eternal—it survives. The gracious carves and the master’s touch live
past the remnants of history. In the next line, the traveler provides interesting
insight into the leader here. First, his hands show that the pharaoh mocked his
people, yet his heart was not all bad: he fed and cared for his people, as well. The
hand that held the rod fed not only the citizen but also mocked their pettiness. This
line provides an interesting dichotomy often found in the most terrible of leaders.
Besides, the “hand” stands for Ozymandias as a whole. It is a use of synecdoche.

Lines 9-14
And on the pedestal, these words appear:

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

Lines nine through eleven give more details about the sculpture, and the latter ones
include words that have been etched into the ruler’s pedestal. The words carved on
the pedestal, on which the leader sits, also tell of Ozymandias’ personality. He is
ordering those who see him to look upon all that he has created but do not
appreciate what he has done. Instead, the speaker has to despair and be afraid of it.
These words perfectly depict the leader’s hubris.

The last three lines, however, take on a different tone. Now, the leader is gone, and
so is his empire. Shelley implements irony into these lines to show that even
though this broken statue remains, the leader’s civilization does not. It has fallen,
much like the statue, and has turned to dust.

These lines are really powerful. The traveler almost seems to be mocking the ruler.
Besides, Shelley’s diction here is important. He uses words such as “decay” and
“bare” to show just how powerless this once-mighty pharaoh has become. There is
absolutely nothing left. The leader, much like his land, and much like the broken
statue depicting him, has fallen. It is in these lines that the theme of the poem
emerges: all leaders will eventually pass, and all great civilizations will eventually
turn into dust.

Themes
Shelley makes use of a number of themes in this sonnet. The most important theme
is the impermanence of a ruler’s glory and his legacy. It is an implicit hint at the
idea of futility. No matter how hard a man tries to rivet his name, at some point,
people will forget him. For example, Ozymandias tried to become greater than
God. He declared himself the “King of Kings.” If we look at history, every
ambitious ruler declared them, more or less, by the same title. In their pursuit of
greatness, they forgot about their very nature: every living thing must die. Besides,
the sonnet also utilizes the themes of vainglory, the power of art, the decline of
power, etc.

Tone
The overall theme of ‘Ozymandias’ is serious and awe-inspiring. For instance, the
line, “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone,” arouses both fear and pity in the
readers’ hearts. The size of the statue undoubtedly makes us wonder about the
greatness and power of the ruler. Yet, they also take pity on the decaying depiction
of the statue. It makes them think about the nature of human achievement. In the
next lines, the tone becomes more serious and fearful. As the poem progresses to
the end, it seems the tone softens a bit. The speaker somehow sympathizes with the
faded glory of the great ruler, Ozymandias. He emotionally speaks about the
inevitability of death and decay.

Historical Context
It is an understatement to say that Shelley was a clever man. While one can read
this poem to be about an ancient leader of Egypt, the poem could also be read as a
criticism for the world in which Shelley lived. Ever the political critic, Shelley
perhaps warns the leaders of England that they, too, will fall someday. Their
overarching ambition might lead them to their own downfall.

There is an interesting story behind the composition of the poem. In Shelley’s

literary cycle, the members would challenge each other to write poems about a
common subject. In 1817, Horace Smith spent his Christmas at Shelley’s house.
They both a chose passage from Diodorus Siculus’s book Bibliotheca historica that
contained the inscription:

King of Kings Ozymandias am I. If any want to know how great I am and where I
lie, let him outdo me in my work.
They challenged one another to write a sonnet out of it. In Shelley’s sonnet, the
“traveller from an antique land” is the historian Siculus. The poem was published
in The Examiner on 11 January 1818. Explore Shelley’s 1817 draft and the
published version from The Examiner.
 Dover Beach
By Mathew Arnold
The sea is calm tonight.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago

Heard it on the Ægean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith

Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true

To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

Summary
“Dover Beach” by Matthew Arnold is a dramatic monologue lamenting the
loss of true Christian faith in England during the mid-1800s as science
captured the minds of the public.

The poet’s speaker, considered to be Matthew Arnold himself, begins by

describing a calm and quiet sea out in the English Channel. He stands on
the Dover coast and looks across to France, where a small light can be seen
briefly and then vanishes. This light represents the diminishing faith of the
English people and the world around them. Throughout this poem, the
speaker/Arnold crafts an image of the sea receding and returning to land
with the world’s faith as it changes throughout time. At this point in time,
though, the sea is not returning. It is receding farther out into the strait.

The poem concludes pessimistically as the speaker makes clear to the

reader that all the beauty and happiness that one may believe they are
experiencing is not, in fact, real. The world is actually without peace, joy, or
help for those in need and the human race is too distracted by its own
ignorance to see where true assistance is needed anymore.
Structure and Form
‘Dover Beach’ is made up of four stanzas containing a variable number of
lines. They range in length from fourteen to six lines in length. There is no
consistent rhyme scheme, but there are several random end rhymes such
as “-and” and “-ay” throughout the poem and written in irregular iambic
pentameter

Literary Devices
Throughout this poem, the poet makes use of several literary devices. These
include but are not limited to:

• Alliteration: the repetition of the same consonant sound at the

beginning of multiple words. For example, “lie,” “like,” and “land”
in stanza four.
• Allusion: a reference to something outside the scope of the
poem. In this case, the poet alludes to Sophocles, a Greek
playwright.
• Simile: a comparison between two things that uses “like” or “as.”
For example, “To lie before us like a land of dreams.”
• Imagery: the use of particularly interesting descriptions that
help readers imagine a scene in great detail. For example, “The
tide is full, the moon lies fair.”
Detailed Analysis
Stanza One
The sea is calm tonight.

The tide is full, the moon lies fair

Upon the straits; on the French coast the light

Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,

Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.

Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!

Only, from the long line of spray

Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,

Listen! you hear the grating roar

Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,

At their return, up the high strand,

Begin, and cease, and then again begin,

With tremulous cadence slow, and bring

The eternal note of sadness in.

Arnold begins ‘Dover Beach’ by describing the setting in which it is taking

place. It is clear from the title, although never explicitly stated in the poem,
that the beach in question is Dover, on the coast of England. The sea is said
to be calm; there is a beach on the water at full tide. The moon “lies fair,”
lovely, “upon the straits” (a strait is a narrow passage of water such as the
English Channel onto which Dover Beach abuts).

Although useful to imagine the speaker in a particular place, the setting is

not as important as what it represents.

The speaker can see across the Channel to the French side of the water.
The lights on the far coast are visibly gleaming, and then they disappear,
and the “cliffs of England” are standing by themselves “vast” and
“glimmering” in the bay. The light that shines then vanishes, representing to
this speaker, and to Arnold himself, the vanishing faith of the English
people.

No one around him seems to see the enormity of what is happening, and
the night is quiet. There is a calm the speaker refers to as “tranquil.” But as
the reader will come to see, many things may seem one way but exist as
the opposite.

Now the speaker turns to another person that is in the scene with him and
asks that this unnamed person comes to the window and breathe in the
“sweet…night-air!”

The second half of this stanza is spent describing the sounds of the water
that the speaker is viewing. The speaker draws his companion’s attention to
the sound that the water makes as it rushes in over the pebbles on the
shore. They roll over one another creating, “the grating roar.” This happens
over and over again as the sea recedes and returns. The slow cadence of
this movement, and its eternal repetitions, seem sad to the narrator. As if
the returning sea is bringing with it, “The eternal note of sadness in.”
Stanza Two
Sophocles long ago

Heard it on the Ægean, and it brought

Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow

Of human misery; we

Find also in the sound a thought,

Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The second stanza is much shorter and relates to the world in which the
two characters are in the larger picture of history. The speaker states that
“long ago,” Sophocles heard this sound on the Ægean sea as the tides
came in. It, too, brought to his mind the feelings of “human misery” and
how these emotions “ebb and flow.” Sophocles, who penned the
play Antigone, is one of the best-known dramatic writers of Ancient
Greece.

Arnold hopes to bring to the reader’s attention the universal experience of

misery that all throughout time have lived with. This short stanza ends
with a return to the present as the narrator states that “we” are finding
these same emotions in the sound.
Stanza Three
The Sea of Faith

Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore

Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.

But now I only hear

Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,

Retreating, to the breath

Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear

And naked shingles of the world.

In the third stanza of ‘Dover Beach,’ it becomes clear that Arnold is

speaking about the diminishing faith of his countrymen and women. He
describes how “The Sea of Faith” once covered all of the “round earth’s
shore” and held everyone together like a girdle. Now though, this time has
passed. No longer is the populous united by a common Christian faith in
God by, as Arnold sees it, spread apart by new sciences and conflicting
opinions.

The comparison that he has been crafting between the drawing away and
coming in of the sea is now made clear as his speaker says there is no
longer any return. The sea is only receding now, “melancholy” and “long.” It
is retreating from England and the rest of the lands of the earth and
leaving the people exposed.

Stanza Four
Ah, love, let us be true

To one another! for the world, which seems

To lie before us like a land of dreams,

So various, so beautiful, so new,

Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,

Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;

And we are here as on a darkling plain

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,

Where ignorant armies clash by night.

At the beginning of the fourth stanza, it becomes clear that the companion
who is looking out over the water with the speaker is most likely a lover
or romantic partner.

He speaks now directly to her, and perhaps, to all those true believers in
God that are still out there. He asks that they remain true to one another
in this “land of dreams.” The world is no longer what it was, and it is more
like a dream than the reality he is used to. It is a land that appears to be
full of various beautiful, new, and joyous things, but that is not the case.
This new world is, in fact, without “joy…love…[or] light…certitude… [or]
peace,” or finally, help for those in pain. It is not what it appears to be.
The poem concludes with a pessimistic outlook on the state of the planet.
As the people are suffering around the world on “a darkling plain,”
confused and fighting for things they don’t understand, real suffering is
going on, and faith is slipping away.

About Matthew Arnold

Matthew Arnold, poet and essayist, was born in Laleham, Middlesex, in
1822 and was quickly recognized for his talent. He completed an
undergraduate degree at Balliol College, Oxford University, after which he
taught Classics at Rugby School.

Arnold would then work for thirty-five years as a government school

inspector, during which time he acquired an interest in education that
influenced his poetic works. He established his reputation as a poet and
became a Professor of Poetry at Oxford and wrote several critical works
during this time.
An Apple Gathering
By Christina Rossetti

I plucked pink blossoms from mine apple-tree

And wore them all that evening in my hair:
Then in due season when I went to see
I found no apples there.

With dangling basket all along the grass

As I had come I went the selfsame track:
My neighbours mocked me while they saw me pass
So empty-handed back.

Lilian and Lilias smiled in trudging by,

Their heaped-up basket teased me like a jeer;
Sweet-voiced they sang beneath the sunset sky,
Their mother's home was near.

Plump Gertrude passed me with her basket full,

A stronger hand than hers helped it along;
A voice talked with her through the shadows cool
More sweet to me than song.

Ah Willie, Willie, was my love less worth

Than apples with their green leaves piled above?
I counted rosiest apples on the earth
Of far less worth than love.

So once it was with me you stooped to talk

Laughing and listening in this very lane:
To think that by this way we used to walk
We shall not walk again!

I let me neighbours pass me, ones and twos

And groups; the latest said the night grew chill,
And hastened: but I loitered, while the dews
Fell fast I loitered still.
‘An Apple Gathering’ by Christina Rossetti is a seven-stanza poem that was written
in 1857 and later published in Goblin Market and Other Poems in 1862. The text is
separated into sets of four lines, also known as quatrains. The first three lines of each
stanza are structured as iambic pentameter. This means that they contain five sets of
two beats, the first of which is unstressed and the second stressed. The pattern
changes in the fourth line of each stanza. Here, there are only three sets of beats,
known as iambic trimeter.

Due to the fewer syllables, the fourth lines of each stanza are notably shorter than
the rest. They are also indented in the farthest, giving them even greater importance
in the text. Rossetti wanted to draw a reader’s attention to these moments, more than
any of the others.

By the time a reader gets a few stanzas in ‘An Apple Gathering’ it becomes clear that
the speaker’s tone will be quite solemn. The stanzas are filled with images of regret
and even hopelessness that center around the dominant images of the pink flowers
and the apple. The flowers quickly come to represent temptation and the apples’
prosperity and hope.

Summary of An Apple Gathering

‘An Apple Gathering’ by Christina Rossetti describes the plight of a woman who had
a relationship before marriage, effectively ending her chance at a good life.
The poem begins with the speaker describing how she chose to pick the pink flowers
from her apple tree. This choice changed the course of her life. Rather than wait for
marriage and gather her apples when they were ripe, she engaged in a sexual
relationship with a man who did not love her.
When she returns to the tree, and there are no apples to harvest, she falls into a deep
depression. She realizes that the prospect of her having a good life is virtually zero.
The speaker returns to the path she traveled and becomes more dejected and
overwhelmed as she passes others with full baskets.
Analysis of An Apple Gathering
Stanza One
I plucked pink blossoms from mine apple-tree

And wore them all that evening in my hair:

Then in due season when I went to see

I found no apples there.

In the first stanza of ‘An Apple Gathering’, the speaker begins by describing her
plucking of “pink blossoms” from her own apple-tree. This first line of the text is
filled with alliteration, the ‘p’ and ‘b’ sounds relate directly to the experience of
pulling flowers from their branches.

A period of time passes after she takes these flowers. When the speaker returns to
her apple tree, she finds that there are “no apples there.” This is a direct result of the
picking of flowers she did earlier. She has indulged herself too early and will now
suffer from it. As the lines progress, it becomes clear that the metaphor Rossetti
crafted revolves around a young woman’s loss of virginity and the way society
makes her suffer for it.

After picking the flowers, she “wore them all evening” in her hair. This line suggests
that the speaker was not upset by whatever sexual relationship she engaged in.
Instead, she was proud of her decision and felt free enough to let the world know
what had happened.
Stanza Two
With dangling basket all along the grass

As I had come I went the selfsame track:

My neighbours mocked me while they saw me pass

So empty-handed back.

Whatever pride the speaker felt in her previous sexual experiences has faded. She
could not pick any apples from her tree and is forced to return the way she came.
The apples quickly come to represent societal success, acceptance, and the fruit of a
good marriage. These are things that are now denied to the speaker, all due to her
decision to pick the pink flowers before the apples were ready.

The speaker returns to the “track” she began down, and everyone she passes mocks
her. She is “So empty-handed” and the details of her situation are clear to any who
sees her.

Stanza Three
Lilian and Lilias smiled in trudging by,

Their heaped-up basket teased me like a jeer;

Sweet-voiced they sang beneath the sunset sky,

Their mother’s home was near.

In the third stanza of ‘An Apple Gathering’, the speaker passes “Lilian and Lilias.”
They are other women she knows, and they gathered a huge number of apples. Their
basket is “heaped-up” and seems to mock the speaker with its fullness. The many
apples tell of the women’s successfully established future and their own chastity.
The two are on their way back to their “mother’s home.” The path they travel on is
not a long one, soon they’ll be safe within familiar confines with their basket of
apples between them.

The seemingly carefree nature of these two women is contrasted with the speaker’s
own disappointment and fear for the future. Lilian and Lilias sing as they walk, under
a sky colored by the setting sun. The speaker sees now what her life could’ve been
had she not chosen to have relations before marriage.

Stanza Four
Plump Gertrude passed me with her basket full,

A stronger hand than hers helped it along;

A voice talked with her through the shadows cool

More sweet to me than song.

The speaker also passes “Plump Gertrude” whose bask is just as full as Lilian and
Lilias’. Alongside this woman walks another whose hand is strong. This alludes to
Gertrude already having found a husband who can take care of her. She has the love,
or at least protection, that the speaker will go without.

At this moment, she is extremely jealous of the dynamic between the two and the
clear direction of Gertrude’s life. Her path is clear and illuminated by the voice of
her husband.
Stanza Five
Ah Willie, Willie, was my love less worth

Than apples with their green leaves piled above?

I counted rosiest apples on the earth

Of far less worth than love.

Finally, the speaker reveals the intended listener of ‘An Apple Gathering.’ The lines
of stanza five are directed at Willie, the speaker’s lover. She asks him if her love or
her virginity is really worth so little to him. The question is directed at him, but also
at herself. She wonders about her choice to give away her love rather than collect
her own basket of apples.

Stanza Six
So once it was with me you stooped to talk

Laughing and listening in this very lane:

To think that by this way we used to walk

We shall not walk again!

The sixth stanza is also directed at her lover. She remembers how the two came to
be together. It required that he “stoop” to talk to her. He leaned down, perhaps
physically and metaphorically, and talked and laughed. Although it is not explicitly
stated, her description of him as taller than she is might also refer to his standing in
society.
No matter his social position, it is clear that he is unbothered by what has become of
her life. He does not face the consequences that she does. The speaker is very clear
about what has passed and will pass between them. She knows he does not care for
her, and even if he does, they “shall not walk” on the same path again. This speaks
to her own inability to change what happened. She’ll never travel to the apple tree,
empty basket in hand, ready to collect apples, again. No matter what she does, the
apples will not be hers.

Stanza Seven
I let my neighbours pass me, ones and twos

And groups; the latest said the night grew chill,

And hastened: but I loitered, while the dews

Fell fast I loitered still.

In the final stanza of ‘An Apple Gathering’, Rossetti ends her speaker’s narrative on
a dark and depressing note. She has grown slow in her progress up the path, allowing
“neighbours” to pass her by. They travel in groups, talking with one another, adding
to her own feelings of dejection. She is alone in her journey, and no one will stop
and help her.

It does not matter to her that the night is growing cold. She stays on the path, slowing
down, even more, caught up in the falling dew. At the end of the text, the speaker is
still on the path, unsure of what to do or where to go. Or even if there is a point to
her continuing on at all.
 I started Early – Took my Dog
By Emily Dickinson
I started Early – Took my Dog –
And visited the Sea –
The Mermaids in the Basement
Came out to look at me –

And Frigates – in the Upper Floor

Extended Hempen Hands –
Presuming Me to be a Mouse –
Aground –opon the Sands –

But no Man moved Me – till the Tide

Went past my simple Shoe –
And past my Apron – and my Belt
And past my Boddice– too –

And made as He would eat me up –

As wholly as a Dew
Opon a Dandelion's Sleeve –
And then – I started – too –

And He – He followed – close behind –

I felt His Silver Heel
Opon my Ancle – Then My Shoes
Would overflow with Pearl –

Until We met the Solid Town –

No One He seemed to know –
And bowing – with a Mighty look –
At me – The Sea withdrew –
‘I Started Early – Took my Dog’ is probably known for Dickinson’s solitude almost
as much as she is known for the poems she has written. Most who have read with
whom she corresponded regularly, but she very rarely came into physical contact
with anything.

Thus, ‘I Started Early – Took my Dog’ seems to reach into the depths of the author
that she rarely expressed herself. Though she was clearly a very deep and
philosophical human being, she also experienced the physical desires that every
human encounters. This speaker, however, much like the author, seems to have a
fear of fulfilling those desires. For this reason, the speaker uses the Sea to personify a
man fulfilling her sexual desires.

In this way, she believes that she can see the outcome of such an encounter without
an actual sexual encounter with a man. This reveals a lot about the author and her
fear of being close to people. The author was afraid of being known, and she was
afraid of knowing others. Although she had intense desires to know and be known,
her fear trumped those desires, and though she was able to express her desires
through this poem, her readers may never know whether she was able to fulfill these
desires in reality.

I Started Early – Took my Dog Analysis

Stanza One
I started Early – Took my Dog –

And visited the Sea –

The Mermaids in the Basement

Came out to look at me –

With the opening stanza, the speaker provides a calm, yet mystical setting. The
reader can imagine an early morning walk by the ocean. The speaker is alone, save
for her dog. She creates the mystical factor of the setting when she introduces “the
mermaids in the basement” that swam up to look at her. The reader immediately gets
the sense of the mystical and tranquil all in one short description of the speaker’s
walk by the sea. She presents the idea that she is being watched by the mermaids as
if she is an object of fascination to them. This foreshadows what the rest of ‘I Started
Early – Took my Dog’ will imply. The speaker feels worthy of being looked at. This
reveals the speaker’s desire to be admired.

Stanza Two
And Frigates – in the Upper Floor

Extended Hempen Hands –

Presuming Me to be a Mouse –

Aground – opon the Sands –

With this stanza, the speaker combines the mystical with the realistic when she
describes the “frigates- in the upper floor”. A “frigate” is a type of warship often
used in the U.S Navy. The description of a warship suggests that the speaker is aware
of the mystical and tranquil parts of her life, such as the sea and the mermaids, but
she is also aware of reality, such as war. The juxtaposition of the realistic and the
mystical offers insight into the speaker’s feelings and thoughts. She believes in both.
While she clearly sees the warship on the sea, she also sees the mermaids at the
bottom of the seafloor. This reveals her desire to know and understand both the
practical and realistic side of life and the mystical and unseen.
Next, the speaker describes the sea as having “extended Hempen Hands”. “Hempen”
suggests that the hands are rope-like in nature, and they are outstretched toward her.
The speaker continues to personify the sea by giving it the human-like quality of
being able to presume. She sees the ocean as “presuming [her] to be a Mouse”. This
suggests that the speaker feels very small and insignificant next to the vast sea. She
feels that to the sea, she must look like nothing more than a mouse “aground- opon
the Sands”. The continued description of the sea as a man suggests that the speaker
will leave behind the realistic, for the time being, and focus on the mystical.

Stanza Three
But no Man moved Me – till the Tide

Went past my simple Shoe –

And past my Apron – and my Belt

And past my Boddice – too –

The speaker has already personified the sea, but with this stanza, she describes the
sea in more specific human terms, referring to him as a man. She makes it clear that
“no man” has ever “moved [her]” before. Here, the speaker reveals her own
virginity. While she stands looking at the sea, she sees it as a man whose hands are
extended toward her, and she admits that she has never known a man. But here, the
sea does not seem to respect nor acknowledge that. It moves toward her, “till the tide
went past [her] simple shoe- and past [her] Apron- and [her] Belt And past [her]
Boddice- too-”.

With this description, the speaker compares the rising tide of the sea to a man. As it
rises higher and higher, it first wets her shoe, and then moves higher until she is
soaked through even her bodice. The speaker imagines that this is what it might feel
like to be with a man, that he would slowly take her body, one part at a time. It seems
as though the sea has brought the speaker to think of her own sexuality and her
desires as a woman. Her personification of the ocean as a man with outstretched
hands reveals her desire to have someone reach for her in that way.

Her continued description of the way the ocean “took” her suggests that she has
underlying sexual desires she has not yet indulged in. Although she is still clothed,
the sea was able to penetrate her clothing with the movements of the tide. With
each wave, the sea swallows up more and more of her, penetrating her clothing
through the shoes, working his way up toward her breasts until she has been
entirely taken by the waves of the sea and the rising tide.

Stanza Four
And made as He would eat me up –

As wholly as a Dew

Opon a Dandelion’s Sleeve –

And then – I started – too –

With this stanza, the speaker says that as the sea made his way up the length of her
body, he eventually ate her up completely, “as wholly as a Dew Opon a Dandelion’s
Sleeve”. This reveals the speaker’s fantasy of being taken completely by a man.
While she walks by the sea, she personifies the sea as a man, and then describes the
way he has penetrated her clothing and soaked her from toes to the tip of her head
just as completely as the dew covers a dandelion.

Then the speaker shifts the focus to her own actions, rather than those of the sea.
She says, “And then- I started- too-”. This suggests that the speaker played a part
in giving herself over to the sea. She did not simply stand by and allow herself to
be taken. Rather, she engaged with the sea as well. This clearly symbolizes her
desire to be sexually active with a man and to respond sexually.

Stanza Five
And He – He followed – close behind –

I felt His Silver Heel

Opon my Ancle – Then My Shoes

Would overflow with Pearl –

With this stanza of ‘I Started Early – Took my Dog’, the speaker moves from her
initial encounter with the sea, to the aftermath. The sea, having symbolized a man,
and her interaction with the sea having symbolized her first sexual encounter, she
now describes what happens after she has been taken sexually, and after she has
given of herself sexually.

She describes herself as walking away, and he follows closely behind. The sea itself
is rescinded as the tide goes back down, and this symbolizes that man as he tries to
follow the speaker, but cannot. She feels in “Opon [her] Ancle” and then it is only
on her shoes. The speaker ends this stanza by explaining that her shoes would
“overflow with Pearl”. The precise meaning of this line is somewhat ambiguous, but
it would seem that the sea has not left her without anything by which to remember
him. He has left her with some of his most precious possessions, pearls.
Stanza Six
Until We met the Solid Town –

No One He seemed to know –

And bowing – with a Mighty look –

At me – The Sea withdrew –

In this stanza, the speaker continues to walk away as the sea continues to rescind.
She teaches the town, where no one seems to know Him, the sea. So he leaves. The
use of the word “solid” to describe the town suggests that the speaker is leaving the
mystical and entering back into reality. Both the “solid town” and the “frigate”
mentioned at the beginning of the poem suggest that the speaker has always had an
underlying understanding that she would have to return to reality even after her
indulgence with the sea.

The speaker then describes the sea as he departs from her. She says, “And bowing-
with a Mighty look- At me- The Sea withdrew”. This encounter with the sea marks
her leaving the mystical world and returning to reality, but it also symbolizes the
speaker’s belief about how a sexual encounter with a man would end. She clearly
longs for this kind of encounter, but she does not believe that she could keep it any
more that she could keep the tide on the seashore.

She believes that whoever he might be, the man to whom she would give herself
would shrink away after the encounter. He may leave her with a treasured
possession, but she does not believe that he would be with her permanently. By the
end of this poem, it is clear that the speaker does not believe that a relationship
between her and a man could work.

She equates a relationship with the mystical portions of ‘I Started Early – Took my
Dog’, such as the mermaids and the sea as a man. The two realistic portions of the
poem, the town and the warship, are like the speaker’s inability to be in a romantic
relationship. As she walks away from the sea, she leaves the mystical behind her and
walks toward reality.

Emily Dickinson Background

Though most of what is known about Emily Dickinson suggests that she was always
a recluse, there is evidence that Dickinson did not always want to be left alone,
particularly when it came to Lord Otis Phillips. Phillips was a friend of Dickinson’s
father, and when her father died, he sought after her health and well-being. When
Phillips’ wife died sometime later, the two began a romance. However, Dickinson
eventually refused his offer of marriage. Though by her letters to him, it is clear that
she often fantasized about a sexual encounter with him. Senior researcher Lyndall
Gordon explains his conclusions about Dickinson’s refusal to marry a man she
apparently loved dearly.

He says, “Her ‘No’ to marriage was never final. She ‘lies near’ his ‘longing’; she
‘touches’ it but then wills herself to move away. Emily likely had epilepsy, and it
would have been natural to hope that her condition would lessen as she grew older.
But she’d had a blackout, perhaps a seizure, in April 1881, brought on by a nearby
fire, with a wind blowing the burning shingles. Afterward, she had lain on her pillow
for more than a week.

At that time, marriage for epileptics was discouraged” (Gordon). This, perhaps, can
give some insight into ‘I Started Early – Took my Dog’. Dickinson, like the speaker,
imagined a sexual encounter and longed for one, but would not allow herself to
actually indulge in such a relationship. Perhaps her fear of being known was one of
the reasons. Perhaps her intense desire to hide her epilepsy was another. Either way,
from what is known about Dickinson, she never did indulge in such a desire, other
than perhaps to allow the tide to wash over her as she imagined being taken by a
man in such a way.
 Throughout history, there has always been a seeming fascination with how the world
will end. In recent years, these discussions have centered around nuclear disaster,
immense climate change, and general cynicism. Two thousand years ago (give or
take), the Revelations chapter was added into the Christian Bible, detailing a
prophetic vision of the end of the world. This has long been a topic embedded in the
human psyche. At some point between the present and Revelations’ authorship
(closer to the present though), Robert Frost added his own ideas to the mix, and the
result was ‘Fire and Ice’, one of his most well-known poems, and certainly one of
his most powerful ones. This poem is known for its simplicity and biting message,
as well as its call to stop and think, offering a different perspective on the end of
everything.

Fire and Ice

By Robert frost
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Fire and Ice Analysis

A lot of thought most definitely went into the creation of this poem. ‘Fire and
Ice‘ is written as a series of nine lines, alternating between three rhyming sounds
— ABA ABC BCB being the rhyming summary for ‘Fire and Ice‘. It features
a narrator describing the end of the world in their own vision, and it’s largely
simplistic.
Lines 1-2
Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

These first few lines describe the disagreement in general society on the topic of how
the world ends. In a modern sense, “fire” and “ice” could well be stand-ins for
“nuclear disaster” and “climate change.” Frost’s use of “fire” and “ice,” however, is
largely a metaphoric decision that opens the poem up to different kinds of
interpretation. Ice and fire, of course, are opposites of one another, suggesting that
most people have entirely opposing views on the apocalypse — after all, the world
can’t end in ice and fire at the same time. Ice and fire also represent two extremes
which, on a grand enough scale, could cause immense damage, and are
fitting metaphors for harbingers of death.

Lines 3-4
From what I’ve tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

Here the speaker provides their own opinion — they equate fire with desire, which
is to suggest that it is equal with passions, with greed, with rage. Fire is being used
as a metaphor for strong, consuming emotions such as desire. It is a
fitting analogy — in a candle or a fireplace, fire shows a person the way. It is warmth
and light. In the same way, small desires are no trouble at all and can guide a person
to the things they want in life. On a large scale, however, fire consumes and destroys,
and so too does desire. The speaker recalls their experiences with a strong desire and
tends to believe that it is those kinds of emotions and impulses that lead the world
down its irrevocable path. For the speaker, the world will end in fire.

Lines 5-9
But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

As a close opposite to the burning desires the speaker sees as being so dangerous,
the ice is also a concern in their mind. They believe the world will burn, in one form
or the other, and that would end it — but if it didn’t end, and the fire wasn’t enough,
the remainder of the poem says, then they believe the ice could manage the feat as
well. As an opposite to a burning flame, a chilling sheen of ice represents hatred to
the speaker. They think of it as something that would chill the world, slow it down,
and isolate each individual enough that the human race simply couldn’t survive it.
The potential for ice “would suffice,” and even though they tend to believe in the
destructive power of desire, they see no reason to believe that hate couldn’t end the
world just as easily.

Historical Context
The point of ‘Fire and Ice‘ seems to get at the idea that arguing over how the
world ends isn’t going to delay or prolong the arrival of the event. For
the speaker of the poem, presumably in the voice of Robert Frost, it really doesn’t
matter whether it’s one thing or another that makes things bad. What matters is what
is done about the heat or cold (ironically, the other one, though the desire-hatred
metaphor doesn’t work so well as a way to balance out the other). In a way, this
poem is a call to act, to stop arguing about the how — “how will this happen?” —
and start debating the what — “what can we do to stop it?”

The poem was written and published in 1920, and eventually republished in Frost’s
1923 volume, New Hampshire. It was reportedly inspired greatly by
Dante’s Inferno, particularly in the descriptions of Hell (interestingly described as
having nine layers or rings in the story — and ‘Fire and Ice’ being a poem of nine
lines). Inferno also describes the deepest aspects of Hell as being simultaneously
burning with flame and being submerged in unbreakable ice.

Another event of note is a recollection by American astronomer Harlow Shapley,

who recalled meeting with Robert Frost and discussing the end of the world. Shapley
claims to have told Frost that the world would end either when the sun exploded and
incinerated the planet, or when the sun exploded and failed to incinerate the planet,
leaving all remaining life on the planet to wither, freeze, and die.

For Frost in 1920, life had certainly had its good days and bad days. During this time
in his life, he had begun teaching and writing as full-time professions while he lived
on a farm in New Hampshire. 1920 was also the year he needed to commit his sister
to a mental hospital, which marked the beginning of a difficult time for the family
— which had already seen its fair share of grief, as, by this time, Frost’s parents had
both passed away, and Frost himself was battling depression amidst everything else.
In this context, it is hardly surprising that his work took on a grim look at the world,
and that a topic such as the end of the world should rise out of these hard times.
Despite this, it manages to be a powerful and thought-provoking work of art that has
remained relevant and remembered decades after its original printing.
 Ars Poetica

By Archibald McLeish
A poem should be palpable and mute
As a globed fruit,

Dumb
As old medallions to the thumb,

Silent as the sleeve-worn stone

Of casement ledges where the moss has grown—

A poem should be wordless

As the flight of birds.

A poem should be motionless in time

As the moon climbs,

Leaving, as the moon releases

Twig by twig the night-entangled trees,

Leaving, as the moon behind the winter leaves,

Memory by memory the mind—

A poem should be motionless in time

As the moon climbs.

A poem should be equal to:

Not true.

For all the history of grief

An empty doorway and a maple leaf.

For love
The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea—
A poem should not mean
But be.

‘Ars Poetica’ by Archibald MacLeish adopts the title of Horace’s work, “Ars
Poetica” of 19 BC. So, one of the first elements of this poem that is important to
understand is the title. “Ars Poetica” comes from the Latin meaning, “Art of Poetry.”
It can also refer instead to an area of study, in this case, poetry. Throughout this
piece, the poet will define what it is that makes a successful and meaningful poem.
He will move through various attributes a poem can have and determine their
relevance to truly great work.

Due to the nature of ‘Ars Poetica,’ and the fact that MacLeish suggests that a poem
should “not mean / But be,” readers may find this analysis contradictory. The text
describes how important it is for a poem to exist “wordlessly” rather than proclaim
its existence through an analysis such as this one. Despite this fact, this analysis does
its best to dig into MacLeish’s intentions. It’s up to the reader to decide whether
poetic analysis has a place in the literary world or not.

Summary
‘Ars Poetica’ by Archibald MacLeish describes what the speaker believes to be the
elements of a successful poem.
The speaker begins by stating that a poem should be like “a globed fruit,” “old
medallion” and a ledge on which “moss has grown.” All of these tangible objects
represent things that provide one with comfort but are unable to act on their own
will. A poem should present itself to the world and then allow a reader to do with it
what he or she will.

The next section emphasizes the fact that poetry needs to touch everyone equally. A
successful poem will be “motionless in time.” It will not change its meaning
depending on who reads it. All will be impacted by its words.
In the final lines, the speaker says poetry should not try to “be” something. It should
just exist as it is. There is no need to try to define experiences and emotions with
anything other than “maple leaves” and “leaning grasses.”

Structure
‘Ars Poetica’ by Archibald MacLeish is a twenty-four line poem that is separated
into couplets or sets of two lines. The poet has chosen to divide the poem up further
by placing a delineating mark after every eight lines, or four couplets. A reader
should also take note of the fact that MacLeish has chosen to rhyme the couplets
within the first section. The pattern changes in the second set of eight lines with the
poet including two half or slant rhymes at the end. Then the third stanza diverges
once more with the final two couplets containing imperfect rhymes.

Analysis of Ars Poetica

Lines 1-8
A poem should be palpable and mute
As a globed fruit,

Dumb
As old medallions to the thumb,

Silent as the sleeve-worn stone

Of casement ledges where the moss has grown—

A poem should be wordless

As the flight of birds.
*
In the first section of this piece the speaker, who is like the poet himself, begins by
giving a metaphor for what it is he believes a poem should be like. As will be made
clear throughout the text, the metaphors were chosen by the poet often carry double
meanings. The same goes for each couplet. One might have a grasp of what the first
line is trying to say but the second often confuses and then enriches the image.

The speaker first describes good poetry as being “palpable and mute.” The poem
should be able to be grasped by a reader, but not because it is reaching out. It does
nothing but presents its words, the reader does all the rest. It will resemble a “globed
fruit” in this state. The poem is something that can be taken, carried away, and
enjoyed but is unable to truly speak for itself.

The second couple states that poetry should be “Dumb / As old medallions to the
thumb.” It should be recognizable and familiar. One’s hand should recognize its
ridges, such as one would on an old medallion.

In the third couplet of this first section, the poet states that poetry should also be
“Silent as the sleeve-worn stone.” He is emphasizing the fact that poems do not
speak for themselves. They remain silent while a reader delves into their depths.
Good poetry will be like a ledge that has “moss” growing on it. It has been there for
a long time undisturbed.

The final two lines describe good poetry as being “wordless / As the flight of birds.”
It is once again silent but is this time recognizably beautiful. It should be universally
recognizable, like a bird in flight, and just as awe-inspiring to witness.
Lines 9-16
A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs,

Leaving, as the moon releases

Twig by twig the night-entangled trees,

Leaving, as the moon behind the winter leaves,

Memory by memory the mind—

A poem should be motionless in time

As the moon climbs.
In the next set of eight lines, the speaker further describes what one wants when
seeking out a meaningful poem. It will be “motionless in time.” This phrase places
good poetry on a transcendent plane. A successful poem will be able to touch anyone
no matter where or when they’re from, just as the moon does when it “climbs.”

The next couplet describes poetry as being that which allows one to experience
“Twig by twig” the beauty of the “night-entangled trees.” The moon, which in this
metaphor is representing poetry itself, leaves the reader with “Memory by memory.”
These memories which are left to the reader are like those which the spring has of
“winter leaves.” It is something integral to life but intangible.

The last two lines of this section describe a good poem as being “motionless in time.”
It does not change throughout the ages. As was previously mentioned, Ars
Poetica should remain the same to all people, no matter who they are or where they
are from.

Lines 17- 24
A poem should be equal to:
Not true.

For all the history of grief

An empty doorway and a maple leaf.

For love
The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea—

A poem should not mean

But be.

In the last eight lines of this piece, the speaker makes even larger, more sweeping
statements about what poetry is. It should be “equal to: / Not true.” Through this
statement, the speaker is attempting to define poetry as something which is related
to one’s every experience. It should not try to be one particular thing or share an
infallible truth.

The next two couplets present the reader with ways a poem can relate to life without
directly speaking on it. The “history of grief” can be presented to a reader through
“An empty doorway and a maple leaf.” One does not need a great amount of detail
in a successful poem to understand the point its trying to make
The next comparison is between “love” and “The leaning grasses and two lights
above the sea.” Once again an element of life is defined through one’s emotional
connection to what their senses can interpret about the world. One can feel love
through grass reaching towards the sun, or from the sight of “two lights” hanging in
the sky.

The final couplet sums up what it is about poetry the speaker feels is important.
Poems should not “mean / But be.” Just like in the first couplet of this final section
the speaker is trying to make clear the fact that poetry should simply exist in the
world without trying to be something it’s not, make great sweeping statements or
declarations about life, or try to define one’s existence.
Adrienne Rich, "Aunt Jennifer's Tigers"

Aunt Jennifer's tigers prance across a screen,

Bright topaz denizens of a world of green.
They do not fear the men beneath the tree;
They pace in sleek chivalric certainty.

Aunt Jennifer's finger fluttering through her wool

Find even the ivory needle hard to pull.
The massive weight of Uncle's wedding band
Sits heavily upon Aunt Jennifer's hand.

When Aunt is dead, her terrified hands will lie

Still ringed with ordeals she was mastered by.
The tigers in the panel that she made
Will go on prancing, proud and unafraid.

‘Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers’ was written in 1951 and included in her first book of
poetry, A Change in the World. She explores themes that include gender, power, or
lack thereof, and marriage. These are all seen through the time and dedication that
Jennifer gives to her needlepoint.

Through the short lines of the poem, the speaker embodies the struggle this woman
is going through and juxtaposes it against the tigers that she’s creating. Their power
is contrasted against her own lack of power.

Summary of Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers

‘Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers’ by Adrienne Rich is a multilayered poem that uses the
images of sewn tigers to talk about the institution of marriage.

In the first lines of this poem the speaker, who is unnamed, describes Aunt Jennifer’s
work. She’s creating a needlepoint image of tigers. They’re beautiful, described as
brightly shining gemstones living in green canvas. There is also the addition of men
in the image. They’re watching the tigers who move without fear. The speaker
spends time describing how fast Jennifer’s fingers move and the weight of the
wedding ring on her finger. The speaker looks to the future at the end of the poem.
One day Jennifer is going to die and her frightened hands will stop moving. But, the
tigers will not.

Structure of Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers

‘Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers’ by Adrienne Rich is a three-stanza poem that is separated
into stanzas of four lines, known as quatrains. These quatrains follow a
simple rhyme scheme of AABB, with the couplets changing end sounds from
stanza to stanza. While there is evidence of metrical patterns in ‘Aunt Jennifer’s
Tigers,’ it is not completely consistent. There are sections of the poem in which
Rich uses nearly perfect iambic pentameter and moments where she moves away
from it and uses trochees instead.

Literary Devices in Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers

Rich makes use of several literary devices in ‘Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers’. These include
but are not limited to anaphora, alliteration, and imagery. The latter is quite
important in this poem. It can be seen through the description of the tigers, their
landscape, and Aunt Jennifer’s hands.

Anaphora is a simple and useful technique. There is a good example in the first
stanza with the repetition of “They” at the start lines three and four. Alliteration is
also useful, it helps to create a feeling of rhythm and rhyme even if one does not
exist. For example, “finger fluttering” in stanza two and “prancing, proud” in stanza
three.
Analysis of Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers
Stanza One

(…)
They do not fear the men beneath the tree;
They pace in sleek chivalric certainty.

In the first stanza of ‘Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers,’ the speaker begins by describing the
movement of the tigers across the fabric canvas. They are prancing “across a screen”
in a “world of green”. The perfect rhymes give this poem a sing-song-like sound that
is juxtaposed against the darker subject matter. It creates a haunting atmosphere that
allows for easy contemplation of the problems of marriage. The speaker describes
very clearly how the tigers do not “fear the men beneath the tree”. They move
without fear or trepidation. It should be noted that this is a state that the artist, Aunt
Jennifer, does not know. She is not without fear as they are.

The animals are personified. Rich uses words like “chivalric” (an older term that
connects to a certain, respectful yet patronizing treatment of women) to describe
them. They are masculine, without worry, and “certain” in their actions. This makes
it seem even less likely that Jennifer will find this same strength.

Stanza Two

Aunt Jennifer’s finger fluttering through her wool

Find even the ivory needle hard to pull.
(…)
The speaker describes in the next stanza how quickly Jennifer’s fingers move. They
“flutter” through the movements but are without real strength. The word “flutter”
evokes the image of birds’ wings and gentle movements. Her hands find the “needle
hard to pull”. There is something weighing them down, a “wedding band”. The ring
that ties her to her husband keeps her from moving beyond who she is at that
moment. It “Sits heavily” on her hand, her mind, and her soul.

Stanza Three
When Aunt is dead, her terrified hands will lie
(…)
Will go on prancing, proud and unafraid.

The third stanza begins with a striking move into the future. The speaker looks
towards the time in which Jennifer is going to die. These lines are enjambed,
encouraging a reader to move smoothly and quickly through the stanza. She will
stop eventually as will the movement of her hands. But, the ring will still be there.
Even in death she will in some ways be tied to her “ordeals”.

As she struggles, suffers, and dies, the tigers will continue to prance proudly on her
page. They, unlike her, are “unafraid”.
 Harlem
BY LANG STON HUG HES

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags

like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

Hughes reached his prime in writing during the time of the Harlem Renaissance.
This was a unique time period in American History in which many African American
writers, artists, actors, and celebrities of various kinds emerged. It was a time in
which, for the first time in history, African American people were able to reveal their
true talent and intellect. The only problem was that African American artists, poets,
novelists, and playwrights were only acknowledged within the community of
African American people. As it was very clear that separate was not equal, Langston
Hughes, along with a great many other up-and-comings of his time, wanted their
work to be esteemed by the world, not only their own community.

Langston Hughes wrote ‘Harlem (A Dream Deferred)’ in response to what he felt,

having his own literary genius be kept segregated from that of his white counterparts.
He wanted true equality to reign so that his works of literature might be recognized
among all writers of his time, not just those in Harlem. This poem simply yet
profoundly reveals his feelings. The poem’s biblical reference is used to draw his
readers to his point of view.

Langston Hughes knew his ancestors waited many years and never did experience
true equality, and he wondered whether or not he ever would. Even as highly
esteemed a poet as he was in Harlem, it did not make up for the fact that much of the
rest of his society would not acknowledge his work simply because of the color of
his skin.

Years later, Martin Luther King Jr. made his speech, “I have a Dream,” which was
likely inspired by this very poem. Hughes wrote this poem in 1951, and Martin
Luther King Jr. gave his speech in 1963, just four short years before Hughes’ death.

Harlem (A Dream Deferred) Analysis

Hughes begins his poem with a question. “What happens to a dream deferred?” The
word ‘deferred,’ in this context, means that it is put off or delayed indefinitely. This
seems a simple question at first, but once in context, has significant connotations.
His initial question would have been, to his audience, an obvious biblical
reference. Proverbs 13:12 States,

Hope deferred makes the heart sick,

but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.

By starting his poem with this reference, the author immediately gains the support
of professing Christians in his community, namely because they believed they
could answer his question, at least in part. They could answer what
happens when hope is deferred. They could answer that, according to the book of
Proverbs, when one hopes or dreams for something, and it is deferred, it makes the
heart sick. On the contrary, when a dream is fulfilled, it brings life and vitality.
Hughes is aware of the answers provided in this specific Proverb, but this poem
gives more depth of insight into his specific dream and the result of his not having
seen it fulfilled.

The question about raisins and the sun gives the readers vivid imagery of what he
feels is happening to him as he has not yet seen his dream fulfilled.

This second question of ‘Harlem (A Dream Deferred)‘, relating to festering like a

sore, paints a grotesque picture for the readers, one which can help them to
strongly identify with the disgust Hughes feels. At the time he wrote this poem, the
slaves had been free for nearly ninety years, and yet were still not treated as equals.
This is his dream deferred. He compares his disappointment to a sore that festers
and oozes, thoroughly giving his readers an understanding of the depths of his
disgust.

His next question about how it smells suggests two possible endings for this dream
deferred. The first is that, like a piece of meat left to rot, it would just continue to
get worse and worse the longer their hope for equality was denied. The second
option is that it would simply crust over. People would become used to living in a
separate society and become comfortable living their own lives in their own
separate communities.

In the next verse, the speaker offers his own view. It becomes clear that he does
not believe this dream will “sugar over” and somehow become tolerable, perhaps
even sweet. Rather, he gives his own suggestion that,

Maybe it just sags

like a heavy load.

This suggests that he feels the heavy weight of the many years he and his ancestors
would wait for others to see them as equal. Hughes felt the heavy burden of this
weight upon his shoulders. It had already been nearly ninety years since the African
American people were freed and given rights as human beings. Yet, as they lived in
separate communities, they were not treated as equals, and Hughes likened this to
the feeling of going through life carrying a very heavy load.

The last line of this poem is written in italics, which causes the reader to pay extra
close attention to the emphasis put on this final question. He asks,

Or does it explode?

With this final question, Hughes implies that one can only carry a heavy load for so
long. He suggests that a festering sore…rotting meat, can only be tolerated for so
long. He implies with this line that something is about to happen. It is clear that
Hughes believes that the African American people cannot tolerate the way they have
been treated in society for much longer. He clearly reveals that after years of
tolerating mistreatment, he certainly feels like giving way to anger or exploding.
And who wouldn’t? Although his life story reveals that he did not explode, but rather
expressed not only his dissatisfaction with society but his intellect and literary genius
in such a way as to prove wrong the discrimination that oppressed him and to pave
the way for many others to follow in the pursuit of civil rights for African Americans.
"Does it dry up

like a raisin in the sun?"

Here, the poet compares a deferred dream to a raisin drying up in the sun. A raisin
starts as a grape, which is juicy and vibrant, but when left in the sun for an extended
period, it loses its moisture and becomes dry, wrinkled, and lifeless. This simile
suggests that a dream deferred may lose its vitality, enthusiasm, and potential for
growth, just as a raisin loses its juiciness and becomes withered.

"Or fester like a sore—

And then run?"

In this line, Hughes employs vivid imagery by comparing a deferred dream to a sore
that festers and eventually bursts open. When a sore festers, it becomes infected,
causing pain, discomfort, and potential complications. The metaphor suggests that
unfulfilled dreams can have negative consequences and may eventually become
unbearable, leading to a sudden release or eruption of emotions.

"Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over—

like a syrupy sweet?"

Here, the poet presents contrasting images to illustrate different possible outcomes
of a deferred dream. The first image compares the dream to rotten meat, which emits
a foul odor when it decays. This conveys the idea that a neglected dream can become
unpleasant and fill one's life with disappointment and dissatisfaction.
The second image contrasts with the previous one, presenting the dream as
something that "crust[s] and sugar[s] over—like a syrupy sweet." This simile
suggests that a dream deferred might be disguised or suppressed by a superficial
layer of sweetness, like a sugary coating on a pastry. However, beneath that sweet
exterior, the dream remains unfulfilled and unattended.

In summary, these lines from "Harlem" by Langston Hughes vividly portray the
various potential outcomes and consequences of delaying or neglecting one's
dreams. The images of a drying raisin, festering sore, rotten meat, and sugary crust
symbolize the loss of vitality, pain, decay, and superficial appearance that can result
from postponing aspirations.
Pike

Pike, three inches long, perfect

Pike in all parts, green tigering the gold.
Killers from the egg: the malevolent aged grin.
They dance on the surface among the flies.

Or move, stunned by their own grandeur,

Over a bed of emerald, silhouette
Of submarine delicacy and horror.
A hundred feet long in their world.

In ponds, under the heat-struck lily pads -

Gloom of their stillness:
Logged on last year's black leaves, watching upwards.
Or hung in an amber cavern of weeds

The jaws' hooked clamp and fangs

Not to be changed at this date;
A life subdued to its instrument;
The gills kneading quietly, and the pectorals.

Three we kept behind glass,

Jungled in weed: three inches, four,
And four and a half: fed fry to them -
Suddenly there were two. Finally one

With a sag belly and the grin it was born with.

And indeed they spare nobody.
Two, six pounds each, over two foot long.
High and dry in the willow-herb -
One jammed past its gills down the other's gullet:
The outside eye stared: as a vice locks -
The same iron in his eye
Though its film shrank in death.

A pond I fished, fifty yards across,

Whose lilies and muscular tench
Had outlasted every visible stone
Of the monastery that planted them -

Stilled legendary depth:

It was as deep as England. It held
Pike too immense to stir, so immense and old
That past nightfall I dared not cast

But silently cast and fished

With the hair frozen on my head
For what might move, for what eye might move.
The still splashes on the dark pond,

Owls hushing the floating woods

Frail on my ear against the dream
Darkness beneath night's darkness had freed,
That rose slowly towards me, watching.

Ted Hughes is known for his use of cynicism and brutality of animal life. ‘Pike’ is
no exception and depicts Pike as an animal born with the instinct to kill and destruct.
He has allegorically used it to imply that every human has got such nature, which is
revealed when he wants to achieve something over the other. It also serves as a
reminiscence of his childhood. The poem ‘Pike’ is published in his second collection
of poetry which exalted his reputation as a major poet of America.
Summary of Pike
The Pike by Ted Hughes is divided into three parts. The first part deals with his
admiration for the ‘Pike’, which comes at the beginning of the poem where the poet
describes the size and color of the Pike with its grandeur by nature. He then keeps
on admiring the beauty and the presence of the fish in the water. He gives
visual imagery of how it lives in its natural habitat. The second part is about his
reminiscence of childhood where he visited the Lakh frequently and his experience
of the three fish he and his friends grew at home. That experience gave him the
lesson that the strong ones survive in the world whereas the weaker ones must
succumb to their fate of being eaten by the healthy one. The third part discusses his
respect and fear for the fish, whose eyes and malevolent grin still haunting him at
night.

Analysis of Pike
The poem gives us a reference to D. H. Lawrence’s poem ‘Mosquito’. The
mosquito does its work it is created for. It makes man dread, though very smaller
in size. The contrast here is that ‘Mosquito’ disgust whereas Pike depicts his
admiration. ‘Pike’ is a poem of forty lines which consists of ten stanzas written
in quatrains. The poem can be divided into three parts:

• Part One – The poet’s admiration and description of the ‘Pike’

• Part two – Poet’s experience with Pikes’
• Part three – Poet’s Fishing experience in the Pond
Stanza One
Pike, three inches long, perfect
(…)
They dance on the surface among the flies.
The first stanza gives a vivid description of a perfect pike in its color, size, and
appearance. The poet states that the Pike is three inches long and perfect in its all
nature. It has the color combination of Green and gold. Here the poet uses
the metaphor ‘tigering the gold’ for describing the color of the fish, which is also a
reference to Tiger for its mightiness’ on earth. ‘Killers from the egg’ refers to its
destructive nature by birth. They also have the wicked grin which another reference
to its killing nature.

Stanza Two
Or move, stunned by their own grandeur,
(…..)
A hundred feet long in their world.

The phrase “stunned by their own grandeur” gives an air of importance to the Pike,
as if it knows that it is something to be respected. It seems it like it is not stunned
about the hundred feet long submarine in its world but about its reflection in the
shadow of the submarine. The words ‘grandeur’, ‘bed of emerald’ once again
indicates his admiration for the majestic appeal of the Fish.

Stanza Three
In ponds, under the heat-struck lily pads –
(…)
Or hung in an amber cavern of weeds
In the fourth stanza, he magnifies the simple act of the fish looking upward as a
royalty keeping his head high while sitting on the thrown observing his subjects. He
states that the fish moves around in ponds under the lily pads, which protects it from
the heat while toiling in the heat themselves. Also, it hung around the bed made of
the fallen leaves of last year drowned in the ponds or above amber cavern made of
weeds while watching upward.

Stanza Four
The jaws’ hooked clamp and fangs
(…)
The gills kneading quietly, and the pectorals.

As mentioned by the poet in the first stanza they are born perfect to kill and survive,
so as it grows, there comes no necessity for it to change itself. At the same time, the
problem of being a Pike appears here as it has to live up to its expectation of inborn
quality. Yet it is clear that it is not strong enough in its core muscles.

Stanza Five
Three we kept behind glass,
(…)
Suddenly there were two. Finally one
Stanza five talks about the poet’s reminiscence of his childhood, where he kept three
fish of different sizes: Three-inch, Four-inch, and Four and a half inch. ‘We’ does
not tell us whether it is his friends or siblings, so we is assumed as his friends. They
kept them in a glass jar but within a few days, there was only one left. It tells us that
in this world full of violence, only the stronger one remains.

Stanzas Six and Seven

With a sag belly and the grin it was born with.
(…)
Though its film shrank in death.

These species are born to kill, so they spare nobody, even of its own kind. Here he
gives another incident where he had to witness two pikes of about six pounds and
Two foot long goes against each other. While fighting one enters into the mouth of
the other causing death to both. The incident presents a sheer truth that vice can
never beget virtue.

Stanza Eight and Nine

A pond I fished, fifty yards across,
(…)
That past nightfall I dared not cast
Stanza Eight and Nine speaks about the Pond where the poet usually goes fishing. It
looks like a fine place for fishing having spread across fifty yards. It is a very old
Pond with Lilies and Tench (also known as doctor fish is a fresh- and brackish-water
fish of the cyprinid family found throughout Eurasia from Western Europe) has
outlived the stones with which the monastery has built them. ‘Legendary depth
suggests that the depth of the pond is unclear. He metaphorically compares the Pond
to England to imply that both are impenetrable and known to the outsiders only
through legends. Besides, it has also been a home for many Pikes which are so
immense and old, provided the poet states that he has never dared fishing after
nightfall. It is another see-through to his fear for Pike – the aftermath of his
witnessing a Pike killing another Pike.

Stanzas Ten and Eleven

But silently cast and fished
(………)
That rose slowly towards me, watching.

In stanza ten & eleven he tells us about, how his fear of Pike grew along with him.
Even now, he carries that fear. As a result, whenever he goes to that Pond for fishing,
he never dared to make noise but fished silently. The following lines detail the
experience of fishing at night in the pond. It is not clear if the poet has dreamt of
fishing or had he trialed his fear of fishing in the pond at night. He illustrates the
dreadful experience of fishing, with all his hairs frozen on his head, which reflects
his fear of what could be moving beneath the water or which eyes would be watching
him. Night near the pond unfolds with the owls hushing the woods, which looks like
floating due to the extreme darkness. As the darkness of the night unfolds, he
proposes that ‘Darkness beneath’ (the pikes) is freed. It raises keeping his eyes fixed
on the poet as if it is watching his actions.
Structure of Pike
The poem is written in 44 lines divided into 11 quatrains. It doesn’t follow any
particular form or rhyme scheme. The first letter of all the lines are capitalized
purposefully to give the magnificent appeal to the Pike, in spite of the lines ending
in the middle in many places.

Themes in Pike
‘Beauty and Brutality of Nature’, ‘Reminiscence of Childhood’, and ‘Inborn
instincts’ are the major themes present in the poem Pike. Pike is beautiful by nature
and at the same time it is meant to kill for its survival, which is the brutal fate of it.
From growing the pikes in a glass jar and the dreadful experience of seeing a pike
killing another, gives an overview of the poet’s experiences with Pike and the impact
of it. The inborn killer instinct of the pike is an implication on the natural human
instincts that comes with every individual even if they do not ask for it.

Metaphorical Use of England

England is used as a metaphor to describe the depth of the Pond. He indirectly
implies that, like the Pond, England also has its own depth which is not known to
many. It can also be considered a satire on England for keeping many people who
are violent by nature and walks the city of England with killer instincts or people
who are ready to grow bigger at the cost of the fellow human being. This can also
be considered as hyperbole, as it is a poem of reminiscence.
About Ted Hughes
Edward J. Hughes popularly known as Ted Hughes lived between 1930 and 1998.
He married Sylvia Plath in 1956, who introduced him to the world of poetry and
Literature. He published his first collection of poetry The Hawk in the Rain was
published in 1957, followed by Lupercal in 1960. Following Plath’s suicide in 1963,
no poetry or work was published by him but years later he went on a writing spree
and published volumes after volumes such as Wodwo (1967), Crow (1970),
Wolfwatching (1989), and New Selected Poems, 1957–1994 (1995). In 1998 he
published his ‘Birthday Letters’ which gave insight into his relationship with Plath
after decades of silence. He is known for his way of dealing with the brutality of life
through his allegorical poems. He is best known for his use of animal imagery.
 Still I Rise
BY MAYA A NGE LOU

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom?
’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,

With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
’Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?

Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame

I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

Maya Angelou, born in 1928, lived through some of the worst oppression and
inequality for African American people. Although slavery had been long abolished,
Angelou saw its effects on society and the African American people. ‘Still I Rise’ is
her declaration that she, for one, would not allow the hatefulness of society to
determine her own success.

The poem, ‘Still I Rise,’ is not only a proclamation of her own determination to rise
above society but was also a call to others to live above the society in which they
were brought up.

Summary
‘Still I Rise‘ by Maya Angelou is an inspiring and moving poem that celebrates self-
love and self-acceptance.

The poem takes the reader through a series of statements the speaker makes about
herself. She praises her strength, her body, and her ability to rise up and away from
her personal and historical past. There is nothing, the speaker declares, that can hold
her back. She is going to “rise” above and beyond anything that seeks to control her.
Meaning
The title of the poem, ‘Still I Rise’ is a proclamation against the society that tries to
dominate the speaker’s voice. The speaker or the poetic persona represents the
poet’s voice. She represents the black community as a whole.

Through this poem, she tries to break through the shackles of domination and raises
her voice to say that she and her people are no longer mute. They have got the voice
to proclaim their rights. No matter how hard they try, she will prove to them the
abilities of black people.

The phrase, “I rise” is not about a singular uprising. It’s a collective revolutionary
voice that consists of the raging uproar of a class, oppressed and betrayed for a long
time.

Structure and Form

‘Still I Rise’ is a nine-stanza poem that’s separated into uneven sets of lines. The first
seven stanzas contain four lines, known as quatrains, stanza eight has six lines and
the ninth has nine. The first seven stanzas follow a rhyme scheme of ABCB, the
eighth: ABABCC, and the ninth: ABABCCBBB.

Tone and Mood

Within ‘Still I Rise’ Angelou takes a strong and determined tone throughout her
writing. By addressing her’s, and all marginalized communities’ strengths, pasts,
and futures head-on, she’s able to create a very similar mood. A reader should walk
away from ‘Still Rise’ feeling inspired, joyful, and reinvigorated with courage and
strength.
Poetic Techniques and Figurative
Language
Angelou makes use of several poetic techniques and different kinds of figurative
language in ‘Still I Rise’. These include anaphora, alliteration, enjambment,
and similes. The first, anaphora, is the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning
of multiple lines, usually in succession. In this piece, a reader should look to stanza
six for an example. Here, Angelou uses the phrase “You may” at the start of lines
one through three.

Alliteration occurs when words are used in succession, or at least appear close
together, and begin with the same letter. For example, ” huts of history” in line one
of the eighth stanza and “gifts” and “gave” in stanza nine.

Another important technique commonly used in poetry is enjambment. It occurs

when a line is cut off before its natural stopping point. Enjambment forces a reader
down to the next line, and the next, quickly. One has to move forward to comfortably
resolve a phrase or sentence. For example, the transition between lines two and three
of the first stanza and two and three of the second stanza.

A simile is a comparison between two unlike things that uses the words “like” or
“as”. A poet uses this kind of figurative language to say that one thing is similar to
another, not like metaphor, that it “is” another. In the third stanza of ‘Still I
Rise’ with the line “Just like hopes springing high” or in lines three and four of the
fifth stanza: “’Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines / Diggin’ in my own backyard”.
Themes
The major poetic themes of this work are self-empowerment, perseverance, and
injustice. Throughout the text, the speaker, who is commonly considered to be
Angelou herself, addresses her own oppressor. The “you” she refers to represents
the varieties of injustices that people of color, women, and all marginalized
communities have dealt with as long as history has been recorded.

She throws a prior self-derogatory way of thinking to the side and addresses herself
lovingly and proudly. The poet seeks to empower herself, as well as all those who
have doubted their abilities, strength, beauty, intelligence, or worth. This is seen
through lines like “You may trod me in the very dirt / But still, like dust, I’ll rise”.

Imagery
This poem is filled with vivid imagery. To begin with, there is visual imagery in
the very beginning. Through this line, “But still, like dust, I’ll rise.” So, here the
image of “dust” helps the speaker to make her point. According to her, none can
control the dust when the revolutionary wind arrives. Likewise, she will rise like
dust particles and blind those who trod her before.

The following stanzas contain some more images. For example, readers can find the
image of oil wells pumping oil. The third stanza has images of the moon, sun, and
tides. In this stanza, she depicts the tides that are springing high. It is compared to
“hope”. There is an image of a black individual who is in extreme distress. This
image represents how they were tortured and made silent by the unlawful fist.
Angelou uses the images of “gold mines” and “diamonds” to heighten the irony of
this piece. Lastly, the “black ocean” unfolds how powerful the speaker and her
people are. Their greatness is like that of the immensity of the ocean.
Symbolism
Angelou’s ‘Still I Rise’ is a symbolic poem. It contains several symbols that refer to
different ideas. For example, in the first stanza, the poet uses “dirt” as a symbol. It
represents how the black community was treated in history.

In the following stanzas, there are several symbolic references. These are “oil wells”,
“gold mines” and “diamonds”. They collectively refer to the resourcefulness of the
speaker. Those symbols do not deal with anything materialistic, rather they hint at
her intellectual wealth.

In the fourth stanza, the moon and sun represent the speaker herself. While the
upward movement of tides symbolizes how hope springs in her heart concerning the
future. Besides, some phrases deal with the concept of slavery in this line, “Bowed
head and lowered eyes.”

There is an important symbol of the “black ocean” in the eighth stanza. This ocean
represents black people. The speaker says, “I’m a black ocean”. Here, it acts as a
symbol of energy and immensity. The last stanza contains another symbol in the
usage of the word “night”. It is a symbol of fear, oppression, and pessimism.

Analysis, Stanza by Stanza

Stanza One
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.
In this stanza, Maya Angelou gives her heart and soul to declare that nothing and
no one could oppress her or keep her down. She doesn’t care what the history
books saw, for she knows they are full of “twisted lies.” She will not let it bother
her that others “trod” her “in the very dirt.” She proclaims that if she is trodden in
the dirt, she will rise like dust.

Stanza Two
Does my sassiness upset you?
(…)
Pumping in my living room.

In the second stanza, she asks a question. This is an interesting question, as

she refers to her own tone as “sassiness” and asks the hearer if her sassy
tone is upsetting. The poet notices that the people around her in her society
are “beset with gloom” when she succeeds. She questions this. She knows
that she is succeeded in life, in her writing, and as a woman. The “oil wells
pumping in [her] living room” symbolize her success.

Stanza Three
Just like moons and like suns,
(…)
Still I’ll rise.
In this stanza, she compares herself to the moon and the sun as they are
affected by the tides. This gives the reader the understanding that the
speaker has no other choice but to rise out of her affliction. Try as a society
might keep her oppressed, it is in her nature to rise and stand against
oppression just as it is the nature of the tides to respond to the moon.

Stanza Four
Did you want to see me broken?
(…)
Weakened by my soulful cries.

The speaker’s questions in this stanza are direct, pertinent, and

appropriately accusing. She knows that her own success is received with
bitterness by the racist people in her society. So she directs these questions
at a society that has long tried to keep her oppressed. She asks them if they
want to see her broken, oppressed, depressed, and bitter.

She asks these questions know that this indeed is what many in society
wanted. They did not want to see a black woman rise out of the oppression
of her society and succeed. The speaker knows this and she draws attention
to it with these revealing, yet cutting questions.

Stanza Five
Does my haughtiness offend you?
(…)
Diggin’ in my own back yard.
She continues with the questions directed at a racist society when she asks
whether her “haughtiness” is offensive. She knows that society resents
seeing a black woman full of pride. This question has an air
of sarcasm which serves to point out the hypocrisy of society as it is
embittered by the success of one that it has tried to oppress. The speaker
continues in a sarcastic tone as she pretends to comfort the hearer.

The poet says, “don’t you take it awful hard.” This is her sarcastic way of
pretending to care for those who resent her success. She continues,
however, to in a sense “flaunt” her success before the society that has
always oppressed her. She claims that she has “gold mines” and that she
laughs at the success she has found.

Stanza Six
You may shoot me with your words,
(…)
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

In this stanza, she lets society know that no matter what it does to oppress
her, it will not succeed. The poet lets society know that it cannot prevail
against her with words or looks. She proclaims that society cannot prevail
against her even if it managed to have her killed because of its hatefulness.
She claims that she will still “like air” rise.
Stanza Seven
Does my sexiness upset you?
(…)
At the meeting of my thighs?

The speaker continues her questioning of society. By this time in the poem,
it becomes apparent that the speaker has placed society on trial and is now
in the process of cross-examination. She knows the answers to these
questions, but to ask them is to incriminate the offender. While she asks
incriminating questions, she simultaneously reveals incredible self-
confidence despite the oppression of society.

Stanza Eight
Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
(…)
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

In this stanza, the speaker finally refers to the past- the reason that she is
oppressed and resented to this day. She calls slavery “history’s shame” and
she proclaims that she will not be held down by the past, even if it is
“rooted in pain.”
Stanza Nine
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

In the final stanza, the speaker reveals that she intends to leave behind all
the effects of slavery and the history of oppression with the intent to rise
above it. She claims that she will leave behind the “terror and fear” and that
she will rise above the pain and the oppression “Into a daybreak that’s
wondrously clear.”

The speaker does not intend to allow the hatefulness of society or the pain
of the past to stop her from becoming all that she ever dreamed of being.
For this reason, she repeats three times, “I rise.”

Historical Context
The poem, ‘Still I Rise’ was published in Maya Angelou’s poetry collection, “And
Still I Rise” in 1978. It is the collection’s title poem. This poem appears in the third
part of the book. Angelou wrote a play in 1976 by the same title and the work also
touches on similar themes such as courage, injustice, and spirit of the Black people.
This poem appeared in an advertising campaign for the 50th anniversary of the
United Negro College Fund in 1994.

In an interview in 1997, Angelou stated that she used the poem to sustain herself in
hard times. According to her, not only the black but also the white used it similarly.
This inspirational poem has some references that make readers look back at history.
It reminds how black people were treated in the past. The speaker is one of them.
She firmly speaks against the injustices against them and says no matter how much
society tries to throttle her voice, she will rise like the phoenix.
Valentine
Carol Ann Duffy

Not a red rose or a satin heart.

I give you an onion.

It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.
It promises light
like the careful undressing of love.

Here.
It will blind you with tears
like a lover.
It will make your reflection
a wobbling photo of grief.

I am trying to be truthful.

Not a cute card or a kissogram.

I give you an onion.

Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,
possessive and faithful
as we are,
for as long as we are.

Take it.
Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding ring,
if you like.
Lethal.
Its scent will cling to your fingers,
cling to your knife.
Carol Ann Duffy, the poet of ‘Valentine’, has a unique way of expressing her love
unconventionally through this profound work of poetry. Duffy is one of Britain’s
most famous poets. She was born in Glasgow and raised in England from the age of
seven, where, even from a young age, she showed a great command of poetic skills.
The poet spurns traditional expressions of love in favour of a nontraditional
Valentine’s Day gift, claiming that it symbolized love in a much more realistic way
than roses or heart-shaped candies. ‘Valentine’ uses an everyday ordinary object, the
onion, to represent her deepest feelings and most abstract thoughts. The
juxtaposition of ordinary objects with her intense feelings serves to create the mood
and tone of this particular work.

Summary
‘Valentine’ by Carol Ann Duffy talks about an onion that the poet gives her partner
as a valentine-gift.

In ‘Valentine’, Carol Ann Duffy has done an excellent job of taking a love poem and
subverting it using an onion as a metaphor for love itself. The comparison gets more
ambiguous as the poem unfolds and readers become unsure what is the comparison
and what is being talked about, love, or the onion. However, the suggestion this
poem is trying to make is that true love is about more than cliché gifts and that the
nature of love means that it can be destructive if not properly tended to. It is also
trying to show when it comes to love that sentiment and hard work trumps love based
on meaningless gifts. It is a gift of Duffy’s that she gives away so little in her poems
and always leaves one wanting more.

Form and Tone

‘Valentine’ by Carol Ann Duffy tends to deal with a difficult subject matter and
is written in the first person in the form of a dramatic monologue, aimed directly
at the reader. The poem is written in free verse with no rhyming pattern. It has
no rhyming whatsoever save for some repeated words.

The tone is unusual in so much as it is a love poem, of sorts, but has an unsettling
feel to it due to the way the poem uses an onion as a metaphor for love itself.
Moreover, the short stanzas followed by longer stanzas and the mix of sentence
lengths gives the poem a stuttering feel which just adds to the air of unease that
the poem delivers. This device acts as a mirror for the ups and downs of a
relationship. Duffy is renowned for using the form of poetry to help emphasize
the poem’s point and she does that here.

Literary Devices
‘Valentine’ by Carol Ann Duffy contains several literary devices. Likewise, in this
first stanza, it is one of only two times in the poem that Duffy uses alliteration.
This device symbolizes the “cuteness” associated with these items traditionally
used as valentines’ gifts. “Cute card” is the second example of alliteration
in ‘Valentine’. Again this line stands in isolation to highlight the importance of
dismissing the materialistic things mentioned in the poem.

In the second stanza, there is enjambment. It makes the last two lines seem like the
narrator was talking about the onion all along. The slightly troublesome undertones
appear just briefly as the narrator talks of the “fierce kiss” and how it is
“possessive”. It is suggesting that, like the onion, love can be “fierce” and that it
isn’t always a picnic. the metaphor is being mixed in with love itself here and the
line between them is so fine as to not exist.

More, there are comparisons and paradoxes at work here. The “fierce kiss” is an
oxymoron as is the “possessive and faithful” these are used to show the highs and
lows of being in love.
Themes
‘Valentine’ by Carol Ann Duffy contains several important themes. In the poem,
there are themes of love, convention, individualism, and vanity of materialism. As
the title of the poem says, it is a pure love poem but unique for the poet’s unique
expression. The poet metaphorically compares her love to an onion. Here, the poet
refers to the qualities of onion such as its multi-layered structure, strong smell, and
color for emphasizing the gift’s versatility. Moreover, the poet criticizes the
conventions associated with Valentine’s day. She finds it useless to gift her
beloved “a red rose” or “a satin heart”. Rather, she prefers her day-to-day
companion while cooking, an onion as a gift.

This feminist text also has the theme of individualism. Here, the poet puts aside all
such conventional gifts of love. She prefers the onion superior to any other
valuable items. The onion is nothing in comparison to the price of “a satin heart”
or an emotionless “kissogram”. But, Duffy’s heart is nurtured with emotions and
love. The tinklings of materialism can’t impress her. That’s why she is content
with the onion.

Imagery
‘Valentine’ by Carol Ann Duffy is full of vibrant imagery. The poet makes use of
some important types of imagery in the poem. Likewise, the first line of the poem
contains two images, of a red rose and a satin heart. The first image is visual and
olfactory imagery. Whereas, the second one is an example of visual and tactile
imagery. Moreover, the poet utilizes all the images associated with the onion. For
expressing her emotions for her partner, she refers to the smell, structure, colour,
and taste of the onion. In the second stanza, the poet uses an image of an onion
reflecting its colour. In the following stanza, she refers to its odour that brings tears
to the eyes. Moreover, in the last sections, the poet uses gustatory imagery and
visual imagery referring to the onion’s taste and colour consecutively.

Valentine Analysis
Line 1
Not a red rose or a satin heart.

The speaker of ‘Valentine’ by Carol Ann Duffy immediately reveals to the reader
that she chooses to reject the traditional or expected valentine’s day gifts such as
roses and heart-shaped gifts. Traditional gifts suggest traditional love, but the
speaker makes it clear from the start that her love is not traditional, and that a
traditional gift will not do to represent her love.

Lines 2–5
I give you an onion.

(…)

like the careful undressing of love.

In this section of ‘Valentine’, the speaker offers an entirely unconventional gift.

She says that she is giving her lover an onion. She then explains this gift. She finds
it more appropriate than roses or hearts. She claims that it is a moon wrapped in
brown paper. Since the outer part of the onion does look like wrapping paper, the
reader can imagine the speaker handing the onion to her lover, expecting her lover
to open the gift. Here, the moon symbolizes love, and the speaker claims to be
giving her lover the moon in the form of an onion. Lovers have often said they
would give the moon if they could. Here, the speaker suggests that she has given
the moon, but it turns out to be an onion.

However, the “onion” symbolizes the humble nature of the gift but also
simultaneously represents the brown skin of the French onion. “it promises light”
suggests that the onion is somehow a metaphor for love itself, the metaphor
continues as the narrator talks about the careful undressing of love. This makes one
think about how carefully one has to peel the skin from an onion to avoid tears.

Lines 6–10
Here.

It will blind you with tears

(…)

a wobbling photo of grief.

The first line of this stanza is very clever as it leaves a lot of ambiguity about what
the narrator is talking about. What will blind you with tears? Is it a reference to the
onion or love itself? The use of a pronoun here is what makes the line so ingenious.
Here things start to take a slightly eerie turn as the narrator states “It will make
your reflection a wobbling photo of grief.” What is this referencing? Love or the
onion? Either way, it is not a pleasant description.

Moreover, line six allows the reader to picture the speaker handing the onion to her
lover. It appears that the one to whom she speaks is unwilling to accept the gift.
Thus, the speaker says, “here” and tries once again to give the onion as a gift. She
then goes on to explain, “It will blind you with tears”. She explains that this is yet
another reason that the onion is an appropriate Valentine’s Day gift. She says that
the onion will do the same thing that a lover will do, which is to blind one with
tears and make one’s reflection blurry like “a wobbling photo of grief”. With line
ten, the reader can grasp a deeper understanding of the speaker’s cynical feelings
toward love. She believes that love brings tears and grief. Thus, she feels the onion
is an appropriate representation of love.

Line 11
I am trying to be truthful.

This line of ‘Valentine’ stands in a stanza on its own purely for emphasis. To
highlight its importance and to show that it is indeed the truth. Here, the speaker
reveals her genuine feelings. She is not trying to be facetious or cutting simply for
spite. Rather, she expresses her need to be truthful about love. She feels that
offering an onion as a representation of her love is her way of making an honest
gesture.

Line 12
Not a cute card or a kissogram.

Again, in ‘Valentine’, Duffy scoffs at the idea of traditional Valentine’s Day gifts
and favours her choice of an onion to represent her unconventional feelings toward
love.
Lines 13–17
I give you an onion.

(…)

for as long as we are.

This stanza of ‘Valentine’ is full of confidence. The narrator is not to be doubted

here. The last two lines have an almost wedding vow-like quality to them and this
runs on from the narrator mentioning that they are faithful. Here, the poet is trying
to say that real love is enduring.

Here, the speaker repeats that she is giving her lover an onion. She continues to
explain why she thinks it is an appropriate gift. She claims that its “fierce kiss”
would “stay on [her lover’s] lips”. She reveals the depths of her negative feelings
toward love. She believes the kiss of her lover has stayed on her lips like the smell
of an onion. Rather than describing a kiss as something sweet and fragrant, she
describes it as powerful and potent. Though the two lovers have been faithful, they
have also been possessive.

This, too, is like the smell of an onion. It lingers in the breath and on clothes and
skin. The smell is not easily removed. This also represents the relationship between
these two people. The words in this particular section make it difficult to conclude
whether or not the speaker desires the relationship she is in. She calls it “faithful”
and “possessive” in one line. This causes the reader to question the speaker’s
feelings about her lover.

At the end of this stanza, however, the speaker claims that the fragrance of the kiss,
like the smell of onion, will stay with them “for as long as [they] are”. This sounds
very similar to the wedding vow, “till death do us part.” The speaker implies that
no matter what happens between them, their love will linger for as long as they
exist.

Lines 18–20
Take it.

(…)

if you like.

In this section of ‘Valentine’, the two-word sentence “take it” is once again very
assertive and striking. Like the narrator is forcing this gift upon their partner
perhaps? The narrator then continues to compare the rings of an onion to a
platinum wedding ring, the “if you like” run-on suggesting a proposal of sorts.
Kind of like the narrator saying this onion could be a proposal if that’s what you
want.

Moreover, in line eighteen, a reader can again picture the speaker’s lover as an
unwilling recipient of this gift. She once again says, “take it”, revealing that her
lover has not yet received her gift. The speaker then further explains the onion’s
significance, claiming that the inner layers of the onion are small like wedding
rings. She ends with the phrase “if you like” which makes the reader question the
stance of the speaker’s lover. The speaker seems unsure of her lover’s feelings. She
suggests wedding rings but is unsure if her lover would like that idea.

In this section of ‘Valentine’, the two-word sentence “take it” is once again very
assertive and striking. Like the narrator is forcing this gift upon their partner
perhaps? The narrator then continues to compare the rings of an onion to a
platinum wedding ring, the “if you like” run-on suggesting a proposal of sorts.
Kind of like the narrator saying this onion could be a proposal if that’s what you
want.

Moreover, in line eighteen, a reader can again picture the speaker’s lover as an
unwilling recipient of this gift. She once again says, “take it”, revealing that her
lover has not yet received her gift. The speaker then further explains the onion’s
significance, claiming that the inner layers of the onion are small like wedding
rings. She ends with the phrase “if you like” which makes the reader question the
stance of the speaker’s lover. The speaker seems unsure of her lover’s feelings. She
suggests wedding rings but is unsure if her lover would like that idea.

Lines 21–23
Lethal.

(…)

cling to your knife.

This section of ‘Valentine’, is subverted with a single word sentence: “lethal” is

that meant to mean that marriage is lethal? Or a platinum wedding ring is? Is Duffy
suggesting that material objects are the enemy of love, that they are somehow
lethal to romance? Or is she suggesting marriage itself is fatally damaging? Once
again the metaphor and reality are hard to prize apart. And the striking oxymorons
further add to the reader’s confusion.

The last two lines are quite harrowing if about love and quite mundane if about the
onion. The mention of a knife is particularly interesting, especially having just
mentioned the word “fatal”. Coincidentally, after reading Duffy’s ‘Human
Interest’, a poem about a man that stabs his wife, a reader can feel that this poem
could head in that direction as well!

Moreover, line twenty-one reveals that the speaker believes that love is lethal to
the human heart. She tells her lover that her love will stick to her fingers. This
represents the idea that love is not easily washed away. The feelings will linger and
stick. The final line of this poem can leave the reader somewhat puzzled. So far,
the poem has been unconventional and somewhat cynical. It is not entirely clear
whether the speaker desires to be in love with the one to whom she speaks.

Here, she ends by telling the person that the scent of her love will “cling to [her
lover’s] knife”. The knife, quite possibly, suggests a cutting off of the relationship.
This seems to be a warning to the speaker’s audience that when one cuts off a
relationship, the feelings of love linger still like the scent of an onion.
 Digging
BY S EAMU S HEAN EY

Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.

Under my window, a clean rasping sound

When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds

Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft

Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked,
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a spade.

Just like his old man.

My grandfather cut more turf in a day

Than any other man on Toner’s bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, going down and down
For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap

Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pen rests.
I’ll dig with it.

Here is an analysis of the poem ‘Digging’ by Seamus Heaney. Heaney was an Irish
playwright, poet, and academic; he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995.
Heaney’s career was both prolific and successful. In 1966, he published his first
major work, Death of a Naturalist, in which this poem is included. Three years later,
he published his second volume of poetry, Door into the Dark. By this time, Heaney
was already receiving critical acclaim for his writing, and a slew of academic
lectures followed. While many of his poems can be construed as being political in
nature, the majority of his poems fall under the category of naturalism; many of the
images in his poem are taken from his surroundings in Northern Ireland. Heaney
died on August 30, 2013, after a short illness.
Summary
This poem is autobiographical in nature. The speaker, presumably Heaney, is sitting
at his writing desk, preparing to write, when he hears his father working in the garden
outside. This conjures memories of the speaker as a young boy, listening and
watching as his father digs in the potato garden. The speaker marvels at how well
his father digs, which conjures an even older memory of his grandfather, his father’s
father, completing the arduous task of digging through peat moss. Toward the end
of the poem, the speaker writes as though he can smell the potatoes from the garden
and the peat moss his grandfather has dug. He confesses that he does not have a
spade like the two generations before him, but he does have a pen which he will use
to “dig.”

Analysis of Digging
The poem is comprised of eight stanzas of varying lengths. There is no set rhyme
scheme, though some of the lines do rhyme.

Stanza One
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.

The first stanza contains only two lines. The speaker is focusing on the pen in his
hand. Heaney utilizes a simile, telling the reader the pen rests “snug as a gun.” The
reference to a gun is no coincidence: Heaney expects the reader to infer that the
pen is his instrument, his weapon. This idea will repeat itself in the last stanza of
the poem.
 Stanza Two
Under my window, a clean rasping sound
(…)
My father, digging. I look down
In the second stanza, the speaker hears the sound of his father’s garden spade sinking
“into gravelly ground.” He gazes down at his father while he works in the garden.
There is no punctuation at the end of the last line in stanza two, the thought is
continued into the third stanza.

Stanza Three
Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds
(…)
Where he was digging.

Heaney utilizes a flashback quite cleverly in the third stanza. The speaker is
suddenly transported to twenty years ago, watching his father complete the same
task.

Stanza Four
The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
(…)
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

The fourth stanza is rich in description, as the speaker paints the image of his
father digging through the potato beds.
Stanza Five
By God, the old man could handle a spade.
Just like his old man.

The fifth stanza is comprised of just two simple lines as the speaker marvels at his
father. The reader is then transported even further through time as the speaker then
conjures images of his grandfather performing a similar task.

Stanza Six
My grandfather cut more turf in a day
(…)
For the good turf. Digging.

The eight lines contained in the sixth stanza are the longest in the poem. The first
two lines read:

My grandfather cut more turf in a day

Than any other man on Toner’s bog.

Here, the reader gets a glimpse into the setting of the poem. In Ireland, peat moss
has been used as an alternative to coal. Cutting turf is an incredibly grueling task
and the fact that Heaney claims his grandfather could cut more than any other man
signifies not only the physical strength of his grandfather, but Heaney’s own
admiration for the hard work his grandfather was able to do by himself.

He then shares an anecdote with his reader as he describes encountering his

grandfather out on the bog one day. The speaker describes a day when he brought a
bottle of milk to his grandfather. Heaney’s grandfather barely stops his work,
quickly drinking the milk and then returning to digging and cutting.
Stanza Seven
The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
(…)
But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.

The seventh stanza returns the reader to the present day, as the speaker sits at his
writing desk.

The memories are so vivid and alive in the speaker that he can actually smell the
freshly dug potatoes and the “soggy peat”. He can hear the sound the peat made as
it was cut. The speaker realizes that, unlike his father and grandfather, he has no
spade to follow in their footsteps.

Stanza Eight
Between my finger and my thumb
(…)
I’ll dig with it.

What he does have, however, is revealed in the eighth and final stanza, which
contains only three lines. Much is contained in these three simple lines. First,
Heaney uses repetition, as once again, he describes holding his pen between his
finger and thumb.

Heaney’s diction here is also curious, as he uses the word “squat” to describe his
instrument. While it can describe the physical appearance of the pen
itself, Heaney could also be showing the connection between himself and his father
and grandfather, both of whom would have to squat in order to properly dig for the
potatoes and peat moss. The last line, “I’ll dig with it,” signifies that while Heaney
realizes his instrument is different from previous generations, he is still completing
an arduous task. While his father and grandfather dug for potatoes and moss, he is
digging for the right word, constantly attempting to create sustenance through his
words.

Historical Significance
While this poem certainly is not political in nature, it does give a glimpse into the
lives of hardworking Irishmen. In previous generations, men had to dig for both
food and fuel. Because Ireland does not have a wealth of coal, men often had to dig
through the bogs to acquire enough peat moss that could be burned as an
alternative means of fuel.
The White Lilies
As a man and woman make
a garden between them like
a bed of stars, here
they linger in the summer evening
and the evening turns
cold with their terror: it
could all end, it is capable
of devastation. All, all
can be lost, through scented air
the narrow columns
uselessly rising, and beyond,
a churning sea of poppies--

Hush, beloved. It doesn't matter to me

how many summers I live to return:
this one summer we have entered eternity.
I felt your two hands
bury me to release its splendor.

Theme:
The theme of the poem revolves around the profound connection between two
individuals and their experience of love in the face of potential loss and the
transient nature of life. It explores the idea that even though everything is
susceptible to destruction and impermanence, the power of love can transform a
single moment into something eternal.

Tone:
The tone of the poem shifts from a sense of apprehension and fear in the beginning
to a more intimate, tender, and accepting tone as it progresses. There is a
combination of vulnerability and reassurance throughout the poem, capturing the
emotional depth and strength of the bond between the two individuals.
Line-by-line explanation:

"As a man and woman make

a garden between them like
a bed of stars, here
they linger in the summer evening"

These opening lines depict a couple creating a garden together, symbolizing their
shared space and intimacy. The comparison to a "bed of stars" suggests a sense of
beauty and celestial wonder. The phrase "linger in the summer evening" implies
their presence in a fleeting, but cherished, moment of togetherness.

"and the evening turns

cold with their terror: it
could all end, it is capable
of devastation."

Here, the tone shifts towards apprehension and vulnerability. The couple becomes
aware of the transience of their situation and the possibility of losing what they
have. The idea of the evening turning cold signifies the intrusion of fear and
uncertainty.

"All, all
can be lost, through scented air
the narrow columns
uselessly rising, and beyond,
a churning sea of poppies--"
These lines highlight the fragility of their connection. The phrase "all, all can be
lost" emphasizes the potential for the relationship to crumble. The mention of
"scented air" and "narrow columns" suggests an ephemeral and insubstantial
nature. The image of a "churning sea of poppies" signifies the tumultuous and
unpredictable nature of their circumstances.

"Hush, beloved. It doesn't matter to me

how many summers I live to return:
this one summer we have entered eternity."

In this section, the tone shifts to one of reassurance and acceptance. The speaker,
addressing their beloved, acknowledges the impermanence of life but emphasizes
that the duration of their time together is inconsequential. The phrase "this one
summer we have entered eternity" suggests that the depth and intensity of their
love have transcended the constraints of time.

"I felt your two hands

bury me to release its splendor."
These final lines express the profound impact of the beloved's touch. The image of
the hands "burying" the speaker suggests an intimate and transformative
connection. The act of burying becomes a symbol of release, allowing the full
splendor of their love to flourish.

The main idea:

The main idea of the poem revolves around the idea that despite the transient and
potentially devastating nature of life, love has the power to transform a single
moment into something eternal. It explores the vulnerability, fear, and reassurance
that can exist within a deep and meaningful connection between two individuals.
The specific circumstances that led to the creation of this poem are not provided.
However, it appears to be an introspective exploration of love, vulnerability, and
the recognition of the fleeting nature of life's experiences.