POETRY
Two famous poems
Clown in the moon
My tears are like the quiet drift Of petals from some magic rose; And all my grief flows from the rift Of unremembered skies and snows. I think, that if I touched the earth, It would crumble; It is so sad and beautiful, So tremulously like a dream. Analysis The poem revolves around a clown who is stuck on the moon and feels lonely but cannot make his way home to earth, the clown is also the narrator of the poem. I think the underlying theme of the poem is "ignorance is bliss". If all people face the reality that clowns which represent happiness can ironically be sad, it would leave the people hopeless and society would "crumble". Just like a dream, reality can take over and destroy happiness. The deeper meaning of this poem is you can try as hard as possible to forget your past but it will always be there to haunt you and by supressing your memories you’re only making them more relate-able to your life. His tears are the rain that fall in a “quiet drift” and there are, “unremembered skies and snows” instead the unremembered years. Also, he says, “If I touched the earth.” This must mean on a literal level that he has not touched the earth. I suppose one can see anything one likes in the moon. The moon can never in reality touch the earth. The clown not only represents happiness, but as pointed out is a painted mask for happiness that hides a saddened heart from memories of the past. It is as if he does not want to forget them even as he lives a normal life in reality. Perhaps he is wondering if he is a fool living this way. And that all of life in reality will soon be a past sad memory. It is as if all that is real and that one is left with his memory and that we are fools to believe life lasts forever. It passes quickly like a dream and into memory. The writer also puts a simile at the beginning of the poem where it says: “My tears are like quiet drift.” The meaning of the simile in my opinion is that the tears of the narrator are subtle and gentle. “If petals from some magic rose” this passage is referring to rareness of the character tearing up. The narrator seems depressed and isolated in this poem. Another simile used in this poem is at the end of the piece, where it says: “So tremulously like a dream.” The quote is describing the fear that the clown has and is relating this fear to a dream. It is an interesting pattern that the poem begins with a simile and ends with a simile, a parallel structure of sorts.Also, the rhyme scheme for this poem works really well, in conveying the message of the piece. |
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Do not go gentle into that good night
Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night. Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night. Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light. First 3 lines Metaphor: At first this is a puzzling metaphor but, by the end of line 3, we realize that the speaker is using night as a metaphor for death: the span of one day could represent a man's lifetime, which makes the sunset his approaching demise. Rhyme: "That good night" is renamed at the end of line 2 as the "close of day," and at the end of line 3 as "the dying of the light." It's probably not an accident that the metaphor for death keeps getting repeated at the end of the lines, either. Or that the two rhyming words that begin the poem are "night" and "day." Meaning: So what does the speaker want to tell us about death? Well, he thinks that old men shouldn't die peacefully or just slip easily away from this life. Instead, they should "burn and rave," struggling with a fiery intensity. Lines 4-6 Even though smart people know death is inevitable (line 4), they don't just accept it and let themselves fade away (line 6), because they may not have achieved everything they were capable of yet (line 5). But even though clever people know they're going to die, they don't simply accept it. They don't take the news lying down. These words don't fork lightning, which means they don't split and divert the massive electrical shock of the lightning bolt, which draws it toward themselves like a lightning rod instead. Even though the "wise men" have put everything they can into their "words," those words weren't attractive enough to make the lightning split. Basically, they haven't really made much of a mark on the world. Lines 7-9 Imagery: Thomas adds an image of the ocean waves; the most recent generation of good men, the "last wave by" (line 7), are about to crash against the shore, or die. Metaphor: as their wave crashes against the rocks, the men shout how beautifully that wave could have danced in the bay if it could've stayed out at sea instead of rolling onto the beach. So this generation is like a wave, death is like the breaking of the wave on the shore, the sea is like life, and the dancing waters in the ocean are like beautiful actions. Notice that Thomas describes the good men's potential future actions – the things they won't be able to do because they have to die – as "frail deeds." It's not clear whether the men or the actions are weakened by age; perhaps both. Lines 10-12 The speaker describes another kind of men – those who don't allow themselves to fade quietly away into death, "Wild men" (line 10). What sort of men are we talking about? The kind who captured the world around them in their imagination and celebrated it – "who caught and sang the sun in flight" (line 11) – only to discover that the world they celebrated was slowly dissolving around them as comrades age and die. Here the sun represents the beauty that exists in the mortal world, and its "flight" across the sky represents the lifespan of people living in this world. "Flight" also suggests that it moves rapidly – our lives are just the blink of an eye. So just when you think you're partying to celebrate birth and life, symbolized by the sunrise, you find out that you're actually mourning death, symbolized by the sunset. Lines 13-15 Pun: "grave," which could either mean that the men are very serious, or that they are dying. These “grave men” guys realize that, even though they are weak and losing their faculty of sight, they can still use what strength they have to rage against death. So, even though their eyes are going blind, these men can "see," metaphorically speaking, with an overwhelming certainty or "blinding sight," that they still have a lot of power over the way they die, even if not the timing. Instead of getting snuffed like candles, they can "blaze like meteors" (line 14). They're planning to go out with a bang. Lines 16-19 In the last lines of the poem, the speaker turns to addressing his father. His father is on the verge of death, which the speaker describes as a "sad height." Allusion: to looking down into the Biblical valley of death; the metaphorical mountain where the father stands is the edge of the mortal world. The speaker ends with the two lines that are repeated throughout the poem, asking or instructing his father not to submit to death – instead, he should rant and rave and fight it every step of the way. |
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