![]() There is a metaphor in this poem: “and dreaming through the twilight” (13). The use of roses is related to the transitory nature of love. The speaker is prohibiting the lover to show any sign of love (“roses”). In semantic terms, we have references to death and mourning related to sadness, but also references to love. The second octave then, is some kind of justification of why the loved one has to do the things mentions in the first octave. The poem itself is a kind of list of things. We find a list of the things the speaker will not be able to do when she is dead in the second octave. The tendency in the poem is the use of the negative to indicate what the lover should not do. We also have the use of subjunctive + negative. These lines have to do with what the speaker wants for the moment when she dies. We can find topicalisation in the opening lines of the poem. We also find coordination and subordination. The speaker is constantly using the imperative because she is expressing her last will and giving instructions to her loved one after her death.Ībout the syntax, most of the lines are end-stop but there are also a few of them which are run-on lines. The speaker is simply expressing resignation because she doesn’t want the loved one to grieve. There is an expression of resignation in the speaker. The way in which the speaker expresses herself doesn’t help us see if the poem was written by a woman or a man.Ībout the mood of the poem, there is perhaps a sense of contentment in it. The language here has a number of connotations. In lines 15-16, “Haply I may remember/ And haply I may forget”, she doesn’t care whether she will be forgotten or not, since she will be dead. Through a metaphor, the night is referred to as the end of life. In lines 13-14, “And dreaming through the twilight/ That doth not rise nor set”, the speaker compares death to the process of dreaming. There is an ellipsis in line 5 “be the green grass above me”: she goes against conventional practices by not wanting to have a tombstone. Why is the speaker talking about death? Since death is something imminent and undeletable in the near future, she gives her loved one permission to forget her. ![]() When somebody dies, we grief, so the poem is setting itself against death. ![]() There is a semantic field of senses: “feel” (10), “hear” (11). Why is there no point in making that person suffer? We find the answer in lines 10-11. She is setting that person free from the process of grieving. These archaisms include “thou wilt” (line 8, “you will”) or “doth not” (line 14, “does not”)or “Haply” (lines 15-16, meaning “perhaps”).īut what is the speaker explaining? The poem itself is a will addressed to a loved one, but it could also be addressed to a mother or father. ![]() The author makes use of archaisms to give the poem a formal and solemn style. A trochee is the succession of a stressed and an unstressed syllable, and a spondee is the succession of two stressed syllables.The pattern “trochee + spondee”, as in “sing no sad songs” (2) or “be the green grass” (5), makes the text coherent. We find a repetition of the same pattern on different occasions. It’s a ballad stanza form, but the poem itself is not a ballad. Each of the octaves is a complete sentence and pauses often come at the end of the line. The even lines have six syllables, whereas the odd lines have seven or eight syllables. Each octave is made up of two quatrains, and each quatrain has the rhyme scheme abcb. The second half of the poem is an explanation of why the speaker feels the way she does and why it’s not important to remember her.Īs a poetic text, there is rhyme. In lines 7-8, she is stating her desire not to have any memorial and giving her loved one – “my dearest” – permission to forget her. In a sense, this poem is the speaker’s will. This is a poem about death and dying, even though it expresses love and affection.
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