Yeats, first stanza

I think the first stanza of the poem is a great introduction to the work because Yeats creates natural imagery to convey the theme of the cycle of life. The poem’s first stanza incorporates the idea of birth and vitality. For example, the “birds in the trees” are perhaps perched in trees because they are still baby birds in the nest. The birds are singing in the tress and are “at their song” because birds begin in trees in their nests until they fly away, start their own nest, and die. This is the cycle of life for birds but Yeats is saying that this is not only the cycle for animals but for humans too. The distinction between nature and human life is created with “In one another’s arms.” Also, the “salmon falls” symbolizes the spawning of salmon and the birth of new salmon, but just as they are “born” they also must “die.” The salmon are humanized as they are “caught in that sensual music.”Of course salmon do not hear music and if they did it would not be “sensual;” however, Yeats illustrates that humans and animals alike go through the same cycles of life from birth to death.

Sailing to Byzantium

The speaker starts off the poem talking in a general sense and as he moves into the second stanza it gets more personal. In the first stanza he is describing the natural world and mortality. In the last line, "sensual music" causes everyone to neglect "unageing intellect." Because the intellect is "unageing," it is immortal and can not be understood by anything that is mortal. The second stanza speaks of being old and declares that the only way to prevent your body from virtually falling apart is for your soul to "sing." To keep your body alive you must keep your soul alive. This stanza also explains the speakers reason for sailing to Byzantium in the first place. Then the speaker is asking for a sage, who is possibly a wise man, to come teach his soul to sing. He states that his heart is fastened to a dying animal, which is his body, and that he wishes it be consumed. He explains he wants to leave his body and be gathered "into the artifice of eternity." It is later shown that he desires to leave his body forever.

The Little Black Boy

I found this poem to be tragically heart-breaking. Clearly it was a reflection of southern society during slavery and the prejudices rampant there. It left in me a greater sense of understanding just how deeply it ran if even a child hopes that one day he can be like a white boy so that "he will then love me". To see how such an innocent being like a child can still yearn to be loved by those who despise him represented for me the immense emotional complications which "hate" ignites when life could be so much easier with all people at peace. "The Little Black Boy" really re-educates the reader on the importance of dissipating prejudices in our world, and was made even more poignant by the fact that this poem was told through the voice of a child. I found it extremely inspirational how the mother taught her child that her son and other slaves are put on earth and given a little bit of land "that we may learn to bear the beams of love", relating the sun to God and the beams shining down on earth as rays of his love. In addition, this sentiment the mother gave to her son also represented a unity of all human beings which did not exist during this time. For "bearing the beams of love" (i.e. sun rays) and living under the sun is a commonality which all humans share...one which is not particular to skin color or ethnicity.

Fern Hill

The second time I read this poem I focused on the idea of "time." From the first line of the poem the speaker says "Now as I was young," suggests that he is older and looking back on memories of his past. The speaker say's that he was happy ("happy as the grass was green") and that "time let me hail and climb." Therefore, there is two references on the idea of time. First he is living in the current time, thinking about the past. And secondly, while in the memories of his past he say's how it was "time" that made him free. The speaker then goes on to talk about the farm and the farm environment from the perspective of authority. He uses the words lord and prince as if he has some authority in his surroundings. The speaker again refers to time, in the second stanza when he says "time let me play and be golden in the mercy of his means." Here again time gives him freedom and happiness. Then the poem goes on to discuss God and the relation between the divine and farmland and sense of home the speaker feels. But in the last stanza of the poem the mood shifts to a different perspective on time, one of dissapointment to the realization that the time that made him feel free and happy is not infinite and will come to an end and that makes him feel trapped instead of free. I liked how subtly the poet says this when he says "In the moon that is always rising...Time held me green and dying though I sang in my chains like the sea." So here the poet shifts his mood yet again to now knowing the reality that life is not infinite and he will at some point, possibly soon, die but he lived his life on the farm to the best and got all the life out of it. Great poem.

colors, fern hill

I noticed a lot of color symbolism throughout the poem as well. Yet, I regarded the colors as change and an indication of time moving onward. The first color is “green” which embodies youth. Thomas then combines the beauty of “green” youth with “golden” to convey the idea that being young is the prized time in life. Yet, the poem shifts with the “fire green as grass.” The image of this green fire is unusual because one thinks of red, orange, or yellow flames not green ones. I think Thomas creates this green fire because when working with chemicals the color green is emitted when an element is added. For example, barium creates a green flame. I think the image of the green fire is the turn of the poem because the innocence of the pure green youth is gone and something has altered the innocence of the child depicted in the poem. Perhaps, the spoiled innocence is like the barium that changes the color of the fire. Thomas then reverts to the image of innocence with the “wanderer white.” Now, the person depicted in the poem is no longer a child or a child being changed by experience but an adult gazing nostalgically back at his youth. In the ending of the poem the color green is used again as the person is “green and dying.” I think the image of “green” is repeated in the end to reinforce the idea that the person is reverting back to youth. Also, by remembering one’s youth’s green one can keep a piece of their childhood as they wander into death’s arms.

On "Fern Hill"

I thought this poem was good but difficult to understand. However I did find a few points that I thought were interesting. I had trouble figuring out who the speaker of the poem is but I got the impression that the subject is Adam and Eve's fall from grace. There is a lot of reference to colors and time in this poem. Colors appear in every stanza and more specifically green occurs in every stanza. However, the meanings of the colors change as the poem goes on. In the first two stanzas green is correlated with being happy and care free. The third stanza contains a shift as the color green is now associated with fire. This could represent the eating of the apple. Line 35 in the fourth stanza states "out of the whinnying green stable." Whinnying used here may be a sign of distress. It could also possibly symbolize God's discovery of Adam and Eve's actions. In the fifth stanza, "the children green and golden/ follow him out of grace." In the final stanza green takes the worst position: "Time held me green and dying."

For the Union Dead

When I first read the title of this poem, I expected it to be a mournful address of those who sacrificed their lives for the victory of the Union. But instead it opens with a description of the aquarium, and how the speaker remembers being a child and was pressed up against the glass, looking at the fish swim by. It is five stanzas in that the statue is first mentioned, the one that commemorates Colonel Robert Shaw.

What I found this poem to represent was that even though so many died for the Union side, and even though it was a Union victory in the end there is no proper commemoration. Even though what Shaws did was revolutionary, leading an African-American regiment, now all that remains of him is a statue that is ignored by the populous of today. The populous of today is no different than the fish that the speaker watched as a child.

The last stanza brings it all together:

"The Aquarium is gone. Everywhere,
giant finned cars nose forward like fish;
a savage servility
slides by on grease."

The first thought that comes to mind after the first sentence is that the physical building may be gone, but the 'fish' are still here, just moving along in large schools of fish, looking towards the future for survival. There is no looking back on the past, but the 'servility' of people today just forces us forward and doesn't allow us to respect those who have given up their lives for us to have the freedoms we enjoy today. Instead, it seems like something we try to avoid, for it is "like a fishbone/ in the city's throat." It still seems to apply to today, this idea of not respecting those who have given much more than they need to in order for the rest of us to live on.