In-Depth Poetry Analysis: Themes, Devices, and Symbolism Explored

This assignment features a detailed analysis of several poems, focusing on themes, symbolism, and literary devices. It includes analyses of Dylan Thomas's "Fern Hill," exploring the symbolism of the color green; Earle Birney's "From the Hazel Bough," identifying metaphors and similes; E.E. Cummings' "love is more thicker than forget," examining alliteration, assonance, and consonance; William Butler Yeats' "The Wild Swans at Coole," discussing the symbolism of swans; Robert Frost's "Acquainted with the Night," noting its structure and rhyme scheme; and Lorna Crozier's "Mother and I Walking," analyzing themes of love and loss. Each analysis provides insights into the poem's meaning and the poet's techniques, offering a comprehensive understanding of the works. Desklib offers a platform for students to access this and similar assignments, aiding in their studies.

Running head: POETRY
POETRY
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author note:

1POETRY
Answer 2:
Fern hill by Dylan Thomas was written in 1944 during the last period of Thomas’s career
according to critics. In the poem, Fern Hill, there is a strong usage of the color green (Thomas).
The usage of the word ‘green’ throughout the poem is a symbol that Dylan has utilized in order
to represent youth. Thecolor green symbolizes youth, naiveté and innocence. In the line 2, the
speaker says he is as happy as the way grass was green. It is simple, cheerful and innocent. In the
poem the speaker repeatedly discusses about himself, he calls himself and his landscape green.
There is mention of the word ‘green’ for seven times in the poem. Each stanza has the word
‘green’ in the poem that makes it highly prominent to notice. In the last lines, late in the poem
children are mentioned as ‘green and golden’ however led out of grace that displays the
association of the word to ‘naiveté’ rather than anything closer to the innocence of the sweet
childhood. Finally, in the end the usage of ‘green and dying’ is associated with death which was
earlier used to represent youth and life.
Answer 3:
From the Hazel Bough was written by Earle Birney, who is considered a Canadian poet
thoroughly. Although the poem must be thought as a poem of love, there are more to it such as
images used and Celtic ideas (Woodcock). In the description of the meeting, the addressee could
be anyone in the poem as it is related to the story of encounter. While he described the encounter,
simile and metaphor was presented. This was helpful in bringing about the theme of the poem.
Also the second stanza presents a metaphor ‘eyes were trees’ where the eyes of the lady was
compared to trees. While doing the same, readers may become able to compare the eyes to hazel
trees. Likewise, simile is used specifically in the fourth stanza. He calls the lady plump as finch

2POETRY
who lived as a salmon, gay as silk and proud as Brahmin. The use of terms in the sentence may
look like a description of the lady, however it is the wisdom that is being compared to her. Hazel
tree are considered as a tree of wisdom with which the lady is being compared.
The use of simile and metaphors are used to some extent in same way and not different.
Answer4:
The prime theme of the poem, Love is thicker than forget is an experience of falling in
love. It is a lyrical poem. The poem has phonological sound pattern with highlights of several
literary devices such as alliteration, assonance and consonance. The alliteration in the poem is a
word that begin with the same sound that are placed together very close (Benét and Aiken). The
poem has a noteworthy amount of alliteration such as in the line, ‘love is mad than moonly’. It is
contradictory, the tone of the poem it uses opposite adjectives in order to describe the feeling
love frequently. It is noted in the line, ‘Love is more thicker than regrets / more thinner than
recall’. Consonance also involves repetation of sounds like Alliteration. The poem is about the
ways love is contradicting, the poetic voice of the poet. The use of consonance in the poem was
used often such as moonly, only, and sunly.
Answer 5:
The poem The wild swans at coole represents the prime symbol of the poem, which is the
swans. The swans are the most prominent and prime symbol of the poem. Swans are the symbols
of beauty, permanence and energy (Yeats). The poets symbolizes swans as the representation of
beauty however they do not age in the way the poet does. Also, they are not the aware or
conscious of pain and weariness, again the same way the poet does. The swans remain
unchanged even though there have been everything that is changed in the speakers life. beauty,

3POETRY
grace and energy are symbolized with the swan and the poem endows them with a mythical
status that manifests them as divine creatures unaffected and unmoved by time. They are also
immune to pain and weariness. The poet is certainly happy to see the swans and he is more than
impressed however, they also remind him regarding his age. He is reminded of the pain of
getting old and the inevitable fact, death. Therefore, swans gives him several thoughts which is
mixed of positive as well as negative. In poetry and literature, often birds are used in represent
freedom and flight away from the human life and its confines. In the same way the swans
certainly offer an escape from the thoughts and fear of getting old to the speaker.Also, it might as
well represent Yeats’ beloved Maud Gonne who did not accept his love.
Answer 6:
Acquainted with the night by Robert Frost is one of the well-known work of Robert Frost. The
poem is written in strict iambic pentameter. The poem consist of 14 line in the same way as a
sonnet. A Terza Rima rhyme scheme is in the poem. It is a complex pattern with a format of aba
bcbcdc dad aa. Although the format was not intentionally used Frost, but he often experimented
with patterns. By moving forward while echoing the past, this particular scheme seemed to go in
a circle format similar to the moon. The moon is an important element in this poem.

4POETRY
Part B
Lorna Crozier is a poet who is quite well known for her sensibility. In the poem, “Mother
and 1 Walking”, the poet end ups presenting quite a touching story of the torment that a little girl
is going through upon the death of her father (Crozier 1).This little girl, is however, consoled by
the support and love that is shown to her by her mother. In essence, the poem, “Mother and I
Walking”, is one that makes the argument that all children need to be loved greatly by their
parents and in the event that one parent is absent due to death or separation, it is the
responsibility of the other parent to compensate for this absence by showing the child more love
and affection than usual, which in the case of this poem, is the love and the support shown to the
little girl by her mother (Crozier and Hood: 255)
Security and a sense of belongingness versus the coldness and the isolation that is
experienced by the little girl demonstrates how Crozier perceives the whole psychological
struggle that arises out of a child only having only one parent to turn to in his or her early years
of development. The poem comprises four unequal stanzas with the poetry being written in free
verse (Crozier: 1) The poem is largely autobiographical in content, given that Crozier grew up in
a broken home, with her father being an alcoholic and absent from her life for the most part. Just
like Crozier, the little girl in the poem in besieged completely by the melancholy and need that
arises out of the absence of her father but she is comforted greatly by the fact that her mother is
by her side and is seeing through the entire ordeal, walking alongside her through her journey of
pain and sorrow (Crozier and Hood: 255)
The absence of the girl’s father is indicated through various statements such as,
“everyone is inside” and “father is gone again”, in the poem’s first stanza, demonstrating clearly
how the girl perceives the entire difference that can be made to her life if she had a father. If she

5POETRY
had a father, the little girl and her mother could be happy and content inside their home just like
everyone is. The emotional emptiness that the little girl is experiencing is explored by the poet
further in the second stanza of the poem, in the lines, “the cold cries…” which indicates all the
coldness that the little girl is experiencing within her heart (Crozier and Hood: 255). The little
girl is apparently aware of the painful difference between being with a father and being without
one. She wonders curiously how very different her life could have been, had her father been
present and by her side, in it (Crozier 1). The security and the unusual bond that is provided to
the little girl through the love of her mother is well showcased by Crozier. It is this bond and
security that makes the little girl realizes that she needs nothing else in the world, than to have
her mother by her side (Crozier and Hood: 255).

6POETRY
References:
Benét, William Rose, and Canrad Aiken. An anthology of famous English and American poetry.
The Modern Library; New York, 2013.
Crozier, Lorna, and Thomas Hood. "What the living won't let go." Essays on Canadian
Writing 67 (1999): 255.
Crozier, Lorna. Before the first word: The poetry of Lorna Crozier. Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press,
2005.
Thomas, Dylan. The Poems of Dylan Thomas. New Directions Publishing, 2017.
Woodcock, George. "Birney's Makings (Earle Birney's Ghost in the Wheels)." Ontario
Review 9.1 (2017): 21.
Yeats, William Butler. "The Wild Swans at Coole." English Literature: Victorians and
Moderns (2014): 548.