To His Love
He's gone, and all our plans
Are useless indeed.
We'll walk no more on Cotswold
Where the sheep feed
Quietly and take no heed.
His body that was so quick
Is not as you
Knew it, on Severn river
Under the blue
Driving our small boat through.
You would not know him now ...
But still he died
Nobly, so cover him over
With violets of pride
Purple from Severn side.
Cover him, cover him soon!
And with thick-set
Masses of memoried flowers—
Hide that red wet
Thing I must somehow forget.
This poem is a traditional elegy. The poem starts with a lament in which the writer expresses his grief about missing the man allegedly dead. In the middle section of poem, the author praises the man-- pointing out his good qualities and mentioning his pride. The pride is actually a humble quality for the man in this case. This transitions to the solace, third part of an elegy, in talking about the man after his death. This poem notes the qualities lost when you lose a person. Everyone has a good asset about them, something that sets them apart from others and you lose that once you lose a loved one.
I like your selection of poem, and I like your discussion of the permanence of losing someone, and how losing them also means losing some of the great things they brought into your life. I like how the poem discusses both the tragedy and anguish of losing someone, as it is not only sad but also emotionally straining on loved ones. I think it's interesting how the petals serve both to glorify the dead and relieve some of the speaker's grief, to make the death less gruesome and more bearable.
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