Central situation: the poet laments the days that are gone
- blank verse- no rhyme scheme
- iambic pentameter (1st syllable stressed 2nd unstressed)
- use of emotive language
- last line repeated in all stanzas
- repetition of “tears” and “sad”
- it is a narrative poem with features of a song
- asyndeton- lots of commas
Form and structure
- four stanza of five lines each that do not rhyme
- iambic pentameter or blank verse
- the refrain at the end of each stanza creates a songlike form
- the poem is structured to move towards a climax of emotion and cry “O Death in Life”
Voice and tone
- first person narrator
- tone is simultaneously melancholic and joyful
- speaker unable to understand the useless/ pointless tears
Stanza 1
Line 1
- reason for her crying, no one knows why she is sad
- the tears are “idle” (there is a static nature of tears, reasons for tears are unclear)
- “idle” and “divine” create contrast (paradox)
- “divine” brings out emotions
- anaphora - “Tears”
Line 2
- “despair” - sadness, unknown feeling
- paradox - poet goes against what he says (no logic), first reason for tears is unknown now it is known
- poet knows where tears come from, they come “from the depth of some divine despair”
- this paradox highlights the pangs of pain
- “divine despair” - what causes the despair is divine which forms a paradox
- the paradox highlights the pang of pain
- anaphora - “Tears”
Lines 4-5
- personification - “happy autumn-fields”
- visual imagery
- nostalgia - “thinking of the days what are no more”
In this stanza, on one hand there is a hope to live an on the other hand, there is death and sorrow, so a balance is created between the two. The repetition of “the days that are no more” emphasizes on the fact that she misses those days
Stanza 2
- simile - “Fresh as first beam glittering on a sail” (frickatives - Fresh, First)
- (line 2) brings you back to death - you feel sad when someone close to you leaves
- “sad and fresh” - antithesis (they contrast when put together)
- this stanza emphasizes on a spiritual loss and the cycle of life and death
Stanza 3
- starts with exclamatory tone - “Ah”
- repetition of “sad” throughout the stanza
- “Earliest pipe” - auditory imagery (sound of birds, which bring melancholy)
- the bird sounds like a dying man (line 3)
- the dying man listens to the sound of the bird - “dying ears, when unto dying eyes”
- (line 4) the world is confined to windows - “glimmering square”
- dying man thinks about the “days that are no more”
Stanza 4
- regret and lamentation
- remembrance of happiness and memories