Literary Analysis: Themes, Structure, and Poetic Devices
1. Voice
The entire poem is in third voice because the narrator is a “child” talking to a lamb.
2. Mood
Es un tono de felicidad, alegría por estar vivo. (dialogue between a happy child and a lamb).
Summary
The child in the poem talks to a lamb, which symbolizes the reincarnation of God. He’s asking questions about its creator. They are rhetorical questions because he already knows the answers (its creator is God).
Topic
The topic is pantheism, the existence of an identity between God and his creatures.
3. Parts
We can divide the poem into two parts:
a) Stanza 1
Mundo de inocencia y pureza,
b) Stanza 2
Un mundo divino, where creation and creator coexist.
4. Meter
Iambic tetrameter. The rhyme scheme is of couplets: aa bb cc dd aa aa ee ff ee aa (regular), with some eye-rhymes.
Figurative Speech
Lines 1-2: Anaphora (“who made thee”), alliteration of the liquid /l/ and /i/
Lines 3-4: Balanced lines
Lines 5-6: Anaphora (“clothing”), metaphor (“clothing of delight” referring to the wool), synesthesia (“woolly bright”, vision and tact).
Line 8: Personification of the Lamb (it can make the vales rejoice)
Lines 9-10: Anaphora (“who made thee”). These two lines are the refrain.
Lines 11-12: Anaphora of the entire line, and alliteration of the liquid /l/
Lines 13-16: Anaphora (“he”), parallelism and balanced lines, paronomasia and alliteration of the liquid /l/
Line 17: Parallelism
Lines 19-20: Anaphora of the entire line and alliteration of the liquid /l/
Summary
This meditation on the nature of wrath (colera, ira) offers two ways of dealing with an offense. When the speaker is angry with his friend, he tells the friend, and his “wrath did end.” However, when angry with his enemy, he hides the anger, allowing it to grow. His wrath, watered “in fears” and sunned “with smiles, And with soft deceitful wiles,” grows into the poison tree of the title. The tree bears “an apple bright” that the speaker’s enemy desires; the greedy enemy takes the fruit, knowing it belongs to the speaker, and eats it. The next morning the speaker is glad to see his “foe outstretch’d beneath the tree.”
Analysis
“The Poison Tree” consists of four sets of rhyming couplets. Each stanza continues into the next, giving the poem a hurried, almost furtive tone that matches the secretive deeds done in the darkness of the poem’s content.
The obvious moral is that hidden wrath becomes more dangerous behind the deceit (engaño, decepcion) that hides it. Possibly, the “Friend” in the first stanza is a friend because the speaker respects him enough to voice his anger. In contrast, the “enemy” may be a potential friend who remains an enemy because the speaker keeps his wrath secret and nurtures it. There is irony, however, in the speaker’s gladness over his foe’s death by poison. No final line refutes the secret nurturing of wrath; the poem may be read as a guide for taking vengeance.
Vago sin fin por las censadas calles,
junto a la orilla del censado Támesis,
y en cada rostro que me mira advierto
señales de impotencia, de infortunio.
En cada grito Humano,
en cada chillido Infantil de miedo,
en cada voz, en cada prohibición,
escucho las cadenas forjadas por la mente:
y escucho cómo el grito del Deshollinador
hace palidecer las oscuras Iglesias,
y el dolor del Soldado infortunado
ensangrienta los muros de Palacio.
Pero, al fin, en las calles de medianoche escucho
cómo la maldición de la joven Ramera
deseca el llanto del recién nacido,
y asola la carroza fúnebre de los Novios.
Estaba furioso con mi amigo;
Se lo hice saber, mi furia desapareció.
Estaba furioso con mi enemigo;
No se lo hice saber, mi furia creció.
Y la regué con miedos,
Noche y día con mis lágrimas;
Y la asoleé con sonrisas,
Y engañosos ardides.
Y creció día y noche
Hasta que dió fruto a una brillante manzana;
y mi enemigo la contempló brillar,
y supo que era mía.
Y entró a robar a mi jardín
Cuando la noche cubría el polo:
En la mañana contemplé feliz
A mi enemigo tumbado bajo el árbol.
Cuando mi madre murió era yo muy joven,
Y mi padre me vendió cuando aún mi lengua
Podía apenas clamar “deshollinador, deshollinador, deshollinador, deshollinador”
Así que vuestras chimeneas limpio y en hollín duermo.
Y está el pequeño Tom Dacre, que lloró cuando su cabeza,
De pelo liso como el lomo de un cordero, le raparon: y le dije
“¡Calma Tom! no importa, pues cuando tu cabeza está calva
Sabes que el hollín no puede arruinar tu pelo blanco.”
Y así quedó tranquilo, y esa misma noche
Mientras Tom dormía, ¡tuvo tal visión!
Que miles de deshollinadores, Dick, Joe, Ned y Jack,
Estaban todos ellos encerrados en ataúdes negros.
Y vino un ángel que tenía una brillante llave
Y abrió los ataúdes y a todos los liberó;
Y bajando por una verde llanura saltando, riendo, ellos van,
Y se lavan en un río, y brillan en el Sol.
Luego desnudos y de blanco, sus cargas dejadas atrás
Se elevan hasta las nubes y juegan en el viento.
Y el Ángel le dijo a Tom, que si era un buen niño,
Tendría a Dios por su padre, y no tendría que buscar la dicha.
Y así Tom despertó; y nos levantamos en la oscuridad,
Y tomamos nuestros bolsos y cepillos para trabajar.
A pesar de que la mañana era helada, Tom estaba feliz y abrigado
Así que si todos hacen su deber no deben temer daño alguno.
She walks in beauty
Voice
The poem is written on the first voice, because, although the poet talks about a woman, he is not addressing her. He is talking to himself.
Mood
The mood of the poem is admiration for women’s beauty, exaltation (her beauty is associated to exotic).
Summary
The poet idolizes a woman’s beauty and the balance between darkness and lights in her. He also admires her purity and innocence.
Topic
From line 1 to 10 he makes a description of the woman’s physical beauty, and from line 11 to 18 he describes her spiritual and moral beauty.
1st stanza: the first two lines are a couple and express that the woman is as beautiful as a starring night. This is the first time the theme of darkness appears, contrary to the light which is expressed by the stars in the sky. In the third and fourth line, the author tells us how her face and her eyes are, and the opposition appears again in the sense that the woman’s eyes and face reflect the dark and the light. Byron thinks that beauty is something which is dark and bright. And the last lines on the first stanza are another way to express that contrast.
2nd stanza: the second stanza starts saying that her beauty is perfect because it is in the right proportion. There is nothing that must be eliminated and nothing that must be added: she is perfect. She is so perfect that if she was a tone darker or brighter, her beauty would be only half impaired, instead of completely ruined. Byron explains that she has a nameless grace: her beauty is so perfect that it can’t have a name. From lines 11 to 14, Byron writes some characteristics of the woman’s internal beauty. He tries to explain that her external beauty is related to her internal one.
3rd stanza: in the last stanza, Byron uses physical aspects of the woman to describe her internal beauty. Byron is explaining that she is beauty into herself and that beauty reflects outwards. The following three lines are about the woman’s nature. Byron claims that her mind is at peace with all and her heart is plenty of innocence love.
Meter and rhyme scheme
The meter of the poem is iambic tetrameter excepting line 6 which has nine syllables. The rhyme scheme is: ABABAB; CDCDCD; EFEFEF.
Figures
Simile (line 1) between the woman and the night.
Enjambment in lines 1 and 2 and in lines 3 and 4.
Alliteration of /s/ in line 2.
Paronomasia in line 2 (cloudless climes).
Antithesis in line 3 (dark and bright).
Alliteration of /d/ in line 6 and hyperbaton (which heaven denies to gaudy day).
Epithet in line 6 (gaudy).
Alliteration of /h/ in line 8.
Lines 8-10: metaphor, comparing grace (a quality) to a perceivable phenomenon; anaphor in line 8 (one shade the more, one ray the less.
Alliteration of /w/ in line 9. Metaphor: raven resembles darkness.
Hyperbaton in line 11 (where thoughts express serenely sweet).
Alliteration of /s/ in line 11
Personification in line 11 (thoughts can’t express for themselves).
Metaphor in line 12 (the mind as a dwelling place).
Repetition in line 12 (how pure, how dear).
Elision in line 12 (their dwelling place IS).
Alliteration of /s/ in line 14.
Repetition in line 14 (so soft, so calm).
Personification in line 15 (smiles can’t win anything).
Personification in line 16 (cheek, brow and smile can’t tell things).
Exclamation in line 18 (a heart whose love is innocent!)