Main Poems

Winter Swans – Love

“The clouds had given their all – two days of rain and then a break.”

Analysis: Pathetic fallacy – The storm reflects tension in the relationship.•

Metaphor – “Given their all” suggests emotional exhaustion and past conflict.

Message – Conflict is natural in relationships, but resolution is possible.

Winter Swans – Love

“Like a pair of wings settling after flight.”

Analysis:Simile – Suggests stability and peace after emotional turbulence.

Symbolism – Swans represent lasting love and reconciliation.

Contrast – Earlier conflict transitions into unity.

Winter Swans – Love

“They mate for life you said as they left, porcelain over the stilling water.”

Analysis:Symbolism – Swans symbolize commitment, mirroring the couple’s reconciliation.

Imagery – “Porcelain” conveys fragility but also beauty, showing love’s delicate strength.

Message – Love is enduring but requires understanding.

Winter Swans – Love

“Slow-stepping in the lake’s shingle and sand.”

Analysis: Movement as a metaphor – Careful steps reflect rebuilding their emotional bond.

Natural imagery – Suggests grounding and stability.

Contrast – Shows progression from discord to harmony.

Winter Swans – Love

“I noticed our hands, that had, somehow, swum the distance between us.”

Analysis:Metaphor for reconciliation – Physical closeness represents emotional healing.

Gentle tone – “Somehow” implies natural resolution rather than forced reconciliation.

Water motif – Reflects fluidity and renewal in relationships.

Porphyria’s Lover – Love

“She shut the cold out and the storm, and kneeled and made the cheerless grate blaze up.”

Analysis:Pathetic fallacy – The storm mirrors the speaker’s emotional turmoil.

Porphyria as warmth – She brings comfort and light into his world.

Context – Challenges Victorian gender roles by portraying a woman taking control.

Porphyria’s Lover – Love

“That moment she was mine, mine, fair, perfectly pure and good.”

Analysis:Repetition of “mine” – Shows obsessive love and possessiveness.

Irony – The speaker believes he is preserving her purity through control.

Context – Victorian fears of female independence are reflected in the speaker’s need to dominate.

Porphyria’s Lover – Love

“In one long yellow string I wound three times her little throat around, and strangled her.”

Analysis:Euphemism – The detached description makes the murder seem methodical.

Symbolism – Her golden hair, once beautiful, becomes the tool of her death.

Psychological aspect – Explores the dangers of obsessive love.

Porphyria’s Lover – Love

“And all night long we have not stirred, and yet God has not said a word!”

Analysis:Religious imagery – The speaker believes his actions are justified.

Delusion – He expects divine approval for his crime.

Theme of power – He exerts total control over Porphyria in life and death.

Porphyria’s Lover – Love

“No pain felt she; I am quite sure she felt no pain.”

Analysis:Repetition – Reflects the speaker’s need to convince himself of her peaceful death.

Psychological instability – His justification shows detachment from reality.

Theme of love turned to violence – Passion is corrupted into destruction.

The Farmer’s Bride – Love

“I chose a maid.”

Analysis: Possessive language – The farmer sees his wife as property.

Context – Reflects arranged marriages and women’s lack of agency.

Message – Explores forced relationships and emotional distance.

The Farmer’s Bride – Love

“She turned afraid of love and me and all things human.”

Analysis:Triplet – Highlights her complete detachment from human connection.

Theme of fear – She rejects intimacy, leaving the farmer isolated.

Context – Shows the consequences of coercion in relationships.

The Farmer’s Bride – Love

“Shy as a leveret, swift as he, straight and slight as a young larch tree.”

Analysis:• Animalistic imagery – Compares her to a hare, emphasizing fear and vulnerability.

Simile – Suggests fragility and innocence.

Message – Women’s fear in oppressive marriages.

The Farmer’s Bride – Love

“We caught her, fetched her home at last and turned the key upon her, fast.”

Analysis:Trapped imagery – Shows her lack of freedom.

Rhyme (“fast”) – Reinforces her imprisonment.

Theme of male dominance – The farmer exerts control over her life.

The Farmer’s Bride – Love

“The soft young down of her; the brown, the brown of her – her eyes, her hair, her hair!”

Analysis:Repetition – Shows his growing frustration and obsession.

Fragmented syntax – Reflects his struggle with unfulfilled desire.

Message – Explores the impact of repressed emotions.

Follower – Family

“His shoulders globed like a full sail strung.”

Analysis:

Simile – Compares father’s strength to a ship, symbolizing admiration.

Theme of admiration – The son idolizes his father.

Follower – Family

“I stumbled in his hobnailed wake.”

Analysis:

Contrast – Shows father’s skill vs. son’s clumsiness.

Foreshadowing – Roles will later reverse.

Follower – Family

“But today it is my father who keeps stumbling behind me, and will not go away.”

Analysis:Role reversal – Son now leads, father follows.

Theme of aging – Parents become dependent on children.

Follower – Family

“An expert.”

Analysis:

Short sentence – Emphasizes admiration and certainty.

Theme of legacy – Highlights skill and respect.

Follower – Family

“I was a nuisance, tripping, falling, yapping always.”

Analysis:Contrast with father – Shows childlike energy.

Message – Relationships evolve with time.

Mother Any Distance – Family

“The line still feeding out, unreeling years between us.”

Analysis:Extended metaphor – Tape measure symbolizes their bond.

Theme of growing up – Speaker is moving towards independence.

Mother Any Distance – Family

“Anchor. Kite.”

Analysis:Juxtaposition – Mother grounds him, but he seeks freedom.

Message – Parents provide security but must let go.

Mother Any Distance – Family

“To fall or fly.”

Analysis:Metaphor – Uncertainty of adulthood.

Contrast – Risk vs. success.

Mother Any Distance – Family

“You at the zero-end, me with the spool of tape.”

Analysis: Symbolism – Mother represents origin and stability.

Theme of separation – Child moves further away.

Mother Any Distance – Family

“Your fingertips still pinch the last one-hundredth of an inch.”

Analysis:Imagery – Suggests a final moment of connection.

Theme of love – Letting go is difficult but necessary.

Before You Were Mine - Family

“Your polka-dot dress blows round your legs. Marilyn.”

Analysis:Imagery – Creates a vivid picture of the mother’s youth and glamour.

Allusion to Marilyn Monroe – Symbolizes beauty, freedom, and tragedy.

Theme of admiration – The speaker idolizes her mother’s past self.

Before You Were Mine - Family

“I’m ten years away from the corner you laugh on.”

Analysis: Time motif – The speaker reflects on a past she never experienced.

Contrast – Carefree youth vs. responsibility of motherhood.

Message – Parenthood changes identity.

Before You Were Mine - Family

“The thought of me doesn’t occur in the ballroom with the thousand eyes.”

Analysis: Metaphor – “Thousand eyes” suggests excitement, romance, and being admired.

Contrast – The mother’s pre-child freedom vs. future responsibility.

Theme of sacrifice – The mother’s life changed with the child’s arrival.

Before You Were Mine - Family

“Your ghost clatters toward me over George Square.”

Analysis:Metaphor – The mother’s younger self is like a “ghost” haunting the speaker.

Theme of loss – The mother’s past self is gone, replaced by responsibility.

Tone – Slightly mournful, acknowledging inevitable change.

Before You Were Mine - Family

“You’d teach me the steps on the way home from Mass, stamping stars from the wrong pavement.”

Analysis:Contrast – The mother’s old rebellious spirit vs. current motherhood.

Symbolism – “Wrong pavement” suggests lost dreams.

Message – The child sees glimpses of the mother’s past but knows it’s gone.