The Ballad of a Lonely Masturbator by Anne Sexton

The Ballad of the Lonely Masturbator

 Anne Sexton

The end of the affair is always death.
She's my workshop. Slippery eye,
out of the tribe of myself my breath
finds you gone. I horrify
those who stand by. I am fed.
At night, alone, I marry the bed.

Finger to finger, now she's mine.
She's not too far. She's my encounter.
I beat her like a bell. I recline
in the bower where you used to mount her.
You borrowed me on the flowered spread.
At night, alone, I marry the bed.

Take for instance this night, my love,
that every single couple puts together
with a joint overturning, beneath, above,
the abundant two on sponge and feather,
kneeling and pushing, head to head.
At night alone, I marry the bed.

I break out of my body this way,
an annoying miracle. Could I
put the dream market on display?
I am spread out. I crucify.
My little plum is what you said.
At night, alone, I marry the bed.

Then my black-eyed rival came.
The lady of water, rising on the beach,
a piano at her fingertips, shame
on her lips and a flute's speech.
And I was the knock-kneed broom instead.
At night alone I marry the bed.

She took you the way a woman takes
a bargain dress off the rack
and I broke the way a stone breaks.
I give back your books and fishing tack.
Today's paper says that you are wed.
At night, alone, I marry the bed.

The boys and girls are one tonight.
They unbutton blouses. hey unzip flies.
They take off shoes. They turn off the light.
The glimmering creatures are full of lies.
They are eating each other. They are overfed.
At night, alone, I marry the bed.

First off, a little about the author before starting on a heady subject like masturbation.  Anne Sexton like Sylvia Plath, was a member of the confessional poets.  A group of feminist writers during the middle part of the 20th century.  They broke new ground in feminist writing and put on paper female  experiences that were considered taboo that up to that point hadn't been widely expressed in Western Civilization. 

The end of the affair is always death.

The first line starts off with a context for the reader. A love affair has ended.  She equates the end of it with death, making it a little contradiction.  It should also be noted that a euphemism for orgasm in French is le petite mort

She's my workshop. Slippery eye,

Line two talks about a she, although it's deliberately vague and we can assume she means her vagina.  As she will make references to her and she in the poem while talking about masturbation.  The narrator speaks of it as a workshop. A place where technique and art are practiced. 

out of the tribe of myself my breath

 Here the narrator breaks herself down into multiple parts. The preceding lines referenced her genitals, but here she's alludes to other parts of herself she's composed of.  Perhaps her brain or mind, and heart.  She invokes her breath as if it were part of herself.  This influences the tone of the poem as one of resignation and captures the tone of the whole very well.  The enjambment in the next line goes on to mourn the loss of the lover.

finds you gone. I horrify

The non enjambed portion invokes the fear she engenders through masturbation. The good portion of the population would have seen the topic as taboo, and some still do.  As a confessional poem the narration is being honest about the way many people see female masturbation outside of it's erotic overtones.  The poem is really about a broken love affair, but uses the vehicle of masturbation to explore the idea.  Some of that is uncomfortable, and it's meant to be.

those who stand by. I am fed.

Line five's non-enjambed portion equates masturbation with being fed.  The poem will refer to sexual satiation as food and feeding multiple times throughout.

At night, alone, I marry the bed.

The stanza ends with the refrain At night alone, I marry the bed.   It ties up the stanzas nicely, as further on the line will be troped and modified incessantly by the stanzas preceding.   It closes the rhyme scheme of ABABCC.

Finger to finger, now she's mine.

Line seven begins with obvious implicit references to female masturbation. She's fingering herself.  The entire stanza will perhaps be the most explicit in it's allusions to female masturbation and sexual intercourse.  She ends the line with now she's mine.  She's back in possession of her own genitals.

She's not too far. She's my encounter.

These lines mention the lack of distance from herself and her erogenous zone, and how they frame her experiences in life, particularly in this instance of masturbation and the failed affair she's ruminating on.

I beat her like a bell. I recline

This line depicts how she masturbates, with the euphemism of her, like line two's she standing in for her vagina.  To further the imagery she creates the image of her positioning with I recline. 

in the bower where you used to mount her.

Line ten returns to the topic of her ex.  The line makes it explicit that the poem is addressed to him.  The bower here is a ladies' private chamber in a medieval tower, similar to a boudoir.  The first line of this stanza is somewhat contradicted in that the narrator is thinking of her ex now.  She's speaking of the place and way they used to have sex.  So her encounter right now is not hers alone, at least in her mind.

You borrowed me on the flowered spread.

Line eleven is dense.  The flowered spread has obvious sexual overtones, but it also hints at a possible romantic past where they made love over flower petals.  It could also serve as a reference to the pattern on a comforter or sheets.  It also serves as a reminder to herself that she was only borrowed.  The affair is over now however much it pains her to remind herself. 

At night, alone, I marry the bed.

Line twelve is the refrain.  The line itself is also a near rhyme with the words At night alone, I bury the dead.  The unusual euphemism of masturbation as I marry the bed leaves one to think about why the poem uses this strange construction. I bury the dead is a more sensible sentence and is fitting in a poem that characterizes the end of the affair as a death in the first line.  It is in part a poem about dealing with the pain of a failed affair.  If one takes the near rhyme to have any merit, it paints the picture of the narrator at night laboring with a shovel over a mound where she's interring dead bodies.  The subtle and nuance of laboring over a mound shouldn't be lost on the reader either as another name for the surrounding aspect of the female genitalia is known as the mons venus, or the mound of Venus.

Take for instance this night, my love,

The third stanza begins a new topic, the night and how couples create it together.  Here the narration deepens in it's direction to it's target audience.  The poem does it by means of the words my love, referring to her ex-lover.  

that every single couple puts together

Line fourteen recognizes that people put together the night.  Here there's a double meaning as well.  People create their ideas of time in their own heads.  The essence of the poem here is about a lonely night of masturbation and thinking of her ex.  But elsewhere couples are cooking dinner, watching movies, and of course making love.  How nights are put together depend on the people involved.

 with a joint overturning, beneath, above,

Line fifteen deepens the implication of the sex act in the above line.  Here she see's lovers as joints and hinges coming together at different angles.

the abundant two on sponge and feather,

Line sixteen is stylistic in it's depiction of sex.  Invoking feathers and sponges.  Here feather might be a feather down comforter and sponges may be a foam topper. 

 kneeling and pushing, head to head.

The next line is almost explicit in it's depiction of couples kneeling and pushing into one another.  Head to head gives us an idea of the intimacy and immediacy of the act involved.

At night alone, I marry the bed.

Line eighteen is the refrain.  Here again the narration summons the feeling of despondency and loneliness in contrast to couples enjoying each other.

I break out of my body this way,

 The beginning of nineteen starts the fourth stanza and carries on the topic of masturbation from the refrain.  Here she talks about how masturbation is a release from the sexual tension built up in her body. 

 an annoying miracle. Could I

Line twenty comes back to the narrators own body.  The narration recognizes this as a double edges sword.  On one hand the release of tension is a blessing, but she feels there's something annoying about it.  The second part is an enjambment that raises the question of breaking away not only from masturbation, but from the need to obsess over her ex. 

put the dream market on display?

Putting the dream market on display could be the idea of putting herself back on the relationship market. Here as she masturbates she thinks of how she could start making others dream or think about her in a sexually passionate way. 

I am spread out. I crucify.

The poem introduces a double entendre.  She's both spread out literally as she masturbates and spread out figuaratively in a manner resembling the idiom spread thin.  I crucify is depicts the shape her body is making as she masturbates, and how she's invoking suffering into her life. 

My little plum is what you said.

Line twenty-three recalls the diminutive nickname her lover used to give her.  It's a mild euphemism for the vulva as well. 

Line twenty-four is the refrain.   Here again the refrain as a timbre of despair and resignation.

Then my black eyed rival came. 

The new stanza begins the narrator's rivalry with her ex's new lover.  Here black eyes have evil intent, and is also an obvious a colloquialism for a battered woman.  Here it may be the narrator's wish to give her black eyes.  Her perception of her rival is deeply colored and subjective.

The lady of water, rising on the beach,

Here the narration may be invoking Venus, the goddess of love.  One of Venus' origin stories has her arising from sea foam and  numerous paintings depict her in a seashell on the beach.   This is a charitable attribution for the narrator to make, considering the palpable disdain in the above line.  In the Western Canon water is a traditionally feminine symbol associated with joy.  

a piano at her fingertips, shame

Here again the narration grudgingly lauds her qualities.  The piano at her fingertips provides her rival with laudable qualities.  She can play music.   The following shame is too intense and isolated in it's placement to be attributed to either the narrator or her rival, it perhaps applies to both.  

on her lips and a flute's speech.

Line twenty-eight is almost overflowing in it's implicit sexual connotations between shame,lips, and flute's.  It also follows the musical pattern from the preceding lines.  It should be noted that the piano, lips and flute can all be uses as instruments to make music.  The narration may be making a subtle gesture that her rival is an excellent manipulator.  Indeed, the etiomology of the word manipulation is a conjunction of "hand" and "full", where the rival is mentioned as being skilled with her fingertips. 

And I was the knock-kneed broom instead.

Twenty-nine speaks to how she's lost her status and love in the eyes of her ex.  The narrator speaks of knock-knee which isn't a common disability these days.  She feels as though she's grown uglier in the eyes of her lover here. Broom could be a mytonymy for a witch here.  Line twenty-eight is the refrain.

She took you the way a woman takes

Line thirty-one works begins the next stanza with almost a Cummings poetry in that it's both a complete phrase and a partial thought.  Here the narration acknowledges that her rival took her ex the way a woman shops for a bargain.  There's also a little hint of describing the way a woman pursues her desires in life, with coquettishness and subtlety.  It's a little gauche to mention but the implication is there. 

a bargain dress off the rack
 

This line serves as a little take-that to her ex in that he's equated with a dress on a bargain rack.  It's also a commentary on how easily their relationship was usurped and in particularly how easy he fell for her.

and I broke the way a stone breaks.

Line thirty-one softens in recounting how much the whole situation hurt her.  One imagines a hard stone being cracked in half all the way through.  The narrations bold tone has changed in an instant.

I give back your books and fishing tack.

Here the narration continues in a sorrowful timbre speaking of returning her lovers things.  As with many of the lines in the poem water is associated with the feminine.  The line could be construed as a mind and body duality, with the books referencing the mind and fishing tack the body.  Here the return of objects may be more fantasy oriented than reality.

Today's paper says that you are wed.

Here's a heartbreaking line..  Here again the poem is perhaps mostly artifice, but the conveyance of loss here to her rival is palpable.  

Line thirty six is the refrain. 

The boys and girls are one tonight.

Line thirty-seven has the narration again thinking of other people making love, but has generalized out from her ex and romantic rival into a wider population of boys and girls.  

They unbutton blouses, hey unzip flies.

The next two lines are familiar to anyone who's experienced a bad breakup.  The narrator thinks of the two lovers together in the details building up to love making.  Here again Sexton exercises her expertise in confessional poetry.  She's invoking the build-up and anticipation to lovemaking rather than the actual act itself.  

They take off shoes. They turn off the light.

Line thirty-seven is a continuation of the build up explored in the prior line.  The idea of turning off the light brings a sense of finality to the poem as well.  The rest is left to our imagination.  

The glimmering creatures are full of lies.

Like Sylvia Plath, Sexton's more mature writings tend to characterize love and lovers through more jaded eyes.  Here she juxtaposes glimmering creatures which would appear to be a compliment with the phrase full of lies exposing her profound jealousy of the two. 

They are eating each other. They are overfed.

Again the narration equates sexual satiation with alimentary satiation.  The second part They are overfed seems to be a hollow "take that" from the narrator, who's sexual situation is less than satisfactory.  

The last line is the refrain.  

i carry your heart by E.E. Cummings

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

Today's  poem is by E.E. Cummings, famous for his idiosyncratic syntax and love poems.  Cummings is a little difficult to grasp when you first read him.  His writing style holds meaning though, it's not written for flash alone, but to convey new meaning and modify the topic of the poem.  The topic, like many of Cummings is love.  As this poem doesn't follow normal stanza patterns we'll analyze it line by line. 

line I: i carry your heart with me (i carry it in

 Line one starts with a sentence.  In classic Cummings fashion there are neither capitalization nor periods throughout the work.  There's the vague feeling that none of these things are important. Stripping down the writing to the barest essentials, conveys the importance of the matter at hand. The paradox is that his style is deliberate well-practiced craftsmanship.  It's a unification of style and substance. The second part of line one and the beginning of line two  are bracketed. This lets us know that Cummings is speaking in an aside, Shakespearean style.  (Cummings was a great practitioner of the Sonnet form as well by the way)  The bracketed part breaks on I carry it in, which gives an impression that he's carrying his lover in some place.  The second part lets us know it's to my heart that he's carrying her.  This also serves as a sort of loose repetition of meaning, reinforcing the sincerity of his desire for the beloved.

line II: my heart) i am never without it (anywhere

The unbracketed part of the second line is both literal and figurative in it's truth, a double meaning.    He's obviously never without his beating heart, nor is he without thought of his love.  The second bracketed point emphasizes that it's with him anywhere.  

line III: i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done

 line IV:  by only me is your doing, my darling)

 Line three begins and ends with the enjambment from anywhere into line four.  The emphasis from line two is that all places are the same when she's in his heart.  Line II-IV convey in a figurative sense that he does the things they do together when they're apart from one another.  He has her on his mind.

There is also a subtle mastubatory gesture within the lines, speaking of whatever a lover would do together that he does alone would be her doing.
 
line V:  i fear

I fear is deliberate in it's rhythmic break.  Here Cummings preps us for the worst.  Let's see what comes next. 

line VI:   no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want

Line six turns the i fear from line five into a gesture of fearlessness.  The aside turns on fate with an attributing his fearlessness to the understanding that she is his fate.  Coupled with an endearing my sweet.  I want begins the enjambment for the next line, this creates a complex staccato rhythm between the lines.  These consist of two one syllable words that are inverted by asides.  

line VII:  no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)

  I want no world is fully figurative and ends the sixth and seventh line enjambment.  Obviously he wants her in his world.  While the bracketed part continues on in haste to explain that she is his world and his truth.  This bracketed part repeats the rhythmic pattern with an endearing term. 

line VIII:   and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

  Here Cummings takes a break from brackets and continues on with a change in rhythmic patters set in the brackets above.  He fits a massive thirteen syllables into one line, leading the reader to speed up their reading to  keep the rhythm of the whole complete.

line IX:  and whatever a sun will always sing is you

Here there's a simple repetition in the line of and and whatever as in the line before it cements a mini couplet with a juxtaposition of the words sun and moon.  Cummings uses direct metaphor you are instead of simile in order to create a stronger impression of desire.  Again Cummings creates a union of style and substance that's almost explicit in his attributions of what the sun and moon do, which is song and meaning. 

line X:  here is the deepest secret nobody knows

 Line ten is a build up.  It's another rhythmic change adding accent and expression to the line in order to create the impression that someone is about to intimate something cherished and secret.

line XI:  (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

Lines eleven through thirteen form yet another an enjambment.  the brackets and foreshadowing of line ten aid in accelerating the tempo of the reading.  Line eleven is a repetition of calling things what they are.  This is a subtle juxtaposition between this bracketed portion, and lines eight and nine which a direct metaphors.  He repeats root, bud and sky, creating an encompassing impression of everything that can be seen from under the earth to the sky. 

line XII:  and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows

 The explanation of the secret is that all these things makes up a tree called life.  There's a subtle phalic reference with the tree which is natural in a love poem like this.  It should be noted that Cummings had never made a habit of shying away from the topic of the erotic in prior poetry. 

line XIII:  higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)

 This line brings us back to the subject of the aside which is a secret.  The narrator discloses that this secret could never be hidden.  Mind and soul are somewhat tritely connected, but the poem invigorates the pair with new meaning, intimating that his love is a secret that he cannot keep.

line XIV:  and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

 Here the second to last line slows the tempo, a denouement before the crescendo which takes place at the end.  The line continues the  ascent from root to stars.  This climbing also entails an ascent from the physical nature to the celestial, a hint on the process of transmuting physical attraction into classical fated love. 

line XV:  i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

The poem ends with a variation on the first two lines.  It omits the words with me from line one , and continues the bracketed portion of  line one and two. This enhances the urgency and cohesion of the beginning lines.  Instead of something the narrator carries with him, it has become a part of him.  Where the bracketed part occurred over two lines, it now occupies a single line.  Two have become one at the end. 

 

 

An Analysis of Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen

Dulce et Decorum Est

By Wilfred Owen

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;T

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling

And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—

Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori.

The poem begins in media res,  capturing the urgency of the moment and the general topic of the poem which is the suffering of warfare.  The second half of line one is a simile indirectly referencing their sufferings.  The sacks alluded to here are probably the war gear that the soldiers in World War I carried on their backs.

The second line foreshadows the intensification of the soldiers suffering, mentioning the soldiers coughing and wading through sludge.   The coughing and the sludge will be reintroduced later in the figure of the dying soldier. 

The third line is vivid in it's depiction of the soldiers leaving the front and the haunting flares that hang over it.  Owen paints an eerie picture of the light cast off in the distance behind the soldiers.

The fourth line continues the march away from the field and towards the promised rest there.

The fifth line begins with an consonance Men Marched asleep.  Emphasizing again the wretched state of affairs the soldiers endure.  It's noteworthy how Owen carries this theme without belaboring the point.  The lines are long and striking in their imagery.  So far they have followed an ABAB rhyme scheme with heavy visual depictions.  Another aspect is the movement of the soldiers themselves towards safety and rest. This keeps the implied misery of the soldiers from becoming overwrought and adds nuance to the rhythm.

The sixth line conveys that the soldiers have reached the nadir of their limits.  They're beginning to lose their senses out of sheer weariness.  Going lame and blind, covered in blood.  The mention of blood is noteworthy in that it's the blood of the soldiers.  Owen never mentions the enemy or their cause.  Given the tone and mood of the poem, these sentiments are beyond these men who have been pushed up to the breaking point.  With the inability to walk or even see anything around them there's no room for high ideals here.

The seventh line carries hints of foreshadowing.  The key point Owens emphasizes is their ever diminishing awareness of their surroundings.   Their perception have  narrowed down to whats in front of their faces and in some cases not even that much.

Line eight ends with the consequences of this condition,  their situational blindness.  They have no way of detecting the gas canisters that have fallen behind them. 

Line nine begins a new stanza with a distinctly different mood.  The recognition of the gas from the canisters instills a panic in the soldiers.  An anonymous member of the squad shouts out a rally to take precautionary measures.  The gas alluded to is likely phosgene or chlorine gas.   It's worthwhile to do a little research on these weapons.  The manner in which they attack the nervous system and cause death is particularly grisly.  Owen continues emphasizing the anonymity and mechanical nature of warfare.  There are no enemies you can see, no ideals, there's just misery, suffering, and death.

The second part of line nine might take a little time to digest.  The shock and dissonance on the line is furthered by the word ecstasy which seems out of place.  But one only has to recall times of sudden adrenaline bursts to understand the euphoria mentioned here.  There's something sordid about the dissonance, the idea of pleasure at all in this place.  Yet the word fumbling reminds us that the clumsiness that exhaustion has wrought upon them has not abated.

Line ten focuses on the gas masks that these soldiers would have been equipped with among the packs they'd been slugging along.  The word helmet is an antiquated word used to refer to the masks.  The masks are no doubt clumsy as this sort of warfare was new and the science and technique of creating these fail safes was not well advanced.

Line eleven begins the movement away from the complete anonymity of the poem thus far.  No individual has been visually represented up to this point.  The characteristics of the situation has thus far been emphasized.  Here we see the only noted victim of the attack as the soldier would see him, as someone shouting out and stumbling.  Like the war itself, the nature of death here isn't quick and immediately apparent.

Line twelve is a terrible description from one of the squad members of this strange new way to die.  It's as if he was on fire, or covered with Lime.  For the reader who isn't familiar with lime and it's effects on the body, a popular reference to this is in the movie Fight Club, where the protagonist burns his hand with it.  It's highly caustic to the skin and the scene from the movie can give you a good idea of what a small application to an isolated part of the body can do to you.

Line thirteen continues with the narrator helplessly observing his squad mate.  Safely protected by the gas masked as his compatriot dies a slow and painful death nearby.  The ubiquity of the gas has colored the wasteland green, and is so effusive that it's as if they're standing on the bottom of the ocean.

Line fourteen describes the soldier as drowning.  This is an apt depiction not only because of the eerie feeling of being on the bottom of the ocean, but because the gas is either causing him to spasm to the point where he can't breath, or eating away the lining of his lungs to the point that he's choking on the sludge that their becoming.

Ironically line fifteen begins the third stanza and cements the dying soldier as an individual.  Where before the soldiers in the poem were anonymous appearing only briefly,  this soldier has died yet he remains.  If only in the mind of his squad mate and his dreams.

Line sixteen is reifies for emphasis of the gruesome nature of the death.  The word guttering suggests the extinguishing of a candle flame, in this case the flame of the soldiers life.  Here again the soldier recounts the bizarre strange and harrowing experience of being at once on land yet under the ocean, of watching a man on dry land drown right in front of his face.

Like line nine line seventeen marks both a new stanza and a new train of thought.  Here the narration continues after the fact.  The tone of weariness in the first stanza is reintroduced, but this time the weariness isn't physical.  It's the weariness that stems from watching people die in a grisly manner. The immediacy prior has been softened by the invocation of a dream. 

Line eighteen juxtaposes the sentiment of loss with the utter lack of decorum accorded to the dead soldier.  He was thrown in a cart.  Highlighting again the differences between the ideals and the realities of the war.

Line nineteen talks about the white eyes writhing in his face.  The gas here has marred and contorted his human features.  Where the dead should have a sense of stillness in them, the eyes of the dead here continue writhing.  The word writhing in general use is often connotated with suffering and squirming to get away from it.  Here even in death the soldier hasn't found rest.

Line twenty has another complex comparison, this time making the soldier into a devil, but a devil that is sick of sin.  The preceding line gave us a depiction of how marred the soldiers eyes were, here again the self of the soldier is mutilated in that he carries the appearance of a devil, but somehow at the same time a devil weary of evil.  The situation and circumstances have become so imbued with suffering that even a devil would be sick of it.

Line twenty-one again stresses the impossibility of conveying to the reader the sense of atrocity and loss felt. The blood of the dead soldier like the eyes in his face continue to move, beyond the point of his death.  As though the horrible fate that befell him has overpowered his capacity to die.  The mutilation continues to effect him.

Line twenty-two returns again the foreshadowing alluded to in the mentioning of sludge.  Here the sludge is the froth corrupted lungs of the soldier.  The muck of the war has completely enveloped him and his comrades.

Line twenty-three  compares the effects to cancer, and it's obscenity upon the body.

Line twenty-four speaks of the sores that affect the mucus membranes common to victims of phosgene.  There's no cure for it.  But neither is there a cure for the soldiers who live on in witness of it.  If the dead soldier has assumed the likeness of a devil, then who is innocent here?  The truth of the matter may be that the contortions have twisted him into the image of something he is not.  The same may be said of the soldiers who live on after in witness.

Line twenty-five begins an in-stanza shift to a tone of admonishment.  The stanza thus far has consisted of a hypothetical assumption of what the reader would believe if they could see the aftermath of this gas attack.  Here Owen comes around to attacking the title of the poem.  Not in an haughty proud manner, but as one who has seen the war with his own eyes and knows the line derived from Horace's Odes is a lie. Nothing about the soldiers death was sweet or honorable.

Line twenty-six characterizes the adherents or people who put credence in the idea of Dulce et Decorum est as children.  An emphasis on their innocence to the realities of warfare and expectations of it.

Line twenty-seven  and twenty eight consist of an enjambment.  Owen closes the poem simply stating that Dulce et Decorum est is an old lie.  The depictions and experiences of his account leave little room for arguing against the reality of his attribution. 

Owens virtuosity in poetry hints that he was well educated in the literature of the Victorian era, where poetry such as Tennyson praised the virtue and nobility of warfare.  His knowledge of roman verse hings that he was schooled for this sort of upbringing. 

The advent of the industrial revolution however changed the nature of warfare.  Turning individuals into grist for the mill by machine guns and victims of chemical warfare.  Owens poetry is in some sense a rebuttal of his upbringing and the sentiments that were fostered upon him.  The glory of warfare is rebuffed with an honest accounting of the human misery involved therein. 

An Analysis of Queen-Anne's-Lace by William Carlos WIlliams

Queen-Anne’s-Lace

by William Carlos Williams

Her body is not so white as
 anemone petals nor so smooth—nor 
so remote a thing. It is a field 
of the wild carrot taking 
the field by force; the grass 
does not raise above it.
 Here is no question of whiteness,
 white as can be, with a purple mole
 at the center of each flower.
 Each flower is a hand’s span
 of her whiteness. Wherever
 his hand has lain there is
 a tiny purple blemish. Each part
 is a blossom under his touch
 to which the fibres of her being 
stem one by one, each to its end,
 until the whole field 
is a white desire, empty, a single stem, 
a cluster, flower by flower, 
a pious wish to whiteness gone over—
 or nothing.

The poem begins a little off key.  The first two words of the first line establish the subject of the poem, a woman's body.   But also within the first line Williams eschews the sort of hyperbole that typically adorns a poem of this sort.  Instead of saying her body is like something, he's saying it's not quite something.  The second line begins with what her body is being compared to, which is anemone petals.  It's not as white or as smooth as these. 

The third line begins to reverse the direction of the movement.  The narration ascribes also the quality of remoteness to the anemone, and continues in the same vein as the preceding lines, saying her body does not possess this quality.  Or in other words, her body is accessible.

The fourth through sixth line, provides us with a more fitting figuration for her body.  A field of the Wild Carrot.  In contrast with the delicacy and over-refined nature of the Anemone and it's remoteness, her body is abundant like the wild carrot. 

It's noteworthy that Williams was a practicing doctor for much of the time he wrote poetry.  It's natural to assume that some of this work would have been informed by this.  Instead of an artificial harmony and perfection Williams metaphor is one of imperfection and vitality.  Instead of an anemone with it's classical allusions and aesthetics, William's sees the struggle of life in nature. As any medical doctor of his time would be aware.   Here the Wild Carrot's success is the grasses loss.
 
In line seven Williams assuages any doubts as to the whiteness of her body,  but again reminds us of it's lack of purity.  The first line introduces us to her body that's not pure white.  Here again after reminding us that it is white, he goes on to say it possesses purple moles as well.  The poem again shies away from any objective claims of perfection or purity. 

Another more subtle distinction to be found within the poem is not merely the type of flower her body is compared to, but for lack of a better word, the magnification of it.  The poem eschews a comparison of her body with a petal, and instead compares it with a field of them  Instead of purity, homogeneity, and minuteness.  The poem emphasizes, diversity, heterogeneity, and abundance.  A flower becomes only a "hands span" of her whiteness.  From previous lines we know that it isn't pure. There are tiny purple maculations. So to say that a flower is a hands span of her whiteness is not to attribute to her completeness, perfection and purity.  The opposite of a state of absolute, could be construed as a state of process.  Which is an accurate comprehension of any living body or state of affairs in our world.

Wherever his hand has lain there's a tiny purple blemish.   Here again it's not pure white.  But one can imagine the sort of skin that bruises easily.  The sort of  wan and palid skin some women possess.  Who "he" is, is never addressed within the poem itself.  Again the next line is a study of contrasts, where before there was a purple blemish, now each is a blossom under his touch.  It's as if the poem is trying to convince us that the imperfection is the perfection itself.

He goes on to address the fibers of her being.   It may be appropriate to draw upon our knowledge of the author again, my opinion of what's conveyed by "the fibers of her being" is an informed figuration based upon a medical understanding of dermatomes.(uir.ulster.ac.uk/24144/1/Dermatome_session.doc)  It conveys the idea of stems and surfaces of tactile sensation grouped in clusters.  Continuing on with the metaphors of blossoms which would be the sensation of touch.


   Here's a quick link to help you with understanding the interpretation.   The sensations of her being stemming, and becoming sensitive to her skin, until the whole field is a white desire, empty, a single stem.

The movement now is away from multiplicity and heterogeneaty, back to "whole"ness, "white"ness, and "empty"ness.  Although I doubt Williams was a Buddhist or informed by Buddhist phenomenology, his description and understanding of emptiness is in accordance with certain Buddhist concepts of emptiness.  Another way of construing the contrast between purity and impurity, would be the absolute and relative.  The absolute and pure have similar qualities in that, they're unattainable in any definite sense.  While everything in our world is impure or relative.  That is, it all occurs within a field of cause and effect. Nothing that is the subject of cause and effect can be said to be independent in the definite sense.

Up to this point in the poem, Williams has eschewed all absolute depictions of her body.  He notices the little differences, the purple moles, the abundance and other qualities.  Whenever approaching purity or absoluteness he shies away though.

But the tone is changing, here he describes her body as a single stem.  It's coalescing into one, the way a field of flowers might..  It's empty in the sense that there is nothing to compare it to.  Definitions depend on qualities of attribution.  If the seamlessness of her body is such, that one part can't be differentiated from another, it's in a sense empty.  It's not one thing, because a thing only means something in comparison to something else. In a way what he's saying is that it isn't relative to anything else. There's the hint that a process of immersion is taking place.   Although from the beginning of the poem, the narration has been trying to avoid ideal attributions, his descriptions are beginning to become homogeneous, pure, empty, absolute, and all.

The subtlety of the poem is that it is an experience of this process of coalescing, and not just the willy nilly attribution of perfection and ideal.  The sincerity is conveyed through the intimacy and authenticity in which the narration approaches the subject of her body.  

 It's of interest to note the flower that Williams chooses to write about.  Queen Anne's Lace has a multiplicity of petals above the stem, that don't form a single flower but countless tiny ones above the stem.  However from a distance it all looks like one flower.  It's an excellent metaphor for the substance of the poem.

An Analysis of Harlem by Langston Hughes

Harlem

By Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?

      Does it dry up

      like a raisin in the sun?

      Or fester like a sore—

      And then run?

      Does it stink like rotten meat?

      Or crust and sugar over—

      like a syrupy sweet?

      Maybe it just sags

      like a heavy load.

      Or does it explode?

Here's a short poem by Langston Hughes.  A prominent member of the Harlem Renaissance.   He speaks of the dreams of the black people of his time. Having yet to achieve the Civil Rights movement the post civil war condition of the black populace in the United States was still diminished by legislature like Jim Crow and general bigotry.

The poem takes the form of multiple questions.  Possibilities in answer to the the first question, What happens to a dream deferred? The dream in the poem is explicitly ambiguous, but is imbued with implicit meaning by title of the poem, Harlem. 

   Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?  The question is straightforward.  Will it dry up in the sun?  The poem will follow this pattern for the next three questions.  No definite answers are given for any of the questions, but their rhetorical nature bound up with the metonymy of the dream leaves the reader aware that each of them infer a bad outcome.  The general pattern the questions will follow will be one of food spoiling or wounds festering.  The natural outcomes of perishables and wounds left unattended for too long.


   Or fester like a sore-    And then run?  Again the poem addresses the possible degradation of the dream, here it becomes a wound to those that carry it, hobbling them.  Bleeding out in the manner in which a sore runs.  Here the dream is depicted as a corporeal part of those that bear it.  If the dream is has any redemptive value, then one may recognize a subtle invocation of the wounded healer on behalf of the bearers.  An archetype that is recurrent throughout the western canon. 

Does it stink like rotten meat?  The third question follows the second and is appropriate as the natural progression of an untended wound that has rotted to the point of putrefaction.  It's reached the state of rotten meat.  The last question spoke of the dream as part of the body of it's bearers, here the dream is distanced and assumes the state of foul meat. It's portrayal as sustenance  implies it's still important, but that it's become unpalatable to those who depend on it.


Or crust and sugar over-   like a syrupy sweet?  Here the question again revolves around something palatable gone rotten.  The inflection here is a little more nuanced and insidious though. The sweetness ascribed here could mean the dream has been overtaken by sentimentalism, lacking the dynamic force capable of creating change.  It's possible that the narrator is implying a state of affairs similar to the idea conveyed by the word kitsch.


Maybe it just sags  like a heavy load.  The last doublet before the final line is a statement, providing contrast to all the rhetorical/hypothetical questions preceding it.  Although it is perhaps most explicit in conveying the idea that the dream may simply become a burden to it's bearers.  Exhausted of asking questions, of pondering the possibilities of the dream.  This to makes an excellent contrast to the last line of the poem. .

  Or does it explode?  The last line contrasts the lethargy and downtrodden tone of the previous doublet.  It also contrasts the three previous questions in that instead of becoming something internalized or malignant to the people in possession of the dream it explodes.  An outward movement of force.  Here the dream isn't depicted as having lost vitality as in the first question, but is vitality itself.  It doesn't fester like a sore, it's quick and dynamic, but still dangerous.  Perhaps it contrasts most strongly with the last possibility, the dream crusted and sugar over, having become a sentimentality.  It's simply not in the same ballpark as the association.   It's an answer in defiance of all previous expectations posited by the three expectations.

The lack of explicit reference to the end,  maintains the tone of the whole poem as one of speculative possibilities  It makes no direct reference to violence, or the object upon which the dream would explode upon.  It could be a sudden mass movement of the people.  It could be an actual bombing. It's left up to the reader to interpret the meaning of the lines.  Although the last line conveys danger in a general way, it's considered preferable to languishing.

An Analysis of The Chimney Sweeper by William Blake

The Chimney Sweeper: A little black thing among the snow

By William Blake

A little black thing among the snow,

Crying "weep! 'weep!" in notes of woe!

"Where are thy father and mother? say?"

"They are both gone up to the church to pray.

Because I was happy upon the heath,

And smil'd among the winter's snow,

They clothed me in the clothes of death,

And taught me to sing the notes of woe.

And because I am happy and dance and sing,

They think they have done me no injury,

And are gone to praise God and his Priest and King,

Who make up a heaven of our misery." 

 The first stanza identifies the subject of the poem.  The Chimney Sweeper.  In Blake's time children used to be used to clean up chimneys as they were small and nimble enough to get at the different spots in the chimney.  One may infer from the line, that the chimney sweep is soot covered from work.  The first line also creates a contrast between the blackness of the soot stained boy and the color of the snow.  Although it's a seemingly subtle point, its fitting opening for a poem that's part of a compendium on contrasts.  Songs of Innocence and Experience.

A little black thing among the snow,

Crying "weep! 'weep!" in notes of woe!

"Where are thy father and mother? say?"

"They are both gone up to the church to pray.

The second line doubles as onomatopoeia in that "weep! 'weep!" is the sound that a little bird chirping would make.  If this is the case, then the chimney sweep is a figure to be pitied.  Weep weep is also a near homophone with sweep sweep, which is what the chimney sweep does.

The third line at the end of the stanza can be seen as someone concerned with the boys well being, asking after his parents.  The fourth line is assumed to be the voice of the boy and states matter of factly that they've gone up to the church to pray. His voice will finish out the rest of the poem.

 The second stanza begins:

Because I was happy upon the heath,

And smil'd among the winter's snow,

They clothed me in the clothes of death,

And taught me to sing the notes of woe.

Modern American readers may be unfamiliar with what a heath is, which is a sort of country scrub-land in Britain.  So one can infer that the boys family is poor and as a result of this they moved to the city where the boy became a chimney sweep.  Again the stanzas are tied up in dichotomies bound up between the first and second halves.  The first two refer to the boys prior circumstances, the second speaking of his current circumstances bound up in death and woe.  The Chimney Sweep seems to believe it was because he was happy, that he was clothed in the clothes of death, and taught the notes of woe.

The last stanza starts with an emotional contrast to the last line of the prior stanza.

And because I am happy and dance and sing,

They think they have done me no injury,

And are gone to praise God and his Priest and King,

Who make up a heaven of our misery."

 

 In the first two lines the chimney sweep says that even though  he dances and sings, he's still been injured by this experience.  There's a dichotomy between his outer demeanor and his inner condition.  In short he's lost his innocence. 

The last half of the stanza mentions his parents piousness which he mentions playing a role in not just his misery, but our misery. The third line is role call of persons of propriety and standing within society: God, Priest, and King.  These are the sort of people his parents praise.  It seems as though the chimney sweep is searching for people who have convinced his parents to place him in conditions that are as miserable as they are.  People who make up a heaven of our misery. 

The irony in part is due to the boys worldliness and cynicism.   Instead of being idealistic and pious concerning his views of society and people, he displays sorrow concerning the status quo. 

Perhapson account of the way they manifest their subservience to God, Priest, and King, which ostensibly should be looking after the well being of the people beneath them.

Analysis of Elm by Sylvia Plath

Elm

By Sylvia Plath

 

For Ruth Fainlight

I know the bottom, she says. I know it with my great tap root:   

It is what you fear.

I do not fear it: I have been there.

Is it the sea you hear in me,   

Its dissatisfactions?

Or the voice of nothing, that was your madness?

Love is a shadow.

How you lie and cry after it

Listen: these are its hooves: it has gone off, like a horse.

All night I shall gallop thus, impetuously,

Till your head is a stone, your pillow a little turf,   

Echoing, echoing.

Or shall I bring you the sound of poisons?   

This is rain now, this big hush.

And this is the fruit of it: tin-white, like arsenic.

I have suffered the atrocity of sunsets.   

Scorched to the root

My red filaments burn and stand, a hand of wires.

Now I break up in pieces that fly about like clubs.   

A wind of such violence

Will tolerate no bystanding: I must shriek.

The moon, also, is merciless: she would drag me   

Cruelly, being barren.

Her radiance scathes me. Or perhaps I have caught her.

I let her go. I let her go

Diminished and flat, as after radical surgery.   

How your bad dreams possess and endow me.

I am inhabited by a cry.   

Nightly it flaps out

Looking, with its hooks, for something to love.

I am terrified by this dark thing   

That sleeps in me;

All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity.

Clouds pass and disperse.

Are those the faces of love, those pale irretrievables?   

Is it for such I agitate my heart?

I am incapable of more knowledge.   

What is this, this face

So murderous in its strangle of branches?——

Its snaky acids hiss.

It petrifies the will. These are the isolate, slow faults   

That kill, that kill, that kill.

In case your not a botanist or gifted with the greenthumbs knack for plants, the above is an Elm.   You may find a picture helpful as the poem is an extended conceit that touches on many of the physical aspects of the tree itself. 

There's a few things about the poetess that can help place the circumstance of the text.   Sylvia Plath was a member of the "confessional" feminist poets.   She suffered from severe depression through out her life, naturally some of her work is informed by this.  She begins at the bottom: 

Stanza I; line one:  I know the bottom, she says. I know it with my great tap root:

The poem begins in  appropriate form for a confessional poem.  The first line repeats I know, I know.  The narrator sexes the Elm as a female with the two words, she says.  These two words will alter the voice of the Elm for the rest of the poem. .

The next two lines hinge on the idea of the bottom.  The first stanza begins with a  reference to her tap root, which is modified in a figurative manner in lines two and three.  

Stanza I; line two: It is what you fear.

Stanza I; line three:  I do not fear it: I have been there.

The first stanza establishes an asymmetry of knowledge.  It speaks of knowledge and the fear of it.  Intimating that the Elm has known things and doesn't fear what they are any more, as opposed to the reader who does not.  The idea of a tree possessing dangerous knowledge is a trope that's been established at the root of the Western Canon since Genesis and the poem will revisit this idea at its end.

The second stanza establishes the misunderstandings attributed by the reader upon the Elm.  It asks two question, one associated with the sea and it's innate restlessness,  the other being the voice of nothing.  The final phrase was that your madness? in the last line establishes these as misunderstandings.  If it wasn't evident to begin with, this stanza cements the poem as a feminist work.  The narration posits that interpretations posited upon her from the outside are not satisfactory or even accurate.  As the poem continues and the "experiences"  of the Elm are voiced in full, we'll see that these superficial positings are not capable of providing weight or meaning to the experiences.

Stanza II; line :Is it the sea you hear in me,   

Stanza II; line :Its dissatisfactions?

Stanza II; line :Or the voice of nothing, that was your madness?

At risk of positing upon the poem some characterizations, stanzas III and IV draw a little bit from the poetess' life.  Ms. Plath was an avid rider of horses.  In fact one of her most famous poems is named after a horse she owned named Ariel. 

Stanza III; line one:   Love is a shadow.

Stanza III; line two:  How you lie and cry after it

Stanza III; line three:  Listen: these are its hooves: it has gone off, like a horse.

The third stanza is a direct metaphor. The subject of love will be a dark matter of rumination throughout the poem. It's first characterization paradoxically cements it's mercurial nature.   What is a shadow?  Figuratively shadows can be illusions or inner darkness.  The concrete nature of a shadow though is it's utter impalpability.  You can't feel a shadow, and what's more it's a mere trace of extant objects.  The second line expresses the futility of crying and lying after something like this.  The third line of the stanza begins abruptly with the imperative Listen: Here the mercurial love she characterized as a shadow materializes into a horse running off.

Stanza IV; line one:  All night I shall gallop thus, impetuously,

Stanza IV; line two:  Till your head is a stone, your pillow a little turf,   

Stanza IV; line three:  Echoing, echoing

The beginning of stanza IV continues the metaphor of love being a horse, but the voice of the poem becomes that of the horse itself.  The next line invokes the image of the grave.  The line illustrates Sylvia's powerful capacity for convergence, beginning with the word Till which is used as a contraction of until, while simultaneously adding nuance to the line by invoking till as in till the soil.  The rest of the first phrase is a rearrangement and splitting of the compound word "headstone".  Head is a stone conveys both the oblivion of the listener in death, and also the intractable, stupifying nature of the problem at hand.  The second phrase invokes the visual of the raised grave with the pillow shaped mound that is sometimes depicted in front of headstones.

The last line of stanza IV is echoing, echoing.  Here the the writers talent for convergence expresses itself again.  The word echoing echoes itself. 

 Stanza V continues...

Stanza V; line one:  Or shall I bring you the sound of poisons?   

Stanza V; line two:  This is rain now, this big hush.

Stanza V; line three:  And this is the fruit of it: tin-white, like arsenic.

Stanza five begins with an offering of the sound of poison.  There's a dissonance between the sense invoked; sound,  and the possibility of what is perceived by that sense; poison. How does one hear a poison?   Line two clarifies a little by continuing on with a sense of sound.  One can infer in these short lines that the rain is the poison, as lines are connected by their shared invocation of sound. The last line is striking and paints itself with visual references, fruit, tin-white, arsenic arsenic is popularly known for it's poisonous qualities. While seemingly jarring in a stanza centered around sounds and their perceptions, it makes a perfect transition line for the next stanza which focuses on sights rather than sounds.

Stanza VI; line one:  I have suffered the atrocity of sunsets.   

Stanza VI; line two:  Scorched to the root

Stanza VI; line three:  My red filaments burn and stand, a hand of wires. 

This stanza is one of the most color oriented of the poem.  The first line invokes colors with the word sunsets.  The atrocity involved is hinted at through the symbolic nexus associated with the idea of sunsets.  Sunsets are associated with endings, as in "ride off into the sunset", as in "sunset years" so sunset here invokes endings, even though the connection with the central conceit of the elm makes it a day to day occurrence, which gives weight and understanding to the gloom of depression.  The second line invokes the intensity of the suffering, scorched to the root.  The narrator was burned so badly that it's affected her deepest parts.  While roots that are scorched may appear normal, blackened roots lose the capacity to grow and sustain life.  The last line speaks of the Elm's filaments.  The filaments here likely allude to the small dendrites that branch from the main root.  They're depicted as stressed and hued red.

Stanza VII; line one:  Now I break up in pieces that fly about like clubs.   

Stanza VII; line two:  A wind of such violence

Stanza VII; line three:  Will tolerate no bystanding: I must shriek. 

  If you isolate the first half of the first line you get... Now I break up in pieces.  Perfectly symbolic of a break down.  The Elm speaks of the danger this poses, as the parts of her fly apart.  A danger not only to herself but for anyone or thing unfortunate enough to be around her at that moment.  The second line acknowledges the ferocity of the process.The last line speaks to the incapacity of the narrator to endure this silently.  An outburst must happen.  This is likely an allusion to the compounding nature of the depressed person's pain. When they can't keep a lid on their suffering they're compelled to voice vulnerability, weakness, and other pain that day to day society urges them to keep repressed.  This compounds the guilt of the sufferer as they draw bystanders into the vicinity of this "violence."  The very last part of the stanza also brings the focus back to the concrete symbol of the conceit.  The image of a leafless tree shrieking in a howling wind.  

Stanza VIII; line one:  The moon, also, is merciless: she would drag me   

Stanza VIII; line two:  Cruelly, being barren.

Stanza VIII; line three:  Her radiance scathes me. Or perhaps I have caught her. 

Stanza eight comments on the lack of succor in her surroundings.  The first line reiterates this,  hinting at the gravitational effect the moon has on the earth and how it would drag her cruelly. It's of note that the poem sexes the moon in a feminine manner.  The last line expresses how all light scathes her, and  perhaps invokes an image of the leafless elm holding the moon in it's branches.

Stanza IX; line one:  I let her go. I let her go

Stanza IX; line two:  Diminished and flat, as after radical surgery.   

Stanza IX; line three:  How your bad dreams possess and endow me.

The continuation of the moons trajectory necessitates that the Elm release her.  The second line reminds the reader of the deleterious effect she has on everything around her.  The last line admits this is mostly phantasmagoria and projection originating from sources outside herself, nevertheless it captures her and exacerbates these intolerable situations. I find the last line particularly intriguing as it introduces both a sense of menace, and pleasure at being an object of attention.  Stanzas ten and eleven will elaborate on this sort of malignant affection.  

Stanza X; line one:  I am inhabited by a cry.   

Stanza X; line two:  Nightly it flaps out

Stanza X; line three:  Looking, with its hooks, for something to love. 

Stanza ten and eleven center around the idea of a bird living within the Elm.  The cry flaps out, so it's reasonable to assume she's speaking of a bird.  Here again the Elm characterizes the nature of love in dark and predatory terms.   The first line serves as a trope to internalize the following lines.  The cry, is something that inhabits her.

Stanza XI; line one:  I am terrified by this dark thing   

Stanza XI; line two:  That sleeps in me;

Stanza XI; line three:  All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity.

This stanza serves to reinforce the nature of the thing inside her as dark and scary.  It resides within herself, but she feels that it's behavior is unnacceptable.  Noteworthy is the last line, in which she relents in her grim depiction of the dark bird and speaks of it as soft and feathery, but she still finds these characteristics malign.

Stanza XII; line one:  Clouds pass and disperse.

Stanza XII; line two:  Are those the faces of love, those pale irretrievables?   

Stanza XII; line three:  Is it for such I agitate my heart? 

Stanza twelve begins with a more pensive attitude.  The dissipation of natural phenomena.  The second line reinforces the mood with reference to the transience and unsatisfactory nature of love. The tone of the stanza is passive and curious.  The detachment of the observation provides a sense of quiescence contrasting with the desperation of the preceding stanzas.  The last line ties the idea together with a feeling of surrender.  The love that has been a subject of the poem since the third stanza becomes just another thing.  An object not even worth getting agitated over.

Stanza XIII; line one:   I am incapable of more knowledge.   

Stanza XIII; line two:   What is this, this face

Stanza XIII; line three:   So murderous in its strangle of branches?——

Here the tree speaks of it's incapacity for more knowledge.  In the Judeo-Christian tradition one might find it noteworthy for a tree to talk about knowledge.  A reference to the Garden of Eden.  The Elm then begins to speak of a face that seems capable of murder hidden in branches separate from its own.  The first line is fitting, as the Elm isn't capable of identifying the face itself, being incapable of more knowledge.

Stanza XIV; line one:  Its snaky acids hiss.

Stanza XIV; line two:  It petrifies the will. These are the isolate, slow faults   

Stanza XIV; line three:  That kill, that kill, that kill.

The first line of the last stanza returns to the Garden of Eden motif, with a reference to snakes.  Here the hiss is acidic, it could be a reference to acid rain.  The second line speaks of the loss of will, and how the faults enumerated throughout the poem are isolate.  Although one recieves the poem as a general meditation on gloom, each problem is intractable and isolate.  The last line is a solemn chant, reiterating how these are the things that are killing her.