“To Marguerite”, by Matthew Arnold on 1-9-12

YES: in the sea of life enisled,

With echoing straits between us thrown.

Dotting the shoreless watery wild,

We mortal millions live alone.

The islands feel the enclasping flow,

And then their endless bounds they know.

 

But when the moon their hollow lights,

And they are swept by balms of spring,

And in their glens, on starry nights,

The nightingales divinely sing;

And lovely notes, from shore to shore,

Across the sounds and channels pour;

O then a longing like despair

Is to their farthest caverns sent!

For surely once, they feel, we were

Parts of a single continent.

Now round us spreads the watery plain--

O might our marges meet again!

 

Who order'd that their longing's fire

Should be, as soon as kindled, cool'd?

Who renders vain their deep desire?--

A God, a God their severence ruled;

And bade betwixt their shores to be

The unplumb'd, salt, estranging sea.

REACTION

This poem is a conceit of two lovers separation by using islands in a sea. Though once they were close enough to seem as one person, they were forced apart by powers above them. They long for each other with the passing events, but they are hopelessly estranged and separated. I feel that the author has given up on all types of love because of the estrangement he now feels.

PARAPHRASE:

All alone in the middle of the sea where nothing else can be seen, humans are truly alone in life. As different forms of loving nature sound, human emotions of despair surface because of a longing for a lover that is gone. Even the nature felt that we were the same person for a time. Now we are hopelessly separated with only a distant wish that we may one day meet again. Who ordered the death of love? God severed the love and distanced it between the never ending sea.

SWIFTT:

-SW: The author uses very particular diction between enisled and betwixt. It gives a very distinct voice and a personal, but formal, feel.

-I: The author uses imagery mostly in the second stanza. He describes the lights as hollow and the song of the nightingale as divine. This imagery gives a distinct feel to the way he perceives the world at that time. Because of the nature of the poem, it can be assumed that they author is depressed and perceiving darkness and sadness at every turn.

-F: The whole poem is a conceit of islands and the sea to the relationship between two lovers that has fallen apart. From this conceit, the reader is able to feel the despair of the narrator.

-T: This poem has a depressing tone because of the subject matter and the diction. The author keeps a very formal style to his writing, but speaks of a very personal matter and feeling. The most powerful stanza with tone is the last one because the author writes with despair and unwilling acceptance that concludes the thought process and reassures that the lost love will never be found.

-T: This poem has a theme of lost love. The narrator has obviously lost the one he loves by what he feels is a higher power has intervened. Through his conceit, he established this theme. He then supports this theme with the other elements used. He established the depression from this lost love through the syntax he uses to create a very personal feel and then the imagery he uses to paint a very depressing atmosphere.

CONCLUSION

I was very close in my original thought. After reviewing the poems strategically, I realized that in the original reading, I overlooked some literary components. While I did seem the singing of the nightingale and crashing waves, I did not attribute that to the tone or imagery, instead I cast that aside as an insignificant detail. It is also easier to see the despair and hopelessness the narrator feels. I did not catch the divine intervention that they narrator attributes the separation to in the first reading.