In keeping with the theme of tragedy, a dark piece...
The Froce That Through The Green Fuse Drives The Flower
Dylan Thomas
The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.
The force that drives the water through the rocks
Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams
Turns mine to wax.
And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins
How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks.
The hand that whirls the water in the pool
Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wind
Hauls my shroud sail.
And I am dumb to tell the hanging man
How of my clay is made the hangman's lime.
The lips of time leech to the fountain head;
Love drips and gathers, but the fallen blood
Shall calm her sores.
And I am dumb to tell a weather's wind
How time has ticked a heaven round the stars.
And I am dumb to tell the lover's tomb
How at my sheet goes the same crooked worm.
Dylan's poem is complex in its simplicity.
This poem describes the cycle of life and death, while acknowledging that destruction is a key part of the same process, both for man and for nature. Each stanza presents the flow of time moving towards its conclusion.
This poem is saturated with imagery and metaphor. Imagery is evident in the first stanza with descriptions of death in relation to “wintry fever”. The green “fuse” is the stem which is the life-blood of the flower, connecting it like a baby to its mother through its umbilical cord.
Violent words such as “force” to describe something as beautiful as the growth and maturation of a flower is unlikely, and this poem is dark in that these violent images are often used to take the focus off of the beauty and progression of life, and rather remind us that death is inevitable for the weathered flower.
This poem compares the human existence to that of nature represented as a flower. It reminds us that we are all ‘one with the earth’, we all experience similar stages towards death, we all experience the process of aging, and that we will all eventually meet the same fate.
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2 comments:
Crystal,
I've never read anything by Dylan but I think I might now. Are his poems available in the Norton?
I enjoyed this poem because of its simplicity as well. Although some of the images take time to sink in, they essentially do cover a process of life to death.
The overall sense of what the poem is about came to me as "an energy". When I say this, I mean that there was a force, as the title suggests, that is beyond our control. I saw this force as an energy which makes us grow, moves us forward, and eventually introduces us to our deaths. Call it life, if you will, or some deity which we could say this "energy" comes from, but the overall impression was a progression that this energy gives.
Very interesting actually, and slightly morbid. However, its darkness reveals a truth that Dylan clearly understood as being forceful in its nature.
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