To his Coy Mistress

Is this poem about time or love? Well I suppose it's about both. The first stanza proposes a hypothetical ideal situation. The speaker essentially says that if the had all the world and all the time, her coyness would not bother him. And he would still love her, even for hundreds of thousands of years. However, the next stanza shifts to realism. They do not have all the time in the world. In fact, they have a very small glimpse of time before they die. And so he asks his lady friend not to be so coy. They don't have all the time in the world, so really there isn't time to be coy. So...what is "coy" exactly...? Bluntly, it means that his ladyfriend doesn't want to Have Relations. This sort of kills that romantic element of the poem. He starts off all lovely, "Oh baby, I'd love you forever if I had forever to spend." and then shifts to "But I can't, so let's bump uglies instead, and love each other that way." Writing prettily does not change the fact that he ultimately has the relationship maturity of a seventeen year old guy.

Dover Beach

Now at some point I'll have to put Cliffs of Dover on my playlist. Awesome.

This poem is all about faith, or essentially a lack thereof. This is brought about through a depiction of the ocean ebbing and flowing onto the beach like waves. The speaker relates this surging back and forth motion to a sense of longing for something. The sense of faith is then brought out through the line "The Sea of Faith was once, too, at the full. The speaker is basically saying that the world was once full of faith, this sea had no sense of longing, because it was full and had no room to ebb or flow. The ocean had no longing because the world was run by faith. Now, however, the speaker notes that the sea has emptied a bit, and now there is only a longing to fill it once again with the faith the world once had. In this poem, the pebbles represent the people of the world. Because of the lack of faith, there is no stability or foundation: the pebbles simply sway back and forth due to their lack of faith. However, when the Sea of Faith was full, there was no ebb, and the pebbles were stable and strong. The speaker ultimately wants the world to return to how it once was.

Crossing the Bar

This poem, yet another in the long line of poems about dying, evokes a particularly strong tone (Question 8). First, the speaker makes clear his metaphor between crossing a sandbar and dying with the line "may there be no moaning of the bar when I put out to sea." The speaker here is requesting that nobody cry or mourn his passing, thus giving the general impression that the speaker is not upset about his death, but rather views it as a happy occasion, and doesn't want anyone else to mourn his death. This point is reinforced by the line "May there be no sadness of farewell when I embark." However, the poem takes on a deeper tone with the line "When that which drew from out the boundless deep turns again home." The speaker adds a bit of a religious element to his attitued by essentially stating that the afterlife is his true home, and that he is only returning to where he belongs. Yet another line to reinforce this religious attitude is "I hope to see my Pilot face to face when I have crossed the bar." The term "hope" in this line could have a potentially ambiguous meaning, but because of the strongly established tone of religiously-based optimism, the word takes on the very clear meaning of strong desire. The speaker does not just view death in a positive light, but it is his ultimate desire. He wants, above all else, to return home and see God.

I like sailing....

My Mistress' Eyes

This little sonnet is intriguing in that it rages against the common structure of a typical sonnet of its day. The central purpose of the poem (Question 6), in fact, is to satirize these other sonnetsthat write so prettily, but are honestly just dishonest. Therefore, Shakespeare counters with a completely and fully honest poem. Where others would have said "My love, your eyes rage like the Aegean," or "My beloved, a thousand suns could not outshine the light in your eyes," Shakespeare simply notes "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun." This general premise continues throughout the course of the poem, essentially creating a general tone or feeling of simple honesty. The last line then delivers the crushing blow to the other sonnet writers with his last thought "I think my love as beautiful as any she belied with false compare." Shakespeare finally closes, and pretty much saves his own neck, by saying that even though he refuses to lie, his lady friend is still just as beautiful as any who is lied to.

Actually, you know what, this eye kind of does look like the sun...

APO 96225

A particularly important morsel of information is that APO 96225 is the mailing address of the 25th Infantry Division in Vietnam. Reading the questions is handy. So this poem portrays several common aspects of the human psyche. The first of course is that the son breezes over the true nature of his time in Vietnam in order to keep his mother from worrying. Naturally, he wants to protect his loved ones from fear and worry, so he simply omits part of the truth. However, the second aspect is the mother's desire to know the real honest truth about what's happening. She will worry either way, so she at least wants to know the truth. And then there is that third aspect, in addition to protecting loved ones from worry and the desire to know the truth. The father gets angry when he learns the truth, and it wasn't as good as he had hoped. He is disappointed by the truth and would rather go back to believing the son's understatements. This represents a common human reaction to bad news: outright dismissal and a request for some better news. It's kind of sad that this is how so many of the veterans were treated. So to make it up for them, here is their parade:

I feel a little better.

Sorting Laundry

I laughed obnoxiously when I read the title "Sorting Laundry." The poem itself wasn't as bad as I thought, at least. There was at least some higher meaning to it. I was really worried I was going to waste several minutes of my life reading about a poem literally just about sorting ones laundry. In reality, the laundry sorting process represents the thinking process of a person contemplating their relationship with a significant other. The pillowcases remind the speaker of the dreams she and her lover share together. The gaudy towels represent the knick-knacks they pick up over the years that serve no real purpose but remind them of a fond memory involving the two. The regular shirts and skirts and pants remind the speaker of the simple daily life that they share that ordinarily would be monotonous, but are made fantastic due to the involvement of the aforementioned significant other, who I will henceforth refer to as "husband," because the previous name is too long. The wrinkles in the clothes represent the flaws that the two lovebirds see in the other that they have grown to love, and thus ignore and don't "iron out." The socks represent the various mysteries of love, as nobody can every solve the mystery of where the socks all go. The random items found in the laundry represent the many random fond memories that the two share. The dollar bills that are intact, despite agitation, represent their relationship, which has stayed strong, despite potentially rough patches. And thus the poem concludes with the statement finally saying that should the husband leave the speaker, a mountain of unsorted wash could not fill the empty side of the bed, essentially meaning that all the fun things mentioned previously would mean nothing without the husband to complete everything. D'awww....

The Lost Socks have clearly been stolen by these Underpants Gnomes, who have apparently expanded their business model to include hosiery.

Ozymandias

My sister totally told me about this poem back a million years ago when she was in high school. Freaky, yo. Who knew we'd still be studying the same old poetry a million years later?

This poem features a little snippet of synechdoche, which gives me just the perfect opportunity to answer question 11. The example that I'm referring to is the head of Ozymandias. In this case, it's a statue, but for my purposes, the head stands for the whole Ozymandias. The important part of this comparison is that the facial expression on Ozymandias's face is that of a "sneer of cold command." This very facial expression stands for Ozymandias's entire personality: he was a cruel and authoritative king who sought glory through the oppression of his people. And therefore, Ozymandias stands as a symbol for all tyrants and oppressors. The speaker is stating that though they may accrue temporary glory, their accomplishments will result in nothing if the people hate them, because all people will die, and when the tyrant has died, then there is no fear left to keep the people under control. However, a benevolent king will stay within the hearts and minds of his subjects long after his death, held up by love and respect. Thus, the poem is not simply ripping on Ozymandias, but is demonstrating the proper way to rule a nation.

This is not even Ozymandias. This is just a head.