If I Could Tell You Auden

The ebony clock is one of the objects in the poem that is described. Seconds and minutes tick by fast “time that flies” (5).This quote is

The second stanza tells about a “glorious lamp of heaven”, the sun, running a race from sunup to sundown (Herrick 385). In the third stanza it talks about when people are youthful they think they have all the time to accomplish their goals but “times still succeed the former”, which simply means time

Nature, that washed her hands in milk” can be divided structurally into two halves; the first three stanzas constitute the first half, and the last three stanzas make up the second half. Each stanza in the first half corresponds to a stanza in the second half. The first stanza describes the temperament of Nature, who is, above all, creative. This first stanza of the first half corresponds to stanza four, the first stanza in the second half of the poem. Stanza four divulges the nature of Time, who, unlike Nature, is ultimately a destroyer. Time is introduced as the enemy of Nature, and Ralegh points out that not only does Nature “despise” Time, she has good reason for it

At this point in the poem, the speaker takes a moment to explain that, beauty and the ability to enjoy life to the fullest fades with time, and that the two of them should show off or 'sport'; their love and beauty before time passes by and they loose there chance.

time,” is a statement which this book The Daughter of Time demonstrated very well. It showed how

Experience and wisdom are gained throughout time and the aging process. It is also learned through the poem that it is important to take time for things that one finds enjoyable. Such things as "mother-of-pearl and corals" (line 16) represent those things which make us joyful. It is suggested that one is supposed to enjoy and obtain

In the beginning of the poem we see the line “Time that is moved by little fidget wheels” conveying the meaning he was taken before his time. This refers to the chronological and systematic time of humanity in which is measured by minutes and hours, shown on clocks that are symbolised by bells. This concept of time is far more powerful with the use of personification as emphasised by the capitalisation.

test of time and perfectly encapture the issues and questions of the time period. These poems

This poem is all about time and if we had time this and that could

Throughout the villanelle, time is personified and introduced to the reader as an unreliable character, through. Auden blames Time for unwanted changes in life, and he repeats the line because he observes that all changes, even those that are unintentional, come with Time. The repetition of Time at the end of the stanza rather than the beginning or end display how eternal time is. The first part of each stanza question Time, but all ends with “Time will say nothing but I told you so”, explaining that whatever Auden thinks or observes, will all be part of the past in the future.

Time’s inconsistent form is captured by variations in the meter as the poem progresses. The meter in the first line of the third stanza “Man disavows, and Deity disowns me” (9) adheres to the format of a dactyl followed by four trochees. Man’s disavowal of the narrator renders his life terminable, putting an end to his time on earth. The repetition of assonance with “dis” in “disavows” and “disowns” with a sound that means an absence of something is quite contradictory, thus creating a void of what death might be. The stress placed on “Man” lingers on this disavowal, as the “Soul” travels from transience to eternity.

In the second stanza, “Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near” (Marvell 22) which make the passing of the time as the war happens to show how fast the time pass and create a nervous feeling of the time passing. Nevertheless, the speaker make his love as the vegetable “My vegetable love should grow” (Marvell 11) in the “Deserts of vast eternity” (Marvell 24). This is a contradiction, use two opposite things emphasize that the time can not be back and people don’t know their future. So the use of parallelism, metaphor and contradiction shown how rapid and hurry the speaker’s tone is. In the comparison, the speaker state a lighthearted tone in poem “To the Virgins, To Make much of time”.

Especially for this poem which is framed by a very specific date, that experience of the “now” is especially crucial in establishing the poetic world and setting the reader engages with. The constant movement and the immediate temporality of the lines lends an alluring credibility to the poem; somehow, this vitality allows for the date of “June 14, 1915” exist within a condensed space. In reading it, the immediacy makes me not question possibilities of filtering through the poet or the strange concept of an entire day living in just fifteen

The next two lines, “Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, / But bears it out even to the edge of doom” is an allusion to love standing its ground even in the wake of Doomsday. This quatrain effectively illustrates love as a thing that endures all hardship; reinforcing the extended metaphor of the previous quatrain.

However, the writer in line twelve also refers to time as a leader, which reflects a tone of acceptance toward time and his fate. This tone is different from the tone at the beginning of the poem. The speaker has changed his tone and it seems as if this tone change has occurred because the speaker is considering how he believes his short time should be spent.