Poetry & Analysis
Selected Poems
Inspirational PoemsGitanjali 17
I am only waiting for love to give myself up at last into his hands. That is why it is so late and why I have been guilty of such omissions.
They come with their laws and their codes to bind me fast; but I evade them ever, for I am only waiting for love to give myself up at last into his hands.
People blame me and call me heedless; I doubt not they are right in their blame.
The market day is over and work is all done for the busy. Those who came to call me in vain have gone back in anger. I am only waiting for love to give myself up at last into his hands.
Overview Short Summary
This prose-poem uses hands as a symbol of surrender to love. It supports keywords such as take my hand poem, hands and love, and poems about hands and touch.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Love: The speaker waits for love as the final authority.
- Surrender: Being in love’s hands suggests trust.
- Spiritual patience: The poem values waiting over worldly demands.
Emotional Effect Tone and Mood
The tone is patient and devotional; the mood is calm and inward.
Craft Literary Devices
- Repetition: The repeated phrase about love’s hands reinforces the speaker’s desire.
- Symbolism: Hands represent surrender, care, and belonging.
In Flanders Fields
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
Overview Short Summary
The poem uses failing hands to pass responsibility from the dead to the living. It fits hands and memory, hands and responsibility, and poems about hands as legacy.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Remembrance: The dead speak from the battlefield.
- Duty: The torch is passed from failing hands.
- Sacrifice: The poem connects loss with obligation.
Emotional Effect Tone and Mood
The tone is solemn and commanding; the mood is mournful yet resolute.
Craft Literary Devices
- Symbolism: The torch represents memory and duty.
- Voice: The dead speaker gives the poem a haunting power.
Strange Meeting
It seemed that out of the battle I escaped
Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped
Through granites which Titanic wars had groined.
Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned,
Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.
Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared
With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,
Lifting distressful hands as if to bless.
And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall,—
By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell.
With a thousand fears that vision’s face was grained;
Yet no blood reached there from the upper ground,
And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan.
“Strange, friend,” I said, “Here is no cause to mourn.”
“None,” said the other, “Save the undone years,
The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours,
Was my life also; I went hunting wild
After the wildest beauty in the world,
Which lies not calm in eyes, or braided hair,
But mocks the steady running of the hour,
And if it grieves, grieves richlier than here.
For by my glee might many men have laughed,
And of my weeping something has been left,
Which must die now. I mean the truth untold,
The pity of war, the pity war distilled.
Now men will go content with what we spoiled.
Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled.
They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress,
None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress.
Courage was mine, and I had mystery;
Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery;
To miss the march of this retreating world
Into vain citadels that are not walled.
Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot—wheels
I would go up and wash them from sweet wells,
Even with truths that lie too deep for taint.
I would have poured my spirit without stint
But not through wounds; not on the cess of war.
Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were.
I am the enemy you killed, my friend.
I knew you in this dark; for so you frowned
Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.
I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.
Let us sleep now . . .”
Overview Short Summary
The poem uses distressful and cold hands to show the pity of war and the shared humanity of enemies. It suits searches about hands, grief, and memory.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- War and pity: The poem exposes the tragedy behind military violence.
- Human recognition: Hands that seem to bless soften the enemy image.
- Loss: Cold hands mark death and moral exhaustion.
Emotional Effect Tone and Mood
The tone is tragic, visionary, and compassionate; the mood is dark and remorseful.
Craft Literary Devices
- Underworld imagery: The tunnel and Hell-like setting create a dream of death.
- Irony: Enemies meet as friends after death.
Break, Break, Break
Break, break, break,
On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.
O well for the fisherman’s boy,
That he shouts with his sister at play!
O well for the sailor lad,
That he sings in his boat on the bay!
And the stately ships go on
To their haven under the hill;
But O for the touch of a vanish’d hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!
Break, break, break
At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.
Overview Short Summary
This grief poem makes the vanished hand a symbol of someone lost forever. It supports hands and memory, old hands poem, and poems about hands and touch.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Grief: The speaker mourns a presence that cannot return.
- Touch: The vanished hand represents physical absence.
- Memory: The dead day remains emotionally alive but unreachable.
Emotional Effect Tone and Mood
The tone is elegiac and restrained; the mood is lonely and sorrowful.
Craft Literary Devices
- Repetition: “Break, break, break” imitates waves and emotional pressure.
- Symbolism: The vanished hand symbolizes lost companionship.
The Slave Mother
Heard you that shriek? It rose
So wildly on the air,
It seemed as if a burden’d heart
Was breaking in despair.
Saw you those hands so sadly clasped–
The bowed and feeble head–
The shuddering of that fragile form–
That look of grief and dread?
Saw you the sad, imploring eye?
Its every glance was pain,
As if a storm of agony
Were sweeping through the brain.
She is a mother pale with fear,
Her boy clings to her side,
And in her kirtle vainly tries
His trembling form to hide.
He is not hers, although she bore
For him a mother’s pains;
He is not hers, although her blood
Is coursing through his veins!
He is not hers, for cruel hands
May rudely tear apart
The only wreath of household love
That binds her breaking heart.
His love has been a joyous light
That o’er her pathway smiled,
A fountain gushing ever new,
Amid life’s desert wild.
His lightest word has been a tone
Of music round her heart,
Their lives a streamlet blent in one–
Oh, Father! must they part?
They tear him from her circling arms,
Her last and fond embrace.
Oh! never more may her sad eyes
Gaze on his mournful face.
No marvel, then, these bitter shrieks
Disturb the listening air:
She is a mother, and her heart
Is breaking in despair.
Overview Short Summary
The poem shows clasped hands, cruel hands, and circling arms as images of fear, violence, and motherly love. It fits hands and care, mother’s hands, and hands and grief keywords.
Core Ideas Main Themes
- Motherhood: The mother’s body and hands express love and terror.
- Injustice: Cruel hands represent the violence of slavery.
- Separation: The poem centers on a forced parting.
Emotional Effect Tone and Mood
The tone is anguished and accusatory; the mood is painful and compassionate.
Craft Literary Devices
- Rhetorical question: Questions make the reader witness the scene.
- Imagery: Clasped hands and circling arms make grief visible.
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