Some Poems Around Us

Goblin Market

Poetry is one of the most expressive moods of literature genres. A single verse can be interpreted through several means. There is no end to one’s imagination and creative spirit. A poet writes a piece of art and leaves it to its readers how do they appreciate and criticize it. Some simple verse poems are embossed with a big theme and some complex poems deal with a simple and natural theme. The poem “Goblin Market” is a simple yet allegorical poem based upon sisterly defense and evil creatures’ tactics.

Goblin Market though has been interpreted in several ways but for me it is truly a hymn in praise of a sisterly devotion. The very first advice of Lizzie to Laura forbidding her listening and searching for the goblin men is the symbolic throughout the poem. The metaphor of dove used in the poem is the supportive actor while creating the soft impact of the poem. Lizzie’s words “Their evil gifts should not charm us” are like a mother’s warning to a child who can be caught in trouble on account of her innocence.

Lizzie is like a protective shield for Laura and takes the risk of going to goblin men for saving the life of her sister. It was she who advised Laura like “Dear, you should not stay so late,” when she comes in the second part of night after enjoying her feast with the men. It was she who cradled Laura in her arms at night and comforted her for having a sound sleep. The poem offers plethora of the images which prevail Lizzie’s sisterly affection throughout the event. “Tender Lizzie could not bear” the use of very word tender repeats and emphasizes that the poem is for praising a sister’s love for another.

2- “The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point

The poem is a depiction of a black girl’s agony that suffers and is trodden down by the white men of the society. Though the whole poem is comprehensively consisted on the parts of the same thought, yet the forth stanza “I am black…………………might be trodden again to clay” is the most significant. To me it pleads and explains the suffering of the black girl who is truly a victim of racial prejudice. Her words “under the feet of the white creature” very well explain her exploited self and usage by the white creation. One of the striking features of the stanza is that this is an innocent complain to God questioning Him if He made her to be victimized and to bear the curses.

3. Because I Couldn’t Stop for Death

Emily Dickenson seems preoccupied with death and presents the same thought in one or the other way in many of poems. In “I want-it pleaded all its life” and “Because I could not stop for death”, single idea is presented and the speaker seems quite placid and pacified while going and accompanying death. It seems as Emily takes death as a very real solution and the true comforter which makes a man to rid away all his labors and works.

In the first poem, the speaker is presenter very civilized and easily gets ready to give his life in response to death’s single phrase “I want”. The speaker here is present outside the grave and seems unable to meet the death very late in life. So, it bows down and simply drives his way.

While in the second poem, the speaker is too busy that she keeps the death to wait finishing her tasks. Yet the gentle attitude of death which stood waiting for the time she finishes made the speaker to be kind and leave the work.

Here the speaker is beyond the grave and flashes back her journey in the carriage driven by the death. In both poems, death is personified and metaphor of “Eternity” is used for it which is in fact a single word idea of the poet about the death. None of the both poems death is seen hostile or as an alien element. It is presented as a very own native of the land and is taken as a soliciting factor. This is a brief comparison of two poems based on the persona having a ride to death.

By: Ammarah Khan


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