Crimson
Crimson - context Summary
Mourning for a Lost Acquaintance
Written as a short elegy in free verse, the poem records the speaker’ereavement and quiet attention to a friend’’ath. Sandburg frames grief through domestic, tactile images: the smoldering cigar, gray ash, and a coffin with a "gone flame." The speaker sits in shadow and smoke, watching thoughts shift while mourning a significant acquaintance. The poem compresses personal sorrow into a few observational moments of stillness and loss.
Read Complete AnalysesCrimson is the slow smolder of the cigar end I hold, Gray is the ash that stiffens and covers all silent the fire. (A great man I know is dead and while he lies in his coffin a gone flame I sit here in cumbering shadows and smoke and watch my thoughts come and go.)
Feel free to be first to leave comment.