By a Flower by a Letter

By a Flower by a Letter - meaning Summary

Small Acts, Swift Devotion

The poem presents a speaker who links small tokens—a flower, a letter, a quick affection—to determined labor. Using the imagery of welding and a rivet, the speaker insists on finishing an urgent, final task despite breathlessness and the soot of work. The closing lines shift focus from the speaker's fatigue to the surrounding effort, suggesting communal or mechanical toil that continues regardless. Overall the poem compresses personal feeling and relentless industry into a brief declaration of purpose: love or duty drives swift action, and exhaustion is secondary to completion.