How Many Times These Low Feet Staggered
poem 187
How Many Times These Low Feet Staggered - meaning Summary
Domestic Death and Finality
The poem presents a quiet, unflinching scene of a woman’s inert body in a domestic interior. The speaker catalogues futile attempts to rouse or dress her and notes sealed mouths, rigid hands, flies, sun through a freckled pane, and a cobweb—all signs of finality. A domestic image, summed in the closing phrase, becomes a stark emblem of death and cessation of daily care, where former agency and labor are irrevocably halted.
Read Complete AnalysesHow many times these low feet staggered Only the soldered mouth can tell Try can you stir the awful rivet Try can you lift the hasps of steel! Stroke the cool forehead hot so often Lift if you care the listless hair Handle the adamantine fingers Never a thimble more shall wear Buzz the dull flies on the chamber window Brave shines the sun through the freckled pane Fearless the cobweb swings from the ceiling Indolent Housewife in Daisies lain!
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