Death
Death - meaning Summary
Cycle of Futile Transformations
Lorca's "Death" traces a chain of escalating metamorphoses—horse to dog to swallow to bee—conveying relentless, almost desperate striving toward other states of being. Imagery moves from animals to rose, sap, thorns and finally the speaker’s quest for a "burning seraph." The poem contrasts consuming desire for transformation and transcendence with the inert, indifferent "arch of plaster," implying a tension between longing and material limits.
Read Complete AnalysesWhat effort! What effort the horse makes To be a dog! What effort the dog to become a swallow! What effort the swallow to be a bee! What effort the bee to become a horse! And the horse, what a sharp shaft it steals from the rose! what grey rosiness lifts from its lips! And the rose, what a flock of lights and cries caught in the living sap of its stem! And the sap, what thorns it dreams in its vigil! And the tiny daggers what moon, and no stable, what nakedness, skin eternal and reddened, they go seeking! And I, in the eaves, what a burning seraph I seek and am! But the arch of plaster, how vast, invisible, how minute, without effort!
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