Sonnet
Sonnet - meaning Summary
Quiet Acceptance of an Image
The poem contemplates the speaker’s enduring image after death. It contrasts the finite, modest body with a serene, unchanging profile left in the world. Natural and animal metaphors—ivy, crocodile, doves, dahlias—express a tension between restraint, silence, and a stubborn, almost emblematic presence. The tone is accepting rather than triumphant: the poet imagines becoming a quiet sign or mark that persists beyond personal feeling or flame.
Read Complete AnalysesI know that my profile will be serene in the nroth of an unreflecting sky. Mercury of vigil, chaste mirror to break the pulse of my style. For if ivy and the cool of linen are the norm of the body I leave behind, my profile in the sand will be the old unblushing silence of a crocodile. And though my tongue of frozen doves will never taste of flame, only of empty broom. I'll be a free sign of oppressed norms on the neck of the stiff branch and in teh ache of dahlias without end.
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