The Couriers
The Couriers - meaning Summary
Refusal and Yearning
The poem presents a speaker rejecting false consolations and counterfeit signs—petty imitations of nature, objects, and emotion—insisting they "are not mine." Vivid, spare images (snail, frost, mirrors, seas) build a mood of isolation and brittle yearning. The closing invocation, "Love, love, my season," converts refusal into longing: the speaker seeks an authentic season of love amid grief and mirrored disturbances that reflect an ongoing troubled inner state.
Read Complete AnalysesThe word of a snail on the plate of a leaf? It is not mine. Do not accept it. Acetic acid in a sealed tin? Do not accept it. It is not genuine. A ring of gold with the sun in it? Lies. Lies and a grief. Frost on a leaf, the immaculate Cauldron, talking and crackling All to itself on the top of each Of nine black Alps. A disturbance in mirrors, The sea shattering its grey one ---- Love, love, my season.
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