Flute Notes from a Reedy Pond
Flute Notes from a Reedy Pond - meaning Summary
Autumnal Retreat Into Forgetfulness
The poem depicts a pond shifting into late autumnal stillness, as cold and decay strip away summer’s protection and animate life slips into a soporific forgetfulness. Imagery moves from wilting leaves and drowsing insects to puppet-like figures and muted myths, suggesting a retreat from active life and spiritual longing into a safer, quieter state. The closing lines hint at a fragile, almost infantile divinity preparing to leave the water for air.
Read Complete AnalysesNow coldness comes sifting down, layer after layer, To our bower at the lily root. Overhead the old umbrellas of summer Wither like pithless hands. There is little shelter. Hourly the eye of the sky enlarges its blank Dominion. The stars are no nearer. Already frog-mouth and fish-mouth drink The liquor of indolence, and all thing sink Into a soft caul of forgetfulness. The fugitive colors die. Caddis worms drowse in their silk cases, The lamp-headed nymphs are nodding to sleep like statues. Puppets, loosed from the strings of the puppetmaster Wear masks of horn to bed. This is not death, it is something safer. The wingy myths won't tug at us anymore: The molts are tongueless that sang from above the water Of golgotha at the tip of a reed, And how a god flimsy as a baby's finger Shall unhusk himself and steer into the air.
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