The Hunter
The Hunter - meaning Summary
Stasis and Inevitable Decline
The poem contrasts the drowsy, static life of a July landscape with a sudden, stark question about combat and victory. The rhetorical query — where will a shoulder split or a forehead open and victory be? — is answered with negation: struggles yield no triumph; both sides simply age. The closing image, of fallen leaves that will not reattach, underlines a quiet acceptance of stasis, decline, and the inevitability of loss.
Read Complete AnalysesIn the flashes and black shadows of July the days, locked in each other's arms, seem still so that squirrels and colored birds go about at ease over the branches and through the air. Where will a shoulder split or a forehead open and victory be? Nowhere. Both sides grow older. And you may be sure not one leaf will lift itself from the ground and become fast to a twig again.
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