O Where Are You Going?
O Where Are You Going? - meaning Summary
Fear Speaking to Travelers
A short dramatic poem stages repeated exchanges between pairs—reader and rider, fearer and farer, horror and hearer—each issuing ominous warnings about dangers ahead. The dialogue builds a sense of pervasive dread and mutual accusation, suggesting that fear multiplies through conversation and no guidance is reliable. The final stanza shows one figure leaving while others remain trapped in warning and suspicion, underscoring isolation and unresolved anxiety.
Read Complete Analyses"O where are you going?" said reader to rider, "That valley is fatal when furnaces burn, Yonder's the midden whose odors will madden, That gap is the grave where the tall return." "O do you imagine," said fearer to farer, "That dusk will delay on your path to the pass, Your diligent looking discover the lacking Your footsteps feel from granite to grass?" "O what was that bird," said horror to hearer, "Did you see that shape in the twisted trees? Behind you swiftly the figure comes softly, The spot on your skin is a shocking disease?" "Out of this house" ‚ said rider to reader, "Yours never will" ‚ said farer to fearer, "They're looking for you" ‚ said hearer to horror, As he left them there, as he left them there.
Feel free to be first to leave comment.