Poetry Post #2

Marvell’s poem begins by describing a strange but strong love and then turns even more strange after talking about death and “deserts of vast eternity.” Maybe the “truth so forgiving” that Strand claims some poems to be is Marvell’s message that no matter what feelings we have or how strong they may be, time will always be “hurrying near.” Or maybe, Marvell’s poem “permits us to live in ourselves as if we were just out of reach of ourselves” (Strand). I definitely feel like something in my mind is just out of reach when I read this poem… If you can’t tell, I’m trying desperately to relate the poem to the essay.

On the other hand, Strand’s analysis of “You, Andrew Marvell” was a lot more clear-cut in explaining the power of poetry and the experience of life. Macleish’s poem helps to remove our personal lives from the cyclical nature of life and death while allowing us to feel a part of it. This relates exactly to the paradoxical condition of living “in ourselves as if we were just out of reach of ourselves.” Macleish begins the first stanza with “And here face down beneath the sun” and the last stanza with “And here face downward in the sun” while describing the trees, grasses, and gulls in the stanzas between. This relates the feeling of awareness of “beyondness and withinness” that Strand described.