Poem Analysis

heyo! my poem is The Tortise in Eternity, written by Elinor Wylie, whom you might remeber from one of the poems we read in class.

The Tortise in Eternity by Elinor Wylie
Within my house of patterned horn
I sleep in such a bed
As men may keep before they're born
And after when they're dead.

Sticks and stones may break their bones,
And words may make them bleed;
There is not one of them who owns
An armour to his need.

Tougher than hide or lozenged bark,
Snow-storm and thunder proof,
And quick with sun, and thick with dark,
Is this my darling roof.

Men's troubled dreams of death and birth
Puls mother-o'-pearl to black;
I bear the rainbow bubble Earth
Square on my scornful back.

Elinor Wylie uses the central metaphor in her poem The Tortise in Eternity to show that tortises are what humans wish to be. Unlike humans, tortises are safe and protected all the time and they have a place where they can escape from the outside world. Humans only feel this "saftey" two times in life. Wylie states this when she says, "As men may keep before they're born/And after when they're dead."(3-4). This means that humans feel comfort when they are in the womb and when they lie, buried in a coffin. Also, Wylie believes that humans are wrong in the sence that words don't hurt, and people can become paralyzed from them. She states this when she says, "Sticks and stones may break their bones,/And words may make them bleed;" (6-7). By using this central message, Wylie shows her audience that it's okay for one to want to escape, but no matter how hard we try, we can't go on living like the tortise.

I think that this poem is interesting because it shows the view of human life from a tortise.I think by narrating this way, we not only get a sense of what living in a shell is like, but we see how that feeling relates to human life. Sometimes people want to hide from the world, but this also show that living that way can be hard. This is shared when Wylie states, "I bear the rainbow bubble Earth/Square on my scornful back." (15-16). I think that this poem is well written and i think that the ABAB rhyme really adds to it.