Poetic Structure and Tone
The poem consists of eight lines, in two quatrains.
The metre is largely one of anapaestic trimeter with an admix of initial iambs and trochees to break up the rather monotonous rhythm that the anapaestic line confers. Thus Blake is able to show the cyclical monotony that the protagonists are suffering, while at the same time giving a forward note of impetus and hope to the movement of the lines.
The rhyme scheme is ABAB, CDCD, with two "feminine" endings at lines five and seven, perhaps suggestive of weak outlook or expectation.
The ambiguous use of the word "Ah," and the repetition of the word "where" are noteworthy - these are discussed by Grant; the disturbance of the anapaestic rhythm in line three by Edwards.
"The speaker begins with a sigh that suggests the same weariness that he attributes to the Sunflower (a suggestion emphasized by the heavy stresses in the song). The wistful tone and the implied sympathy for the time-bound victims are disarming. But, as many critics have noted, the poem is not without irony...the sense of timeless rest is soon complicated by the ambiguous syntax."Indeed, Bloom goes so far as to say that "the lyric's tone can be characterized as a kind of apocalyptic sardonicism."
Read more about this topic: Ah! Sunflower
Famous quotes containing the words poetic, structure and/or tone:
“There is nothing more poetic and terrible than the skyscrapers’ battle with the heavens that cover them. Snow, rain, and mist highlight, drench, or conceal the vast towers, but those towers, hostile to mystery and blind to any sort of play, shear off the rain’s tresses and shine their three thousand swords through the soft swan of the fog.”
—Federico García Lorca (1898–1936)
“There is no such thing as a language, not if a language is anything like what many philosophers and linguists have supposed. There is therefore no such thing to be learned, mastered, or born with. We must give up the idea of a clearly defined shared structure which language-users acquire and then apply to cases.”
—Donald Davidson (b. 1917)
“Eloquence resides as much in the tone of voice, in the eyes, and in the expression of the face, as in the choice of words.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)