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FRANCESCA
And that the world should dry as
a dead leaf, http://www.poemhunter.com/p/m/poem.asp?poet=6621&poem=508164, visited |
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The
title is clearly showing that the poem will be going to be about a woman, and
it can be deduced that the principal topic of the poem is “love”. Although we
could have deduced the topic, we can not know if Ezra Pound is talking about a
“Platonic Love”, an “Impossible Love”, or whether he is talking about his own
girlfriend or wife, we will know it later.
The
metrical structure of the poem is peculiar because it is composed by two
stanzas but they are not equal. The first stanza has four verses without rhyme,
and the second stanza has eight different verses (the last verse is composed by
a word). We can see rhyme, for example in “night” (verse 1) and “mind”
(verse 8); and in “name” (verse 6), “away” (verse 10), and “again”
(verse 11).
We
can notice also how Ezra Pound is “playing with words” in the last words of the
three last verses: “away, again, alone”. He is using words which begin
with the letter “a”, and which have the stress on the penultimate syllable. But
the words “away” and “again” are similar, and that is the way he
is emphasizing the word “alone”. It is quite an important word, as we
will see later, to understand the meaning of the poem, to understand what the
poet wants to say.
In
the first stanza, the poem is referring directly to someone (Francesca). He is
describing here the moment of the wedding ceremony when the bride enters the
church with the bridal bouquet. We can notice it by two expressions: the first,
in verse 2, “there were flowers in your hands”, when the bride enters
into the church with the bridal bouquet in her hands; and second, in verses 3
and 4, “you will come out of a confusion of people, Out of a turmoil of
speech about you.”, in the same moment, when the bride enters into the
church, the people start muttering about her dress, her hairstyle, etc.
So,
the first stanza sets us in the real space in which the poem is developed: the
marriage of Francesca. But we can anticipate the poet’s feelings just watching
the words used to refer to the guests: “a confusion of people” and “a turmoil of speech about you”. Both expressions can be
considered as negative because he is talking about the guests as if they were
an amount of people muttering about her. I thing the poet wants to warn her
about her decision of getting married.
In
the second stanza, Pound is talking about his feelings. At first he is
referring again to those people mentioned before, he is saying now how all
those murmurs about her affect him: “Was angry when they spoke your name
IN ordinary places.”, as if he were her saviour against all that confusion
of people.
The
next verses are the expression of his wish: “I would that the cool waves
might flow over my mind, And that the world should dry
as a dead leaf, Or as a dandelion seed-pod and be swept away, So that I might
find you again, Alone.” He is as if dreaming with a world in which this
situation is not true, he wants the world to change at his will. His love is
married with another man and he emphasizes the word “alone” because it
is his major wish, he wants Francesca not to have any owner but him, he wants
her “alone”.
This short poem has been very beautiful for me because I could feel the sadness
of a poet being in love with a woman who is getting married to another man. He
is showing his feelings of a man who wants to live in a changed world, where he
can stay with her, a world where Francesca is alone. He highlights the fact of
Francesca being “alone” as the solution of his sadness.
The reason why I have chosen this poem is the impact produced on me by reading
the whole poem the first time I read it. I felt as I was reading a sad love
story whose ending is just one shocking word.
The
poet puts just one word in the last verse of the whole poem making its meaning
quite adamant. When we are reading his poetically developed wishes, which sound
as a song: “I would that the cool waves might flow over my mind, And that
the world should dry as a dead leaf, Or as a dandelion seed-pod and be swept
away, So that I might find you again,” and then we read: “Alone”, we
feel the break of that song, and we feel shocked. But this strategy is to
emphasize that solution mentioned before, as if he would like to say: “I wish
you (Francesca) were alone”.