SRL Archive - Blogs and Writing

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.

The force that drives the water through the rocks
Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams
Turns mine to wax.
And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins
How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks.

The hand that whirls the water in the pool
Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wind
Hauls my shroud sail.
And I am dumb to tell the hanging man
How my clay is made the hangman's lime.

The lips of time leech to the fountain head;
Love drips and gathers, but the fallen blood
Shall calm her sores.
And I am dumb to tell a weather's wind
How time has ticked a heaven round the stars.

And I am dumb to tell the lover's tomb
How at my sheet goes the same crooked worm.

-Dylan Thomas 1939?

Source: http://www.undermilkwood.net/poetry_theforce.html

It took my English class (Language AP) three hours to analyze this poem. It's pretty dense. Think you can figure out what it's saying?

I'm guessing it probably is to do with love and how it creates life and destroys it like a God. Either that or he saw some awfully funny looking places (maybe a Dr Zeus theme park?). If I'm on the right tracks I'll put a little more detail it, but I have a hit and miss history with poetry and its meanings.

You are very close (and actually have a few things that we came up with). I'll give it a few more days and then I'll post what we, as the class, came up with.

I'm not from America…so I don't know what AP Class is. How old are you exactly? Because that looks like one hell of a difficult poem.

I'm guessing it was my first part that I got right. So anyway, onto more analysation! (And I'm guessing AP = college/university after finishing high school).

fallen blood
Shall calm her sores.

That part seems to suggest that love's passion - sybmolized with sores - is only satisfied by pain - symbolized as blood.

The force that drives the water through the rocks
Drives my red blood

This suggests that his love makes his heart beat faster to the point that his blood is pumped round his body with the same force as that of gravity - the most powerful scientific force known to man - and also links the ideas that we still do not know what truly does cause gravity the same way as we do not truly know what causes love.

There's a little bit more. I would add more, but I'm hungry - maybe after lunch :p

AP stands for Advanced Placement. It's a college freshman level class that you take in high school.

I'm a junior in high school taking the course (So that I don't have to take it in College :p). I'm 17, btw.

And that is a very good analysis, mixster05. You are really on the dot about passion of love, but can you find another kind of passion in this poem?

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age;

I'm guessing tha the 'green fuse' is referring to the stem, with the force being the capillary action / rising action that the water uses to get to the flower, thus transferring the rising's meaning of fuelling the plant to the emotions that fuel his passion (with the 'green' referring to the idea of passion being the most natural emotion and nature / natural being symbolised with green).

Also, would've posted sooner, but it showed the poetry section as having no new posts :(

It's okay. I had some internet troubles for a few days anyway. Your description is very much correct, but my class came up with a religious passion. We inferred this from "hangman" being Jesus on a cross and "the fallen blood shall calm her sores" as being the blood that erases sin(which goes back to the hangman's lime).

The teacher told us that Dylan Thomas came from a religious background, so it made the inference a little more relevant.

I'm not a religious person myself, so I guess I often sidestep religion when doing analytical work (unless it's obivously religous) and when you don't go to religion, the only real remaining passion is that of love.
Though I always wondered why so many people look to text to try to read it as though it was a person, when a person is not easy to read as a book, but I guess it stems from the idea of writing stories about peoples own experiences to pass on knowledge and with it a part of themselves.

Poetry is just an easier way of understanding something in life. It is also better than reading essays about a topic because it is abstract. While this poem could seem to be talking about love to you, I may find that it talks about religious devotion, and someone else could find that it talks about death. I think that is why people go to poetry. It is to discover that the poem says what the reader wants it to say.

Before reading those: Is it about aging?

From: R0b0t1
Before reading those: Is it about aging?

Not really. Although the author does refer to age somewhat (green fuse, green age, etc.) he uses it for a specific purpose. He characterizes force, which can be thought of as anything that is unknown/mysterious, as beyond our reach. We are the "green" which represents youth and ignorance.