Sorting Laundry was Never So Important

In Elisavietta Ritche's Sorting Laundry, there is great symbolic meaning.  This metaphor is shown at the very beginning, when the speaker says "Folding clothes, I think of folding you into my life," (Ritche, 841).  She uses the laundry to show that the couple has a good relationship.  They don't claim to be perfect, and they have their quirks.  But overall, they are very close and love each other greatly.  She soon stumbles upon a shirt she has kept from a past lover.  She thinks of her fear that her current relationship could become nothing more than a piece of laundry.  She fears that her love may leave her, and that obviously terrifies her.  She fears that sorting only her own laundry would not fulfill her.  She would be lonely and constantly reminded that the other side of the bed is empty.

A Weird Message

John Donne poses an interesting request in Batter my heart, three-personed God.  He desires to give himself fully to God.  He tells God to "Batter [his] heart... for you as yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend," (Donne, 840).  He wants God to save him from sin.  The speaker believes he cannot escape the world of sin.  He claims to be married to the devil and his ways, and can only be saved by being taken from him.  This poem has a rather sexual undertone.  It basically says that God needs to seduce the speaker in order for the speaker to be saved from sin.  It also says that the speaker in bound the sin and evil.  The speaker has the greatest of intentions to escape a world of sin, but knows that he is unable to do so.

A Natural High

Emily Dickinson expresses a love of nature in her poem I taste a liquor never brewed.  She begins by saying that she is enjoying an alcoholic beverage that has never been brewed.  She goes on to say "not all the vats upon the Rhine yield such an Alcohol!" (Dickinson, 797).  She now claims that her special drink is better than any beverage that could be produced by a brewery.  She later explains that she is actually drunk on the strong beauty of nature.  She uses many alcoholic references throughout the poem, while pairing them with natural things, like the air and morning dew.  This reveals that she has a strong connection to the outdoors.  She believes that the beauty of nature is stronger than anything man could produce.  She further states that she doesn't care if she is drunk on nature, she desires to continue to enjoy it.  She shows how strongly she loves nature by saying that even when nature is done being happy, she will continue to admire its beauty.

Everything Grows Old

Thomas Hardy's The Convergence of the Twain has a very obvious theme.  The poem tells about some of the nice objects that were on board the Titanic.  The imagery the author uses emphasizes the beauty and eloquence of some of the objects.  But immediately following his original description, a new one is introduced.  This one shows how the previously nice items are now in ruin.  He does this by saying, "Jewels in joy designed to ravish the sensuous mind lie lightless, all their sparkles bleared and black and blind," (Hardy, 778).  This passage also reveals that the vanity we as humans have will eventually lead us to death.  These small items also symbolize the bigger item.  The Titanic was originally a beautiful ship that many people thought to be unsinkable.  However, it was this very arrogance that led to the destruction of the ship and the deaths of many people on board.