Analysis+3

Edna St. Vincent Millay's poem "Hearing Your Words, And Not A Word Among Them" illustrates a family who lives on a small island in the Atlantic Ocean. This family's town on the island is about to be hit by an approaching storm. Millay, having lived on the eastern Coast of the United States, had experience with these types of events. Millay uses lots of detailed imagery of the settings showing that she'd experienced these things first hand.

This poem is set on Matinicus Rock(line 5), "I thought how off Matinicus the tide." Matinicus is a small island off the coast of Maine which is famous for the story of Abbie Burgress, a girl who manned the light house while her father was away for several months. Matinicus Rock is also famous for its ghost story that a light house keeper hung himself at the tower and has tormented everyone who enters the light house.

Millay's poem follows the pattern of an Elizabethan sonnet. It's rhyme scheme is ABAB CDCD EFEF GG and it is written in iambic pentameter which gives the poem a rather smooth flow in the way it reads. This smooth flow of reading matches the heavily relied upon imagery of water and how it flows throughout the poem. One thing I noticed is that there is one line in which Millay varies from iambic pentameter slightly. This is in line 3, "When inland woods were pushed by winds that flung them." This line has two extra stressed syllables, this reduces the smooth flow which relates to the imagery of wind being destructive rather than water. Also the turn of the poem which occurs between lines 12 and 13 shows the difference in the feeling of the character towards her father leaving. The rhyming couplet at the end in a way ends the poem on a slightly happy note with two rhymes next to each other as opposed to being spaced ABAB, this relates back to the idea the the character gains confidence from the experience.

In the first quatrain we see Millay describing her mood before the storm and how the atmosphere was. In the first two lines, "Hearing your words, and not a word among them/Tuned to my liking on a salty day" we see the character portrayed in Millay's poem is relaxing on a rather calm day. This description of the day and the character's mood in the first two lines draws heavily on an old concept of the calm before the storm. This is supported by the next two lines(lines 3-4) in which Millay portrays a charged feeling in the atmosphere, "When inland woods were pushed by winds that fling them/hissing to leeward like a ton of spray." These lines portraying a charged atmosphere foreshadow the storm to come later in the poem.

In the second quatrain, Millay's character who the poem is being told through has a flashback sparked by this charged feeling in the air, this is shown in line 5, "I thought how off Matinicus the tide." This quatrain serves as a tool used to set up what happened in the characters past which triggered their memory. In the girl's past she lived on an island called Matinicus Rock and experienced a severe storm which devastated her town on the island, this is shown in lines 6-7, "Came pounding in came running through the Gut/While from the Rock the warning whistle cried." In line 7, the phrase "the Rock" refers to the large lighthouse on an outcropping of rocks which Matinicus Rock is famous for. In the final line of this quatrain, line 8, we see evidence that the character of the poem was a child, "And the children whimpered, and the doors blew shut." Experiencing a great storm like this as a child clearly left lasting effects on the character's mind, shown in the first quatrain with her remembrance of this event.

The final quatrain illustrates an event which was the result of the storm that had long lasting effects on the character. In lines 9-10, we see the men leaving the women to go properly prepare for the storm, "There in the autumn when the men go forth,/With slapping skirts the island women stand." When her father left, the character was obviously scared as were all the island women. This is illustrated by line 10. In lines 11-12, Millay also illustrates a feeling of abandonment that the women have from their husbands leaving them to prepare for the storm, "In gardens stripped and scattered, peering north,/With dahlia tubers dripping from the hand." The concept of the women being stripped and scattered suggests that the women are worried to the point that they are torn of all mental stability. This entire quatrain uses the symbolism of dying or wilting foliage to show loss. The lines about autumn(line 9) and the dahlia tubers(line 12) clearly illustrate the loss of the men and the fear that brings.

Here is where the turn of the poem occurs, Millay shifts from illustrating fear and loss to courageousness. In lines 13-14, "The wind of their endurance, driving south,/Flattened your words against your speaking mouth," Millay shows how the character used this experience to strengthen her and prepare her for the hardships of life. In line 13 Millay references the women's endurance, suggesting that although the women are worried they will persevere. In the final line of the poem Millay illustrates that the fear in her words has been flatted against her mouth showing that it has been done away with.

In conclusion, Millay's poem "Hearing Your Words, And Not A Word Among Them" describes the mental state of a girl who went through a tragic event as a child and how she has many recollections of this event triggered by everyday life. The poem also shows how although this event was devastating, she built upon it to prepare herself for life and become a strong and independent person.