Report to Wordsworth, by Boey Kim Cheng
You should be here, Nature has need of you.
She has been laid waste. Smothered by the smog,
the flowers are mute, and the birds are few *destruction/ extinction
in a sky slowing like a dying clock. *simile
All hopes of Proteus rising from the sea
have sunk; he is entombed in the waste *anaphora (emphatic)
we dump. Triton’s notes struggle to be free, *played a conch like a trumpet
his famous horns are choked, his eyes are dazed,
and Neptune lies helpless as beached as a whale,
while insatiate man moves in for the kill. *never satisfied
Poetry and piety have begun to fail, *religion
As Nature’s mighty heart is lying still.
O see the widening in the sky, *lamentation/exclamation
God is labouring to utter his last cry.
The speaker is lamenting the destruction of our natural world by Mankind. The
semantic field is that of death with words such as “Smothered”; “dying”; “entombed”;
“chocked”; “kill”; “heart is lying still”. The tone is despondent and is imploring
Wordsworth to return so as to revitalise the appreciation of nature that his poetry
resounded with.
You should be here, Nature has need of you.
She has been laid waste. Smothered by the smog,
the flowers are mute, and the birds are few *destruction/ extinction
in a sky slowing like a dying clock. *simile
All hopes of Proteus rising from the sea
have sunk; he is entombed in the waste *anaphora (emphatic)
we dump. Triton’s notes struggle to be free, *played a conch like a trumpet
his famous horns are choked, his eyes are dazed,
and Neptune lies helpless as beached as a whale,
while insatiate man moves in for the kill. *never satisfied
Poetry and piety have begun to fail, *religion
As Nature’s mighty heart is lying still.
O see the widening in the sky, *lamentation/exclamation
God is labouring to utter his last cry.
The speaker is lamenting the destruction of our natural world by Mankind. The
semantic field is that of death with words such as “Smothered”; “dying”; “entombed”;
“chocked”; “kill”; “heart is lying still”. The tone is despondent and is imploring
Wordsworth to return so as to revitalise the appreciation of nature that his poetry
resounded with.
