In the introduction, Dove writes: We humans assign significance to grand finales

Nations reflect upon their history and destiny, [and] ordinary citizens grow sentimental and
superstitious by turns (xxxi-xxxii). When I read the poems of Masters and Robinson, I felt that
this commentary really hit the nail on the head. All four poems have a nostalgic tone for what
was not (Miniver Cheevy), glorifying the past because it was all the people knew. Especially
with the dawn of the reign of electricity, people were afraid of what would be and what would be
no more. Robinson illustrates this point through the miserable character of Mr. Flood, an old man
who feels forgotten by the world that has left him behind: As the poets writes, there was nothing
in the town below where strangers would have shut the many doors that many friends had
opened long ago (Robinson). The use of verbal irony between Mr. Flood and what is essentially
his past self shows that he is desperate to reconnect with that life he used to know that life he
feels he has lost his grip on simply because it is the turn of the century. Masters comments on
this phenomenon of the finale in his poem, Petit, the Poet: As he writes, And what is love but
a rose that fades? Life all around me here in the village: tragedy, comedy, valor and truth,
courage, constancy, heroism, failure All in the loom, and oh what patterns! The words of this
poem, as well as the very structure, suggest that all things in this case, a century follow a
never-ending cycle of life and death that holds power over mans mind.