Away, melancholy,

1957 collection “Not Waving but Drowning”

Absorbing inescapable feeling of depression

Away, melancholy, Refrain mantra- Speaker’s desperation to keep her

depression under control.

anaphora

Away with it, let it go. Phrasal Verb and imperative under mood control –
moment of empowerment.

Are not the trees green,

The earth as green? Rhetorical question – speaker is trying to convince

herself.

Does not the wind blow,

Fire leap and the river flow? Rhetorical question - consistency of nature.

Assonance – calm soothing tone.

Plosives and Liquids- forceful action of winds and rivers.

The ant is busy

He carrieth his meat,

Carrieth and raiseth- archaic language elevates the poem to biblical
proportions.

Anthropomorphism of the ants

All things hurry

To be eaten or eat.

Polyptoton- talks about the perseverance through life – vicious cycle of

life which makes it meanless

Away, melancholy.

Man, too, hurries,

Eats, couples, buries,

He is an animal also

With a hey ho melancholy, interjection- melancholy has become heavier

and more of a burden

Away with it, let it go.

Man of all creatures

Is superlative – man is superior

(Away melancholy) – her inner voice still exists, more responsibility the
parenthesis means the inner voice is gnawing at her.

He of all creatures alone

Raiseth a stone

(Away melancholy)
Into the stone, the god

Pours what he knows of good. Man’s connection with god, god is

invented by man.

Calling, good, God.

Biblical illusion and pegol illusion

Away, melancholy, let it go.

Speak not to me of tears,

Tyranny, pox, wars,

Plosives and dental to shock and asyndetic listing

Saying, Can God,

Stone of man’s thought, be good?

Say rather it is enough

That the stuffed

Stone of man’s good, growing,

Gods created by man.

By man’s called God,

Away, melancholy, let it go.

Man aspires
To good,

To love

Sighs;

Beaten, corrupted, dying

In his own blood lying

Yet heaves up an eye above

Cries, Love, love.

It is his virtue needs explaining,

Not his failing.

Even if man desires to do good, man is still dying.

Away, melancholy,

Away with it, let it go

No full stop because its cyclical.