In Francis Cornford’s poem, ‘The Watch’, the persona is a dying woman who has lost all hope in life. The elements of poetry, setting, tone, diction, structure, and all thematic concerns reflect the speaker’s theme and situation. The poem’s tone is tense and gloomy pointing to the primary theme, death, and the fears associated with it. The poem is an illustration in which the speaker presents the connection between her watch and her condition. Both are continuous and possibly tensional to the audience as the speaker lay helplessly on the bed and the silence allowed her to hear every tick of the watch. The speaker is defenseless against illness, and the ticking of her watch is a constant sign of the speaker’s true state. By the end of the poem, the speaker is fed up with the annoying ticking of her clock and the aggravation of the infection that disheartened her.
The Elements and Tone of the Poem
The poem’s tone is pessimistic, considering the health situation of the narrator, and the elements employed to reflect a theme associated with a sad mood. In Francis Cornford’s The Watch, the narrator uses the internal use of homophones and rhymes to work through the poems and amplify their meaning. The narrator is very weak in poems. The narrator uses several examples of words and inward-sounding rhymes to emphasize the description of the damage caused by the speaker’s illness. Mainline poems use internally similar-sounding terminology to represent arrangements. According to the narrator, “I woke up in my hot, hard bed (Cornford)”. On closer inspection, these words also had a suffocating effect. When people move, they often find it difficult to relax. The narrator makes a sketch, and it is a shame to show that she did. The use of inward-sounding words in this line also creates a fragile tone.
The narrator uses rhymes to stress her health and feelings while narrating. The ‘CK’ at the poem’s end helps emphasize that time passes slowly and mercilessly. The narrator tells the audience that she is seriously ill, saying, “I am so tired, so devastated, so devastated; Oh, done, hurry, hurry, hurry (Cornford).” The narrator could no longer hold her anger and had to give up quickly. Incorporating rhymes into poems allows viewers to understand how sick the narrator is. The “CK” sound emphasizes the fear the narrator feels. The “CK” sound is rather loud, usually associated with sadness or fear. Incorporating these voices into the poem allows the reader to understand better the level of discomfort the narrator is experiencing.
The Diction of the Poem
The poem’s diction reflects the speaker’s sad state and her pessimistic approach to her situation. This poem showcases disappointment that the speaker could not hold anymore, feeling that sharing it would be a relief. Nevertheless, no matter what the excellent idea of the poem is, it is executed in an extraordinary style and evokes genuine fear in the viewer. Charles Darwin’s granddaughter, Cornford, was not a very famous writer. However, in “The Watch”, she finds a way to convey a powerful message to users and share her beautiful experience simultaneously (Cornford). The haunting theme of this poem appears to be just a moment, showing the inevitability of death. Cornford conveys this message to users with a large inventory of abstract gadgets, the most impressive of which are thought patterns, sounds, images, and epizeux. The most prominent gadget that Cornford uses is temperament.
Poems with hallmarks of composed from the point of view of a critically ill patient in extreme distress (Cornford). This person described their persistent dissatisfaction and more than once called for a transition to the quick. The attitude of the poem also depicts the desperate state of the poem. A glimpse into the soul of an afflicted person, whether near home or physically, so that she asks death to come and relieve her suffering positively disturbs the wearer. In many cases, death is the object of terror, both in Scripture and the material world. In this case, however, the narrator gives the impression of longing for her fall, which is undoubtedly disappointing.
The Purpose of the Poem
Cornford’s ‘The Watch’ poem presents life dilemmas that people face and how they easily resort to decisions that may worsen their states. The poem also presents an alternative theme for approaching participatory insight. Current concerns follow the use of the artist’s juxtaposition between the first and second chorus in the poem (Cornford). The first line reflects how Cornford received lessons from wise people regarding information, but he was too young to understand it, making him accept its essence later, which motivated him to write the poem. At least when the poet was old enough and could appreciate the insight from the intelligent man’s essence in the poem’s last line. The different resolutions of the abstract style, including the use of different words and the overall flow, represent different parts of how people conceptualize poems.
The two chorus structures in Cornford’s poem play different roles in introducing the central theme, which emphasizes the power of audiences when a crisis is shared. Therefore, another artistic component between the two stanzas is standard. For example, both areas have parallel rows, each with an average first row (Cornford). The author has made the same main line in each segment for emphasis because the central theme focuses on experience and begins with the line, “Oh boy, drama.” a group of people convey a sense of reflection on old age and what comes with it. This decision also allows Cornford to handle the crowd’s attention because he thinks it creates tension that everyone wants to express.
The Structure and Sound of the Poem
The rhythmic structure of the poem emphasizes the theme and attracts the reciters’ attention. Cornford’s “The Watch” uses rhythmic endings in each chorus to add charm to the poem’s musicality and flow. The rhyme plot in the central stanza can be called ABCBCDAD, considering the last words in each line contain similar ending words. This rhyming scheme is also used in the second chorus, with little contrast in the atmosphere it creates. The rhyming action in this passage can be referred to as ABCBADAD, the last words of each line rhyming to emphasize the poem’s primary theme (Cornford). Cornford’s solution to ordinary rhyming words in two choruses is to ensure that the poem presentation is fluid to hold the audience’s attention as much as possible.
The Insights of the Poem
Various components that stand out from this poem are the use of phrases and images that occupy different parts. The use of the word ‘drama’ indicates familiarity in the poem. For example, Houseman uses multiple lines that are meaningless without the help of others unless linked by their procedural partners. For example, the lines “I wakened on my hot, hard bed” and “Beneath the pillow, I could hear” in the first and fourth lines of the first and second stanzas brilliantly embody the careless use of words (Cornford). Poems also contain imagery throughout the show, with words such as pearl, ruby, crown, and pound, representing the value of what the author interprets as a gift.
The speaker in this poem conveys the value of wise advice about love given by a wise older man when she was young. This poem warned her as a young lady not to give her soul for love from the audiences, the same terms, give various materials such as love and affection that might have healed her from the illness. This more experienced and insightful person explains the need to stay close to home and have spiritual prosperity by not allowing other people to invade their lives. Likewise, the speaker described parents reprimanding them about the results related to worship. This speaker is complaining that the point is not wise advice to face adversity because she offered her heart, hoping that death would save her situation.
The poet uses the speaker to reflect how being ill or being in an adverse situation allows one to recheck their past and resort to relieve the impact on their lives. For instance, the speaker wishes for death because of the situation she is experiencing, not hoping that she will recover to her total health and continue with her usual chores. Besides poetic features and literacy analysis applied in the poem, the poet seeks to present the role of friends and neighbors in addressing social, health, and cultural issues.
Work Cited
Cornford, F. D. “The Watch Poem by Frances Darwin Cornford.” Poem Hunter, 2011. Web.