LIGHTHEARTED I walked into
the valley wood
In the time of hyacinths ( imagery)
Till beauty like a scented cloth ( similie) Cast over, stifled me. I was bound
Motionless and faint of breath ( imagery)
By loveliness that is her own eunuch.(Metaphor)
Now pass I the final riverIgnominiously, in a sack, without a sound, ( imagery)
As any peeping Turk to the Bosphorous. ( similie and symbolism)
Wow! I must say that when I initially read this poem I was all sorts of confused. There are so many poetic and rhetorical devices, and words and references that just didn't quite make sense to me at first. Now fully understanding what the poem means, my mind has been blown to a million little pieces!
One very interesting thing to take note of is that the tense in this short 10 line poem changes. Lines 1-7 are in the past, and lines 8-10 are in the present. With the change over of tenses you can infer that Hulme's physical and even psychological presence, in lines 1-7, are different than lines 8-10. Imagery is the most often used poetic device in this poem. Hulme uses it to set the scenery of springtime in the forest in lines 1-3, and he uses it again in line 6 to describe his physical reaction to great beauty. I would also like to clarify that the word hyacinth is one not known by many unless you've studied horticulture. Hyacinth is the plant also known as Baby's Breath. Line 7 is also one that really gave me a challenge when analyzing it. What makes this a metaphor, are the clauses "by loveliness" and "her own eunuch". Metaphors compare two things that are seemingly unlike. Eunuch, is simply a man who is castrated for religious purposes, opera purposes, or class system purposes. The sight he saw was not actually pleasant but one that frightened him and maybe even disgusted him. In lines 8-10, the tense changes to the present. My interpretation of this might be a bit outlandish, but I believe that Hulme is dead. When he says that he's "passes the final river" it's a symbol for passing through the final stages from life to death. Ignominiously is another word for shamefully. I believe that the entire poem is describing the feeling of dying. The last line is relating the motion of passing through the river to Turks passing through the body of water that separates Europe from Asia.
The 'body of water that separates Europe from Asia', just as the Styx separates limbo from the Underworld proper. The passing from life to death and hence a second conversion? This is very good Helene! See my other comment on the poem under the title 'Conversion By T E Hulme'. Or is Death THE conversion in the poem, not the seizure by beauty in a more youthful time? On second thoughts doesn't Hulme present beauty as something sinister and cloying. It 'stifles' the poet, castrates him perhaps like the eunuch mentioned in the sixth line. This poem never ceases to fascinate me. It is so enigmatic and self-contradictory. Definitely the poem of a romantic at heart despite the anti-romantic stance of his philosophical writings. Compare T S Eliot, another late romantic poet who called himself a 'classicist'.
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