Tuesday, November 20, 2012

The Night has a Thousand Eyes by Francis William Bourdillon

The Night has a Thousand Eyes by Francis William Bourdillon


I really enjoyed this poem. I like how it's using personification. At least, I feel like it's using personification. At first I didn't understand what a "thousand eyes" was but when I reread it multiple times; I realized that the "thousand eyes" was referring the stars in the sky. To me, that really does make sense because the stars are like little eyes watching you like little creepers. The "day has but one" is obviously the sun. The lines 3-4 "Yet the light of the bright world dies with the dying sun" makes me think of the evening time, when the sun begins to go down and most people begin to sleep. The next stanza confused me a bit more then the first one did. I don’t get the “mind has a thousand eyes” but I feel like it’s the cells that are roaming inside the brain or maybe the area of the brain that is collecting the information we get and storing it. I think the heart’s eye is love since you love with your heart and love is inside the heart. The last two lines are my favorite. “Yet the light of a whole life dies when the love is gone”. I like these two lines since it makes me feel like you can’t truly live without love. You can but it seems like it would make life a lot harder or that life would be a little more boring if you can’t love something or someone. It could also mean that once your love begins to die down, your mind also begins to shut down. It could decide that it doesn’t want to put anymore work into life if there isn’t any love to work with or something along those lines. Over all, I really did enjoy this poem even if it did confuse me a lot the first couple times I read it.

2 comments:

  1. The first time I read this poem, I only understood the last two lines. From reading what you think the poem means, I can see the same. I agree with what you say about this poem. I liked the last two lines too, they were my favorite as well. Even though this poem is confusing the first couple times you read it, it make scense. It's a poem where you have to dig deeper, and not just surface deep.

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  2. LaShawn, I interpret the "mind has a thousand eyes" to be "thoughts" that twinkle on and off like the stars, but the sun's love shines eternal in the heart, as well memories of the twinkling eyes in the night, until death. After that, who knows?

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