Elegy- Maranda Gaines

To His Love

To His Love

By Ivor Gurney 1890–1937 Ivor Gurney

 

He's gone, and all our plans

   Are useless indeed.

We'll walk no more on Cotswold

   Where the sheep feed

   Quietly and take no heed.

 

His body that was so quick

   Is not as you

Knew it, on Severn river

   Under the blue

   Driving our small boat through.

 

You would not know him now ...

   But still he died

Nobly, so cover him over

   With violets of pride

   Purple from Severn side.

 

Cover him, cover him soon!

   And with thick-set

Masses of memoried flowers—

   Hide that red wet

   Thing I must somehow forget.

 

In this poem, the speaker addresses the loved one of a man who has died. The first stage of an elegy, the grief and mourning stage, is the majority of this piece. The poem begins with “He’s gone,” a statement of clear mourning. The second stanza continues this mournful tone. The speaker tells the man’s wife or loved one that his body “is not as you knew it.” That being said, the second stage of an elegy is introduced: admiration. The speaker admires and appreciates the man, which is why he avoids the details of the death. He desires to “cover him over with violets of pride” as he believes the man deserved. However the third stage of an elegy, consolation, is not quite as strong as the other two. The speaker isn’t expressing complete comfort by the end of the piece. He does attempt at comforting himself and the loved ones with the image of hiding “that red wet thing I must somehow forget.” Forgetting the tragedy seems to be the only way to reach comfort to this speaker. Through this poem, the speaker comments on loss. Through his mourning tone and avoiding disturbing details, he believes death is devastating to all effected. Forgetting rather than embracing the once living is the solution to this speaker.