Comparing Stafford's Five A. M. And Five Flights Up

In reflecting on one’s surroundings, no matter how similar, two people view things from different perspectives that are based on one’s state of mind and point of view. In William Stafford’s “Five A.M.,” the peaceful thoughts of nature are one with the speaker’s optimistic viewpoint while in Elizabeth Bishop’s “Five Flights Up,” nature is observed with an outside perspective. The questions focused on in Stafford’s poem come from a first person point of view, in where the speaker is one with nature. The speaker asks “where are my troubles” as they reflect on the peaceful morning—signifying that nature ant he speaker are one in the same with no troubles (Stafford 8). In Bishop’s poem, the questions come from the personified bird and dog, and
The speaker focuses on almost killers, saints, former conquerors, and farmers (Stafford 9-13). These people are “in every country” conveying how there are diverse people connected with nature everywhere (Stafford 9). In Bishop’s poem, the only person mentioned is the dog’s owner with the “stern voice disturbing nature (Bishop 16). They are referred to as “his owner” with possession of the anthropomorphized dog, who is a part of nature asking human questions (Bishop 16). The owner can’t understand the dog or its significance in nature and cannot connect with nature like the people in Stafford’s poem who “have built sanctuaries on islands and valleys” and “for thousands of years…worked their fields” that have a symbiotic relationship with the earth (Stafford 11-13). In Bishop’s poems the only person mentioned and the speaker are both separate from nature, and they can only imagine what nature is thinking contrasting the people in Stafford’s
The first sentence personifies the early morning as it “breathes a soft sound” with calm consonance in the /s/ in breathes, soft, and sound (Stafford 1-2). In Bishop’s poem the first line is end stopped even though the words “Still dark” are the same as Stafford’s (Bishop 1). This use of end stopped sets the whole tone of Bishop’s poem as having the nature imagery separate from the speaker and the reader. “The unknown bird” suggests the speaker does not feel at one with nature like the speaker in Stafford’s poem (Bishop 2). The speaker in Stafford’s poem describes “my feet pad and grit on the pavement” (Stafford 6). This onomatopoeia causes the reader to hear the sounds of the feet and feel the touch of the pavement. Their feet are touching the ground and are one with nature as they are mentioned again when “my feet begin the uphill curve where a thicket spills with birds every spring” (Stafford 14-15). The speaker’s body is fluid and comfortable with nature as “my arms alternate easily to my pace” (Stafford 7-8). The speaker’s body is comfortable in the morning and fits in with the surrounding imagery. This fluidity with nature and surroundings isn’t found with the speaker in Bishop’s poem. This is also pointed out in the title of Bishop’s poem “Five Flights Up.” The speaker being five flights up symbolizes how the speaker is not connected on the ground with the earth or nature. The title in Stafford’s poem “Five