Mood Of The Poem Fog

The poem “Fog” at its very essence exhibits themes of change, as well as ideas about the natural world. It seems as if the speaker is using cat feet as a dramatization of the quietness of the fog. Cat feet within this poem are used as a way for the speaker to convey the idea that the fog acts as cat feet do, in how quiet and sneaky they are. As the poem progresses the reader experiences a mood change from being anxious and not knowing what to expect to a feeling of excitement. This excitement stems from the idea of the cat-like fog ever moving and changing over harbor cities and towns. This means that the stanzas are two separate ideas that are joined by an extended metaphor between that of the cat and fog. This is illustrated in the first two and last two lines of the poem, “The fog comes / on little cat feet” (Sandburg, 1-2), and “on silent haunches /
In each line, certain words and phrases portray what is going on in the development of “Fog.” In the first line, the word “comes” in “The fog comes” highlights what is happening with the fog and is a great example of imagery within the poem (Sandburg, 1). In the second line of the couplet, “little cat feet” is a phrase that causes the reader to conjure up an image of a cat-fog that moves around silently (Sandburg, 2). In the second stanza the ideas change; instead of the fog entering the harbor city, it is exiting. In the third line the word “sits” defines what the fog did as it entered the city: it settled over the area silently (Sandburg, 3). In the fourth line the word “over” is to define the fog’s actions just as the word “sits” in the third line (Sandburg, 4). Both of these are examples of imagery, as these two words help to make a picture in the readers mind. Lastly, in the third and fourth lines, the words “haunches” and “moves on” help to demonstrate what the fog is doing as it starts to dissipate (Sandburg,