The Trees
Annotation I:
“The Trees” by Philip Larkin
The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.
Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too,
Their yearly trick of looking of looking new.
Is it written down in rings of grain.
Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In full grown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.
Imagery to Larkin’s “The Trees”
Voice, tone, imagery and structure are the 4 essential factors to developing a brilliant poem. This essay will focus on imagery to Larkin’s poem, ‘The Trees’. On a general perspective of the poem, Larkin creates a great conception of optimism – a natural image of fresh leaves, springtime and a new life. However, we also see the downfall of this optimism as Larkin questions the meaning of life in the second stanza of the poem. With his smart employment of poetic utensils such as imagery, alliteration, repetition and enjambment, Larkin will escort us readers into the metaphysical world of this poem.
Larkin introduces the poem cheerfully as ‘The trees are coming into leaf’ – symbolizing ‘leaf’ as a form of life. Ideally, we are able to image a sense of hope and encouragement in the first stanza as he states that ‘The recent buds relax and spread;’ However, the tone shifts into a rather negative outlook as the poem approaches the third line of the first stanza – ‘Their greenness is a kind of grief’. We are able to see the shift from optimism to pessimism in this line as we picture the idea of being born and then being destined to die. With Larkin’s use of alliteration in the word ‘greenness’ and ‘grief’, we view the ideal of life as ‘grief’ because it is above all, short-lived.
In the second stanza, Larkin introduces a rhetorical question as he asks ‘Is it that they are born again And we grow old?’ Here he seems to question the immortality of leaves in
“The Trees” by Philip Larkin
The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.
Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too,
Their yearly trick of looking of looking new.
Is it written down in rings of grain.
Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In full grown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.
Imagery to Larkin’s “The Trees”
Voice, tone, imagery and structure are the 4 essential factors to developing a brilliant poem. This essay will focus on imagery to Larkin’s poem, ‘The Trees’. On a general perspective of the poem, Larkin creates a great conception of optimism – a natural image of fresh leaves, springtime and a new life. However, we also see the downfall of this optimism as Larkin questions the meaning of life in the second stanza of the poem. With his smart employment of poetic utensils such as imagery, alliteration, repetition and enjambment, Larkin will escort us readers into the metaphysical world of this poem.
Larkin introduces the poem cheerfully as ‘The trees are coming into leaf’ – symbolizing ‘leaf’ as a form of life. Ideally, we are able to image a sense of hope and encouragement in the first stanza as he states that ‘The recent buds relax and spread;’ However, the tone shifts into a rather negative outlook as the poem approaches the third line of the first stanza – ‘Their greenness is a kind of grief’. We are able to see the shift from optimism to pessimism in this line as we picture the idea of being born and then being destined to die. With Larkin’s use of alliteration in the word ‘greenness’ and ‘grief’, we view the ideal of life as ‘grief’ because it is above all, short-lived.
In the second stanza, Larkin introduces a rhetorical question as he asks ‘Is it that they are born again And we grow old?’ Here he seems to question the immortality of leaves in