Slim Cunning Hands by Walter De La Mare

Walter De La Mare is a modern example of romantic poets who writes about abstract ideas such as death, dreams, emotions, and childhood fantasy worlds. He also writes novel which are just as comparable in excellence to his poetry.

Slim Cunning Hands

Slim cunning hands at rest, and cozening eyes-
Under this stone one loved too wildly lies;
How false she was, no granite could declare;
Nor all earth's flowers, how fair.

This poem if you understand it, is pretty dark. It explores the untimely death of a beautiful women and the man that loved her, but it also openly clearly tells "how false she was" as a person. The reason that so much information is able to be conveyed in four short lines is because of the diction and clever descriptions that the author provides. In the first line, the words "cunning" and "cozening" show that the woman was a clever liar, and because of this the reader begins to wonder if that is one of the reasons that the man loved her. The next line explores both her deceptiveness as well as her untimely death. The word "wildly" again gets at her being out of control but the word "stone" begins a series of word choices ("granite" and "flowers"included)  that hint at death and the brevity of life. These concrete words provide a vivid description for the reader about a tombstone and an easily destroyed life. Both of which generate clear pictures in the minds of the readers heightening the purpose of description in the poem. The flower is a metaphor for life in the sense that it is fragile and can end so quickly. This is an example of how words can also have double meanings because the flower also can be understood as a literal flower that is placed on a tombstone or around the casket at a funeral. The description in this poem is brought about through the diction which is what typically happens in a poem. Diction also develops the situation, setting, and tone, once again reinforcing the idea that all aspects of poetry are interrelated and it is hard to have one without the others. 

To a Daughter Leaving Home by Linda Pastan

Linda Pastan is a Jewish American poet who won the Mademoiselle poetry prize during her senior year in college and after taking a decade off to raise a family, she returned to writing poetry having to do with marriage, family, grief, and other feelings of everyday life.

To a Daughter Leaving Home

When I taught you
at eight to ride
a bicycle, loping along
beside you
as you wobbled away
on two round wheels,
my own mouth rounding
in surprise when you pulled
ahead down the curved
path of the park,
I kept waiting
for the thud
of your crash as I
sprinted to catch up,
while you grew
smaller, more breakable
with distance,
pumping, pumping
for your life, screaming
with laughter,
the hair flapping
behind you like a
handkerchief waving
goodbye.

The context of any poem includes the both the situation and the setting that surround the action. Context answers the "what," "where," and "when" of the poem. The situation of this particular poem, or in other words what is happening, is that a mother or a father (the speaker) is comparing the daughter leaving home to the same daughter learning how to ride a bike when "I taught you at eight to ride a bicycle, loping along beside you." We know, as readers, that the daughter is leaving home based on the title and because of that we can assume that the poem acts almost as an extended metaphor to compare the two experiences in the parent's head. This makes up the situation, but to find the setting took slightly more digging because it is not clearly stated. This vagueness is intentional, however, so that it can be applied universally to anyone who reads it. The setting of this poem is on the surface is "ahead down the curved path of the park" but on the deeper level, this poem is probably set in the family house or something that has the same effect to relate the action back to family and connect with the reader on a personal level. Both the setting and the situation help to develop the tone in the poem. The context provides the reader with clues that hint toward a tone of reminiscence and bitter-sweetness. The mother remembers an old fond memory to try and cope with the new painful memory that is forming.