Analysis of the poem ‘The Force That Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower’ by Dylan Thomas

Dylan Thomas is one of the famous poets of the 20th century. The poet has written many poems but the poem ‘The Force That Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower’ has brought fame for him. Though Thomas wrote this poem in 1933 at the age of nineteen, it was first published in his 1934 collection 18 Poems.

Poem:

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower

Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees

Is my destroyer.

And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose

My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.

The force that drives the water through the rocks

Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams

Turns mine to wax.

And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins

How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks.

The hand that whirls the water in the pool

Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wind

Hauls my shroud sail.

And I am dumb to tell the hanging man

How of my clay is made the hangman’s lime.

The lips of time leech to the fountain head;

Love drips and gathers, but the fallen blood

Shall calm her sores.

And I am dumb to tell a weather’s wind

How time has ticked a heaven round the stars.

And I am dumb to tell the lover’s tomb

How at my sheet goes the same crooked worm.

Analysis:

At first, he talks about the force. A force is of many types. He talks about the force of young age.

First of all, he talks about the force of nature. Nature has two kinds of forces. One of them is the destructing force while the other is preserving force. When we are young, nature has a destructing force on us. But again nature also preserves us. When we are young, nature shows us the destructive side and we become destructive. But when we are restricted by old ages or the level of our energy goes down, our feelings dry up. We become more matured as a people. We become calmer headed. We become cooler as a people. We are not that hot headed anymore. That is the first stanza.

In the second stanza, he talks about our sexual feelings. Sometimes, it goes very up and sometimes, it goes very down. When it goes up, we feel like destroying anything. But when it goes down, we become bones. Then it talks about the different activities of our mouth. Our mouth does or plays many roles. Sometimes, it eats. Sometimes it also does many other things.

In the third stanza, he talks about our hands. Sometimes our hands do not do anything. It is fixed in the water. But sometimes, we also do many things with our hands. It means we can show our emotion through our hands. If we are emotionally angry we can slap a person, but when we are calm, we can adore a person with our hands. Our hands can show our strong feelings and our hands can show our weak feelings. With our hands, we can also stop the whirl of sailing or we can stop the boat from sailing. If there is heavy wind, we can anchor the boat; we can stop the boat from moving swiftly. We can control the wind with our hand. We can control the boat. If we can control the boat, we can also control the wind.

Then there is indication about hanging man and hang man. So, one person is hanging another man. Hanging man is hanging the hang man. Both of them are human beings. Both of them are made out of clays. They are playing different roles. One person is killing another person. The hanging man is killing the hang man. Both of them are human beings but both of them are playing different roles.

Then he talks about love. A baby is produced out of the love between the parents. When a mother is giving birth to a baby, she has a lot of pain. But when she looks at the young child, she feels very happy. Her pains go away.

The baby is born. He or she starts a new life. He becomes older and one day he dies. Then he thinks of going to heaven or hell. He thinks about death. One day the baby grows up, then the baby becomes an old person and he also dies. He talks about the cycle of nature. It means that the baby is born and in another place an old person dies. The baby is born in one place and an old person dies in another place. It seems like cycle of life- balance of nature.

In the last two lines, he talks about the lover’s tomb. Suppose we talk about the grave yard. Inside the grave yard the lovers or the people being eaten by small insects. They are destroying our body by eating our flesh and blood. By eating our body, they are also preserving our body. It is the balance of nature. Nature is also destroying us.