The Retreat - Henry Vaughan

Henry Vaughan: "The Retreate"
Make an analysis of the following aspects:

1- who's the speaker and who's speaking to?
The speaker is the poet and he is speaking to himself, is a reflection of his own life, already lived, being now next to die.

2- type of vocabulary (loving, violent, angry, etc)
The vocabulary used in this poem is calmed, reflective, but a little sad and even resigned.

3- alliterations, metaphors, comparisons, assonances, personifications (that is to say any literary figure you find in it)
I could find the literary figure “assonance” in that poem. Example: “Or taught my sould to fancy aught”. And on the other hand, Metaphors like; “And tread again that ancient track”, he is metaphorically speaking about the past and his wishes to be there again.

4- what's the poem about? (love, hate, faith, life, death)
The poem is about death. The poet can speak about death and feels his presence near him, but he doesn’t seem afraid about it.

He is sad and negative, because he couldn’t live intensively due to the short time that he had to live.

He has done a reflection about his own life already lived or passed, and the anguish that he feels because of impossibility to come back to revive again all the things that he never realized. And can repair all the bad things that he did or said. He’d wish to have the opportunity to mend all his sins which he never paid attention, in order to deserve the everlastingness.


5- your opinion about the poem.
I think that it is an original wrote. It’s a little confuse, because there are feeling expressions, and he reaches transmit his sadness and resignation. It’s like a desperate poem, but into a calmed way to say “I’m repentant, but it’s so late”. Anyway, it seems that he doesn’t afraid to death.