Analysis Of The Poem 'A Moon-Lily' By Ted Hughes

Everyone in the world has one thing in common. Every single person wants love. Ted Hughes’s beautiful poem “A Moon-Lily” uses an extended metaphor to compare a moon-lily to love. At the poem’s beginning, the speaker describes the “moon-lily” as “marvelously white” (1). The speaker uses the color white as a symbol of purity, wholeness, and completeness. A person feels whole and complete when they are in love. The speaker is implying that the flower is love and that the love is pure. The persona uses this image of love to describe the type of love one person tries to give to another. In this poem the person giving the love is the woman and the person refusing their love is the man. In Hughes’s “A Moon-Lily” the speaker compares a moon-lily to

love to show the effects that an unhealthy relationship has on love.
The speaker immediately describes the subtle beginning of love between the woman and the man. The speaker explains, “…before its bud shows any white/ You think you hear a ghost inside your house” (4-5). This passage implies that people experience attraction or tenderness before they fall in love. Since the flower has not bloomed this tells the reader that the woman and man are not in love. The speaker compares attraction or the beginnings of love to a “ghost” and a “mouse” (5-6). Most people see ghosts and mice as intruders. The speaker also states that the ghost and the mouse were “inside your house” (5). In this situation, the house is a metaphor for the man’s life, and the intruder is the woman and her feelings. The speaker’s comparisons suggest that the man is uncomfortable with the idea of someone loving him. The mood of the whole poem shifts after the first few lines. The speaker now describes the ghost’s and the mouse’s noises as “a happy humming” sound (7). The change in mood is sudden and swift. The line that follows explains why the mood changes: “…look at your lily…see a split of white/ petal coming” (8-9). The speaker explains that the change in mood was because The female’s attraction evolved into love. When the speaker describes the blooming lily he is telling the reader that the female is beginning to fall in love.
Hughes’s speaker uses a lot of metaphors that all tie together into the one central idea, love.

The speaker personifies the flower by describing how the moon-lily sings: “…it is singing—very far/ but very clear and sweet” (10-11). The voice of the flower is the voice of the woman. The flower is calling out to the man. The fact that the flower has to call out to the man implies that he does not accept the love of the woman. The speaker also describes the distance between the two people. He states, “The voice is always in some other room” (12). Once again the speaker is describing distance, but the man does not try to close the distance. The reason the man does not try to close the distance is because he does not love the woman. The lily represents the female and their love. In the poem, the speaker talks about a “garden” which is a metaphor for the female’s life (13). In the garden the speaker describes the flower as “in bloom” and that the flower “stands full and/ proud” (13,14-15). This section of the poem tells the reader that the woman’s love is strong and unwavering. The speaker compares the woman’s love to a lily because the love is pure of heart and beautiful. The relationship that the poem depicts is unhealthy for the female. The woman is putting too much effort into a nonexistent

relationship.
The voice of the lily follows the man wherever he is: “Comes and goes in your house, and all night long” (18). This passage suggests that the man is feeling guilty. The guilt is eating away at the man. Since he feels guilt it means that he cares for the woman, but he does not reciprocate the love that the woman feels. In the last few lines of the poem there is a sudden change in mood. The lily’s voice is “-suddenly-weeping” (19). The speaker uses the weeping of the lily to show that the woman accepts the fact that the man will not return her love. The female’s acceptance of this knowledge mirrors the life of the lily. The speaker states, “The lily has started to fade, there is brown on her/ snow” (22-23). The lily is a metaphor for the woman’s love. Since the lily’s color is fading that means that the woman’s love for the man is fading. The color brown is tainting the lily’s pureness. The brown represents the woman’s sadness and anger toward the man for not loving her back. The speaker describes the female mourning her loss with “quiet sobbing” (24). The speaker then states, “… no sleep for/you, / Till your lily’s withering is quite through” (24-26). The speaker is talking about the man and how he should suffer. The guilt of not loving the woman has overcome the man. The speaker is implying that the man will not rest until the woman finds someone new to love. If both people involved in a relationship do not reciprocate the same feelings for each other then they should not be in a relationship. Love is delicate and beautiful like a flower, and it can die if the people do not care for and attend to it. It is healthier to not be in a relationship than to be in an unhealthy relationship.