Commentary on poem After The Flood

Commentary on poem After The Flood

The poem “After The Flood” has a slow and steady tempo. The poet

created it by not mentioning too many events at once, but slowly, and

gives time for the observer to recall – “I remembered...” and gives

his own opinion on the events – “It had not been a bad rise…” These

give the readers a better understanding and a clearer picture on what

is happening. As we read through the poem, we have an image of the

observer, standing at the ruins of the park, observing carefully what

is going on around and describing them in words what he sees and

comparing them with the past condition – which was before the flood.

The pace of the observer in observing is somewhat unified with the

tempo of the poem, so the reader is like ‘following’ the observer and

listening to him.

After reading the poem, a calm and tense less image of the observer is

created in our mind. Phrases like “The morning it was over”, shows

that the observer is feeling calm and believes that everything is over

and there is nothing more to worry about. “I walked…” shows the

observer is worried of nothing and walked calmly to the Jersey side.

“It had not been a bad rise” also shows that the observer doesn’t

exaggerate on what he sees, but judges it fairly according to his own

thoughts. “I felt I must surely…… so familiar”, this sort of tell us

that the poet is so unworried and have time to recall the past and

being a little nostalgic. Line 17-24 shows us the observer comparing

the condition of the river presently and during the flood, he is calm

and carefully observing the situation and even the sounds around him.

The river in this poem is described through comparisons or figures of

speech. The observer thinks the river is amazing as its intensity has

decreased considerably. The water is described as ‘swollen’; this

gives us the image of the water flowing along the river in a rough

motion and is forming little waves. It is disordered and dirty. Line

19-20 is a simile where the flowing river is compared to a beast that

is sneaking around. It is referred as ‘beast’ as it had created a

massive destruction to the place and has ruined everybody’s mood. Now,

it is as if the ‘beast’ is tired and retreats slowly, so it is said to

be sneaking around. Another role of the river in this poem is to show

continuity of life. Though the place had been devastated and the