Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

John Frederick Nims’ "Sign of Fever" is an elegiac meditation on love, loss, and the irreparable distance that forms between two people after their passion has burned itself out. The poem is structured in a tight, lyrical form, where each line is carefully balanced between the intense emotional weight of past love and the stark, isolating reality of its aftermath. Nims employs a mix of physical and metaphysical imagery to explore the feverish intensity of love and the cold quarantine of its dissolution.

The opening lines frame love as a mutual exchange of gifts—Toys that parting lovers give / We gave and gave each other too. This phrasing suggests a reckless generosity, a youthful inexperience where both partners pour themselves into the relationship, offering not just tangible tokens but the full weight of their being. Yet, Novice in the knack of love implies that their passion was misguided, perhaps too inexperienced or untested to last. The choice of toys rather than more traditional symbols of love (such as rose or ring) emphasizes this immaturity, suggesting that what they exchanged was ephemeral rather than enduring.

As the poem moves forward, Nims contrasts the untamed intensity of the lovers' emotions with the naiveté of their physical selves. But soul was soaring, eagle-wild; / Body was a tagging child. The juxtaposition here is striking: the soul—metaphorically unbounded and exalted—seeks transcendence, while the body, like a clumsy and dependent child, lags behind, unable to keep up. This line reflects a fundamental conflict in their relationship: the mind and spirit experiencing love as something grand and limitless, while the physical, everyday realities of life (perhaps practical concerns, distance, or time) inevitably pull them back down. This tension between idealized love and its earthly limitations becomes one of the poem’s key themes.

Nims then introduces a motif of sickness and exile, reinforcing the idea that passion has consequences beyond mere heartbreak. Where the sign of fever burns, / Caller's car is never seen; suggests that their love was so intense that it became a kind of illness, something contagious or dangerous, prompting others to keep their distance. The metaphor of fever here implies both the burning heat of passion and the sickness that follows—a love so consuming that it leaves one isolated, marked by its excesses.

This idea is reinforced in the next lines: So our blood from public care / Writes immortal quarantine. The image of blood suggests a shared, binding essence—love as something physical and inescapable. But rather than leading to union, it results in quarantine, an enforced separation, as if their love has become something diseased, something to be kept apart from the world. The phrase immortal quarantine is especially powerful: it suggests that this isolation is permanent, that even after time has passed, they will remain separated, locked away from one another, defined by their former fever rather than by any present connection.

The final stanza marks a complete departure between the two lovers, setting them on distinctly different trajectories. Lover, on the western wave / Cruise, inviting sleep again. The phrase western wave carries multiple layers of meaning. It could be a reference to the traditional association of the West with endings (as in sunset, death, or departure), suggesting that the lover is moving away, leaving behind the feverish love they once shared. Cruise, inviting sleep again implies that this departure is not just physical but emotional—perhaps an attempt to find peace, to drift away from the intensity of the past and return to a state of calm.

In contrast, the speaker is left in a vastly different landscape: I along the winter fields / Straggle with the midland men. The shift from the ocean to the winter fields is stark. The speaker remains landlocked, trudging through cold, barren surroundings while surrounded by midland men—a phrase that evokes a sense of ordinariness, of being caught in the mundane. This contrast between movement and stasis, between a journey at sea and a weary march through land, symbolizes the divergent paths the two lovers have taken. One has sought escape, while the other remains trapped in a world that is stark and lifeless.

The final lines return to the imagery of confinement and haunting. Skull’s a shut and haunted room; / Dream of each is other’s doom. Here, the speaker’s mind is depicted as a shut and haunted room, filled with the ghostly presence of the lost love. The idea of being shut suggests finality—there is no more possibility for reconciliation, no more openness to the past. The phrase dream of each is other’s doom is devastating in its implication: their memories of each other are not sources of comfort, but of destruction. Rather than providing solace, remembering each other only deepens their pain, ensuring that they remain trapped in a cycle of longing and despair.

Ultimately, "Sign of Fever" is a meditation on the aftermath of a love that burned too brightly to last. Nims masterfully employs images of sickness, exile, and divergence to convey the deep divide that grows between former lovers. The fever of passion has given way to the cold of separation, leaving behind two individuals who are forever marked by their shared intensity, yet irrevocably distanced from one another. The poem lingers in the space between past and present, capturing the lingering ache of love that was, and the inexorable isolation that follows.

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