Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Robert Penn Warren’s "The Return: An Elegy" is a profound meditation on death, memory, and the inescapable passage of time, framed through the recurring imagery of nature—particularly the relentless, oppressive presence of pine trees and the wind. The poem explores the deeply personal emotions tied to the death of a mother, while also touching on larger existential questions about identity, the power of memory, and the natural cycles of life and decay. Warren uses the elegy form not just to mourn the loss of an individual, but also to reflect on the way time and nature intersect with human existence, with the speaker caught between past and present, life and death, memory and reality.

The poem opens with a vivid and almost oppressive description of the natural world: "The east wind finds the gap bringing rain: / Rain in the pine wind shaking the stiff pine." This harsh, elemental imagery sets the tone for the entire elegy, suggesting that the forces of nature are indifferent to human suffering and loss. The "stiff pine" trees, shaken by the wind, are personified as passive participants in the unfolding events. These trees—symbols of endurance and time—recur throughout the poem, linking the inevitability of death to the immutable, natural world. As the rain and wind disturb the landscape, the poem also introduces the theme of decay: "Where the blind and nameless bones recline." The bones, buried in the earth, are "conceded to the earth's absolute chemistry," their identities erased as they are absorbed back into nature.

Warren then contemplates the transformation of these bones, reducing the dead to their elemental components—calcium, phosphate—while questioning the significance of their existence: "tell me its name." This demand for a name reveals a deep yearning for meaning and identity, even as the physical bodies of the dead dissolve into the earth. The repetition of "tell me its name" conveys the speaker’s struggle to hold onto a sense of individuality and identity in the face of death’s anonymity. The tension between the personal (the desire to remember and name) and the impersonal (the inescapable return to dust) is central to the poem’s emotional core.

As the elegy unfolds, the speaker’s reflections become more personal, invoking images of a train journey through the night, "Eyes, not blind, press to the Pullman pane / Survey the driving dark and silver taunt of rain." The train, symbolizing the forward march of time, hurtles through darkness, with the speaker peering out into the unknown, searching for meaning in the rain-swept landscape. This train journey becomes a metaphor for the speaker’s confrontation with mortality—both their mother’s and their own. The relentless motion of the train mirrors the unstoppable progression of life, as the speaker moves inexorably toward the future, haunted by memories of the past.

The speaker’s relationship with their mother is a central focus of the poem, and the lines "give me the nickels off your eyes / from your hands the violets let me bless your obsequies" illustrate the intimate, painful nature of this loss. The imagery here is both tender and morbid, with the nickels (traditionally placed on the eyes of the dead) and violets (a flower associated with mourning) serving as symbols of both death and remembrance. The speaker’s grief is raw, and their attempt to “bless” the mother’s obsequies suggests a desire to honor her memory, even in the face of overwhelming sorrow.

The natural world continues to reflect the speaker’s inner turmoil. The pines, which "snore" and "complain," become both witnesses and participants in the elegy, their "hairy boughs" bending under the weight of mist and rain. The trees, like the speaker, seem to grieve, their complaints echoing the speaker’s unresolved emotions. The line "the old fox is dead what have I said!" introduces a startling, almost involuntary admission of death. This exclamation, repeated throughout the poem, punctuates the speaker’s reflections, as if the realization of death—both of the old fox and of the mother—keeps intruding upon their thoughts. The old fox, a symbol of cunning and survival, represents both the inevitability of death and the suddenness with which it strikes.

As the poem nears its conclusion, the speaker reflects on the history of those who came before: "a hundred years they took this road / the lank hunters then men hard-eyed with hope." These lines suggest that the speaker’s personal loss is part of a larger, collective history of migration, struggle, and survival. The image of "ox breath whitened the chill air" evokes the harsh conditions faced by pioneers, linking the speaker’s present grief to the hardships endured by previous generations. The poem situates individual loss within the broader context of human history, suggesting that death and grief are universal experiences, shared across time and space.

In the final stanza, the speaker expresses a longing to "pluck / Out of the dark that whirled / Over the hoarse pine over the rock." This desire to reach into the darkness, to grasp something tangible from the chaos of nature and memory, is a powerful image of the speaker’s struggle to reconcile themselves with the loss of their mother. The poem ends with a plea: "If I could pluck / Against the dry essential of tomorrow / To lay upon the breast that gave me suck / Out of the dark the dark and swollen orchid of this sorrow." The "swollen orchid" becomes a symbol of grief—beautiful but overwhelming, fragile yet consuming. The speaker’s desire to offer this flower of sorrow to their mother underscores the deep bond between them, even in death.

Ultimately, "The Return: An Elegy" is a meditation on loss, time, and the enduring connection between the living and the dead. Through vivid, often brutal imagery of nature, Warren explores the ways in which grief transforms our understanding of the world and ourselves. The elegy speaks to the universal experience of mourning, while also offering a deeply personal reflection on the speaker’s relationship with their mother. The natural world, with its rain, wind, and pines, serves as both a backdrop and a mirror to the speaker’s inner turmoil, reinforcing the inescapable cycles of life, death, and memory.

Copyright (c) 2025 PoetryExplorer

Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!

Other Poems of Interest...