Symbol for danger
In the poem "The Heroes’’ the narrator mentions how most people would avoid going near "a fang’’ or a snake. The narrator also mentions other creatures as well such as the owl or unfriendly places such as lands covered by weeds and ‘’sour’’ ground. All these are used in this poem as symbols to suggest danger and also to suggest the ways men will try to protect themselves from various things in life.
Symbol for artifice
In the poem "No Swan so Fine’’ the narrator describes a statue he saw at Versailles, a statue depicting a beautiful swan. The narrator looks at the swan and reaches the conclusion that it is a beautiful creature. Unfortunately however, the swan is not living and thus the beauty the narrator sees is a lie. The narrator uses here the place of Versailles as a symbol for artifice since everything he sees there is not what it seems at a first glance.
Symbol for pleasure
In the poem "Black Earth’’ the narrator mentions how she is like an alligator because she likes to lay in the sun and because she enjoys doing various things even though they do not have a practical value. The sun is mentioned in the poem as the source of ‘’unproductive’’ pleasures and thus it becomes a motif for pleasures.
Symbol for restraint
Also in the poem "Black Earth’’ the narrator talks about the mud that can be found in rivers and the mud she fells weighting her down, almost as if stopping her from feeling pleasure. Mud is something a person may find in every place of the world so the narrator wants to transmit the idea that the "mud’’ keeping her down is common. The term mud is used here as a symbol to suggest the ideas everyone has that may affect someone who tries to live their lives a way seen as being improper by the rest of the world.
I am constant
One of the common motif found in the poems the idea that the narrator’s ideas and thoughts are constant. The ideas and beliefs the narrator has are not subject to change and she uses various images to transmit the idea and to make the reader understand just how much she is sure her beliefs will not change. This attitude is found in many poems written by the narrator.
