Speaker or Narrator, and Point of View
Presumably, the poet or an omniscient figure
Form and Meter
Free verse with four quatrains and one additional line
Metaphors and Similes
Simile:
Grey clouds: used to compare the shifting, bittersweet thoughts in one's mind to grey clouds moving across the sky
Alliteration and Assonance
Alliteration:
"Warm..weather": two "W" sounds
"Smells of rain and summer / Strips...": three "S" sounds
"Shuffle the shallow...": two "Sh" sounds
"When was it so before...With whom?": three "W" sounds
Irony
One fundamental irony of this poem is that the subject tries repeatedly to remember an elusive recollection or experience, but as the devices in the poem show the reader, this is often a futile exercise. Adding more to the irony is that even if the subject remembers, this will not release him from the grip of time.
Genre
Modernist
Setting
In the future, the speaker's mind's eye
Tone
Wistful, poignant
Protagonist and Antagonist
The subject whom the speaker addresses
Major Conflict
The major conflict seems to be the struggle of the subject to recall something he has experienced, despite the fact that the faint recollection of the memory is powerful enough to bring tears to his eyes. The issue here is that one can live through something so emotionally important and formative and yet still not remember, though prompted by a smell, an image, or a sensation.
Climax
"You will not understand why suddenly sweetness
Fills in your heart nor the tears come to our eyes:"
In the third stanza, the reader fully understands what is happening to the subject of the poem, as the experience of sudden fogginess and nostalgia is highly relatable. It is in this moment that the reader feels implicated, and identifies with the bittersweet experience, moved by the speaker's understanding of our shared human fate.
Foreshadowing
While not necessarily a foreshadowing, the poem is constructed in the future tense, lending itself to a series of predictions.
