Bird - “Retrospect”
The bird is representative of permeating love. Brooke explicates, “Love, in you, went passing by,/Penetrative, remote, and rare,/Like a bird in the wide air,/And, as the bird, it left no trace/In the heaven of your face.” The love breaches deep in the addressee’s heart in the same way that the bird infiltrates the air. This love is instinctive and cogent, for it rises above shallowness.
Dark Tides - “Safety”
The ‘dark tides’ signify characteristic insecurity.Brooke proclaims, “Dear! of all happy in the hour, most blest/He who has found our hid security,/Assured in the dark tides of the world that rest,/And heard our word, ‘Who is so safe as we?’ the capacity to circumvent the dark clouds warranties one that he/ she would be protected. Comparatively, exposure to the dark clouds upsurges the odds of encountering the insecurity that would emerge in the form of rain.
Dust - “The Soldier”
The speaker requests, “If I should die, think only this of me:/That there’s some corner of a foreign field/That is for ever England. There shall be/ In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;/A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware.” The dust is a religious emblem of transience whereby humans who were moulded from dust, return to it once they die eventually.
Death - “Peace”
In “Peace”, Brooke writes, “And the worst friend and enemy is but Death.” Ordinarily, acrimony and comradeship are divergent and mutually exclusive. However, death could be regarded as an acquaintance or a foe contingent on peculiar situations. Brooke’s portrayal of death depicts the intricacy of mortality whereby some people would opt for death because it would extricate them from the anguish in life, whereas others would regard death as an adversary that filches treasured individuals.
Fragment - “Fragment”
Fragments typify absorbing perishability. Brooke elucidates, “Perishing things and strange ghosts—soon to die.” Brooke believes that all things are transient;hence, they expire once their expedient lives are terminated.
