Favourite Poem

Very Early Spring by Katherine Mansfield

The fields are snowbound no longer;
There are little blue lakes and flags of tenderest green.
The snow has been caught up into the sky--
So many white clouds--
and the blue of the sky is cold.
Now the sun walks in the forest,
He touches the bows and stems with his golden fingers;
They shiver, and wake from slumber.
Over the barren branches he shakes his yellow curls.
Yet is the forest full of the sound of tears....
A wind dances over the fields.
Shrill and clear the sound of her waking laughter,
Yet the little blue lakes tremble
And the flags of tenderest green bend and quiver.



There are several ways in which figurative language is used in this poem.

Personification:
1."Now the sun waiks into the forest"
2."He touches the bows and stems with his golden fingers"
3."Over the barren branches he shakes his yellow curls"

These sentences from the poem are personifications of the Sun. It is most probably used to compare more closely how the Sun behaves and acts, and also to make the poem more lively.

4."They shiver, and wake from slumber"
5."A wind dances over the fields"
6."Shrill and clear the sound of her waking laughter"
7."Yet the little blue lakes tremble and the flags of tenderest green bend and quiver"

These are several more instances where personification is used in the poem. It gives the poem a more lively feature to it as the reader is able further visualise what is happening in the story. It gives the unmoving objects like the grass and the trees a character and it is more life-like.

What I like about the poem:
The poem, in my opinion, is a very interesting poem. The poet uses a lot of personification in the poem and hence, gives it a very lively feature to it. Such excellent use of personification gives the poem a very lively and realistic appearence where the reader is able to visualise what is really happening in the poem. By changing the actions of nature into the actions of a certain "person" (for example, changing the rippling of the lakes into the trembling of the lakes), the poet has given each of the unmoving objects the qualities of a person, and hence, changed the view of what we think of those unmoving objects. How the poet uses personification to more closely how the Sun behaves is also rather amazing.