Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem, “Arrow and the Song” is a lyric poem giving an inspiration to a relationship or a friendship between two or more people. It includes analogies, symbolism, vivid imagery, and repetition to help convey what he is trying to reach to the audience
The poem is made up of three stanzas of quatrain, and it’s an end rhyme consists of aabb ccdd throughout the poem. Its lyrical type of poem, expresses his emotions about the arrow and the song. Longfellow represents the “arrow” a friendship, because like “arrow” it will last forever even though there are difficult problems both have to face. In the first stanza, “It fell to earth, I knew not where” this symbolizes the start of a conflict between two people. He is trying to reach it, but missed that chance, and now it’s gone.
In the second stanza, Longfellow represents memories like a song or his feelings that troubled him. But the first stanza and the second stanza both have in similarities, as one can refer as a repetition , “I shot an arrow” (1), “I breathed a song” (5), “It fell to earth I knew not where”, and “For..”, leaves me believe that both the arrow and the song both symbolizes the love and feelings. Another symbolism can be found in the last stanza the “oak”, it symbolize a strong, solid image to present a person’s soul. Even though he had lost the arrow for some time, he found it still “unbroke”. Just like in a friendship it cannot be broken down and pull apart no matter what how hard the situation. They are always being there and for that to keep it they need to treasure it.
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