Poem Help!

[deflux]

I've been assigned to analyze this poem. But the thing is that I have no idea what it means! I've analyzed it over and over but I just cant seem to understand what it means. It has all my friends and older friends baffled. Can anyone help me out?

Heres the Poem:

Lie Still, Sleep Becalmed by Dylan Thomas

Lie still, sleep becalmed, sufferer with the wound
In the throat, burning and turning. All night afloat
On the silent sea we have heard the sound
That came from the wound wrapped in the salt sheet.

Under the mile off moon we trembled listening
To the sea sound flowing like blood from the loud wound
And when the salt sheet broke in a storm of singing
The voices of all the drowned swam on the wind.

Open a pathway through the slow sad sail,
Throw wide to the wind the gates of the wandering boat
For my voyage to begin to the end of my wound,
We heard the sea sound sing, we saw the salt sheet tell.
Lie still, sleep becalmed, hide the mouth in the throat,
Or we shall obey, and ride with you through the drowned.

[ktd222]

What grade(s) are you all in?

-The poem itself is about how one dies. The speaker and his crew are all overboard, floating in the sea: “all night afloat/on the silent sea”. The speaker, which could be the captain, because of the commanding tone he has, is reassuring his mates to die quietly; because if these pains are heard by the rest of the crew, then surely that crew will assume and act the same when dying.
-The best comparison I can give is that if you have a stadium full of people, and something happens, the first person who panics will send a shockwave of panic through the crowd, until everyone panics.
-This poem revolves around sound, and its connotations. The sufferer being mentioned in the first stanza was said to have suffered a throat wound. But I think you can see this sufferer as symbolic since everyone is overboard, and death will come in the form of drowning. So in a way the speaker is telling his crew that they should take drowning as if it were a neck wound, and not spread the sounds of agony that can be heard by other crew members.
-You can discuss amongst yourselves the connection that Dylan makes between the sounds of agony, and how that is carried like wind moving the sails of a boat. Take a look at how drowning is compared to sailing a boat in the first few lines of stanza 3.
-You can also discuss how the tone of the speaker changes from command or reassurance, to taking orders, or “obeying,” in the last line.
-I’ll give you another interesting bit I found in the title. “Lie” can mean to lie, as one lay on a bed. Or “lie” can mean to lie, as one lies about a situation. So the speaker is stating that the drowning crew members lie about the pains of drowning, treating it like a quiet or calm sleep. What happens to the “sleep” if one treats dying as if it were agonizing?
-Lastly, there are a lot of “s” sound repeats. You can discuss how that connects with how pain can be carried like the wind carries sound.

If you have any questions just post it here and I’ll try to answer them.

[deflux]

wow thank you, that cleared many things up. but there was one thing that really bothered me: the salt sheet. what exactly is it because i am not really sure how literally to take this. does it represent the sea, an actual sheet as in a cloth, or something else?

[ktd222]

Under the mile off moon we trembled listening
To the sea sound flowing like blood from the loud wound
And when the salt sheet broke in a storm of singing
The voices of all the drowned swam on the wind.


but there was one thing that really bothered me: the salt sheet. what exactly is it because i am not really sure how literally to take this. does it represent the sea, an actual sheet as in a cloth, or something else?

Yes, I think you're correct to identify the salt sheet to the sea surface. And I think the salt sheet can also symbolize a throat. Can you feel the trepidation in the "we trembled listening/to the sea sound flowing like blood from the loud wound"? As if an expectation of some ghastly sound was about to burst out from the salt sheet; but instead, the speaker compares the sound that broke from the salt sheet as "a storm of singing/the voices of all the drowned swam on the wind," which doesn't contrast from the setting...as if what actually broke from the salt sheet was part of the setting itself.

[Nightshaper]

perhaps its just me but i would view the poem more as a captain morning the sinking of his ship appose to biding farewell to his crew. just the way the author had written it, its as though this is a similar to the titanic in the fact that the ship was struck at night and is slowly sinking. i few the first verse as a sort of anguish for the mishappening.

[ktd222]

perhaps its just me but i would view the poem more as a captain morning the sinking of his ship appose to biding farewell to his crew. just the way the author had written it, its as though this is a similar to the titanic in the fact that the ship was struck at night and is slowly sinking. i few the first verse as a sort of anguish for the mishappening.

No. I can see that too:)