Practive question

After a hundred years

Nobody knows the place,--

Agony, that enacted there,

Motionless as peace.

Weeds triumphant ranged,

Strangers strolled and spelled

At the lone orthography

Of the elder dead.

Winds of summer fields

Recollect the way,--

Instinct picking up the key

Dropped by memory.

The poem “ After a Hundred years” has three stanzas, three sentences, and 12 lines. I think the tone of the poem is sorrowful, because of the words poet use like agony, dead, and weeds. It is a poem about things that happened before and how it changed after a hundred years. I like the way how the poet using personification to describe an abstract thing. For example, the line that said “Dropped by memory” gives me a feeling that memory is a person who is forgetful, because as time past he gradually disappeared. Nonetheless, the tone of the last stanza is a little bit erent than the others; it talk about the present days and it is the part which give readers an ambiguous feeling. Therefore, I think there are several ways to understand the poem from different perspectives.  

First, I think the poem can be understand as how people treated things that happened before. As years past, people start to forget things happened before. Although theses may be painful and full of sadness to them, but time is like an eraser which expunge the feeling. People forget and move on to accept their new lives. However, the old memories they had would covered with grass which can be seen as things happened afterwards which driven people’s attention and let them forget about the old memories. New memories come and occur when the elder are dying lonely which is being forget. The winds of summer field can be interpreted as related things that trigger the old memories people had and let them realize what has happened in the past.

Second, I think the poem can be understand as the repetition of the history. For example, the war has happened before in this place which brought sorrow to people. However, as the time past weeds covered the ruins of war and the place is taken by the new people who know nothing about the war that happened before while the elders who know about the war are dying lonely. As the time goes on, people all forget the war happened before which brings them tons of sorrow, and they formed another war again. I think that’s why history is an important subject for people to learn and remember, so people won’t repeat their mistakes again and again.

Lastly, this poem remind me of an ancient Chinese poem I had read a long time before, which is talking about the spirit people has and metaphor it as the grass. It says that although the grass can be burned, but when the wind of spring blow by it will grow again. In that case, this poem can also be understand as people can hardly forget something. Although they may gradually desalt the feeling of it. But when at a specific time or place, such as revisit the old place the memories will be trigger.

To sum up, I think this poem can be understand from many different perspectives which is the question the poet leave to readers and want them to think about.