Speaker or Narrator, and Point of View
The speaker is unnamed and lacks any signifying description of age or gender. All that is known is that the speaker has lost someone they cared about deeply and is returning to the last place they were together.
Form and Meter
No particular form, but the verse is formally structured with three stanzas each composed of five lines. It is written in iambic pentameter with occasional slight diversions.
Metaphors and Similes
"For under all the gentleness there came / An earthquake tremor" in which the quake is a metaphor for waves of overpowering emotions.
Alliteration and Assonance
"Surely in these / Pleasures" creates an alliterative quality from the repetition of the "s" sounds which link the words together to underline the speaker's confidence.
Irony
"It was because the place was just the same / That made your absence seem a savage force." These opening lines of the final stanza create irony from how the present-day sadness originates from happy memories of the past.
Genre
Elegy/Confessional Poetry
Setting
The poem is importantly situated in the very last place that the speaker met with someone they have lost. While it is clearly a garden area with a fountain, there is no specific mention of place or time.
Tone
Melancholy and mournful.
Protagonist and Antagonist
Protagonist: the speaker. Antagonist: the unidentified companion who is no longer part of the speaker's life.
Major Conflict
The conflict at the center of the poem arises from the juxtaposition between the happy memories of past visits to the setting and the sadness and sense of loss experienced upon the return.
Climax
The "earthquake tremor" which stimulates the powerful emotions in the speaker upon thinking the name of whoever the speaker met with last in this garden.
Foreshadowing
The opening line "I visited the place where we last met" instantly identifies the melancholic situation with the revelation that the speaker is visiting the place where they last saw someone they care about.
Understatement
"The place where last we met" is an understated way of implying that the other person has either died or chose to end the relationship.
Allusions
n/a
Metonymy and Synecdoche
"Your name" is a synecdoche symbolizing the entirety of the person that has been lost.
Personification
"Thoughtless birds" provides an emotional attribute to the animals suggesting they don't care about the speaker's pain.
Hyperbole
The reference to "earthquake tremor" is a hyperbolic overstatement of the emotional impact upon the speaker at a certain moment.
Onomatopoeia
n/a
