After Death

Explicate (using the Explication Worksheet in Course Documents) "After Death," focusing mainly on the speaker, situation and mood.

There is no reference to the gender of the speaker, but I’ll say she as the poet is a she and other poems are written from a feminine perspective. Though of course that doesn’t mean this is the poet. The speaker is in bed, dead or asleep. I’d venture to say that unless the use of sleep is a metaphor for death, “He leaned over me, thinking that I slept//And could not hear him…” because throughout the poem it seems the speaker is dead. The title of the poem is even “After Death” then there is the ending “He did not love me living; but once dead//He pitied me; and very sweet it is//To know he still is warm tho’ I am cold.” Cold, as in death. Still, this man, certainly someone dear to her though the relation is unclear, came to the speaker after her death. He leaned over her, spoke to her “Poor child, poor child” before he turned away and the speaker “knew he wept”. The speaker specifically mentioned that the man made no move to touch her dead body or to fully see it. This is understandable to me as the man is mourning and had obviously felt that he couldn’t show her his love in life. “He did not love me living”. The mood of the poem is sad, but bittersweet. In death the speaker knew that this man did care for them, though perhaps she could have doubted it in life.