(5) Tree Line
This poem isn't really all that difficult, but it does take some effort to scale. On the surface, its subject matter is simple: it's a poem about an unhappy bird. Nothing to it, right? Well, not so fast there—on a deeper level, that bird isn't really a bird at all. It's a metaphor for the speaker and his own feelings of oppression. In other words the poem isn't as simple as it may seem at first glance. What's more, some of the vocabulary in this poem isn't so easy. Words like "opes," "chalice," and "fain" mean that we might have to break out our dictionary from time to time. Or, you know, you can just break us out—we got you covered.