The Cool Web Language and Communication Quotes

For the very beginning, Graves writes about how children are "dumb" to say how hot a day is. But this isn't because they're "dumb" as in stupid. It's because young, young children literally don't have the language skills to describe how hot it is. And based on what comes later in this poem, Graves here is implying that not being able to describe the hot day makes the experience way more intense for little kids. Every hot day is like the first hot day they've ever experienced.

In contrast to kids, we (meaning Graves and his readers) are able to talk about our experiences using "speech." And for some reason, having speech allows us to "chill the angry day." In other words, there's something about being able to talk that makes our experiences less intense. Maybe by talking about the hot day, we're able to think of the day more as a concept than as something that's literally burning our skin and making us all sweaty.

In this instance, Graves actually breaks down language to the level of spelling out individual words. But he does this for the sake of creating a parallel between spelling a word and casting a spell. In this case, he suggests that language has the power to make things seems less scary. For example, if we see a bunch of soldiers walking by, we can make the sight of them less scary by talking to someone about our feelings or by forcing ourselves to be rational about our experience instead of emotional.