The Force That through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower Man and the Natural World Quotes

The force is affecting the speaker just as it is affecting the natural elements like the flower and the trees. The force drives the flower, and the force drives the speaker's "green age." The force destroys the trees' roots, and the force destroys the speaker. Thomas alternates the natural and the human imagery so we can really see the similarities between the two. Thanks, Dylan.

As before, the speaker and the flower are affected in exactly the same way by that "wintry fever." The rose is "crooked," and the speaker is "bent." Humanity and nature are totally in the same boat.

There's some subtle personification at work here, giving some human characteristics to the natural world. The speaker is unable to "tell" the rose that they are affected by the same "wintry fever." This implies that the rose can hear. Giving human qualities to the flower reinforces the interconnectedness between the human and the natural realms.

This section really demonstrates the interconnection between the natural and the human realms clearly and in a really interesting way (at least we think so).

This time, the speaker takes on some nature qualities. The juxtaposition of the stream imagery with the blood imagery leads us to imagine the speaker's veins as streams. The earth is covered with rivers and streams essential for life, and the speaker's body is full of arteries and vessels carrying blood, the essence of vitality and life.

If that wasn't enough, the natural world is personified again, taking on human characteristics: the stream has a mouth. Thomas connects that "mouthing stream" with the speaker's mouth in line 9: "And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins." By using the verb "mouth" rather than "tell" or "say," the sense of interconnectedness is heightened even more.