Poetry Analysis:Dylan Thomas' The Force that Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower

Dylan Thomas' "The Force that Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower" deals with the manifestation of the elemental force of Nature that propels, permeates and prunes any form of life in Nature. The lyrical poem was included in Frosts' first volume of poems entitled 18 Poems. The body(through its functions) is portrayed as a miniscule metaphor of the larger Nature that embodies this elemental force. It illustrates universal phenomenon through the particular instance of Man, who is a concrete manifestation of the same. Raymond Stephens states: "The poem generates the power of that encounter when the internal man's emotions find its equivalent forms in the external world of nature. The two mingle in sympathetic identification."The poem consists of 22 lines with four stanzas of five lines each, and a coda to round it off.

The poet states that this fundamental force drives the flower, a eloquent emblem of fruition. It impels his 'green age' or his youth. 'Green' is also the symbol of prosperity and fertility. However, this creative and progressive force is also destructive. It "blasts the root" or the very foundation. It uproots the trees when they come of age. The poet is 'dumb' at this inexplicable phenomenon of nature. It is this 'crooked rose" or the roseate hue of youth that foregrounds and contrasts the ageing brought about by the wintry age. The wintry age being an agent of the same force.

The force that drives the water through the rocks is the same that circulates the red blood within the human body. In opposition to this positive role, the same force also plays a negative force. Just as the streams are parched and dried up, it also impedes the circulation of blood by freezing the same. The poet is baffled and unnerved at this prospect of the underlying phenomenon.

The duality of the elementary force is further exemplified as it expresses itself through the whirlpool and quicksand. It propels the sail of the poet's sinking ship (death) and thrusts the blowing wind. The speaker finds no words to tell the human sentenced to death to express that his is also ultimately the same predicament; where human beings are made up of the same clay that the dead are to be buried in .The material that initiates life and ends life seems to be the same.

The poet points out that creation and destruction are the twin-sided aspects of Time. It nourishes and deprives. Just as the leech sucks from the source that it springs; the birth of a newborn baby causes its mother to lose blood on delivery. The mother loses, yet gains on giving birth. Giving life is not only the beginning of life; it is also a prelude to and a reason for Death.

He stands speechless as he comprehends that the worm that attempts to dig a hole in his sheet is the same one that decomposes the body at the grave. The worm is crooked as it is at work at the tomb of a lover. It therefore separates one from his beloved. The poets apprehends that though he is far from death, its manifestation is so near to him.