Unexpected

by

Smita Jirayingcharoen

Destiny is a magic which built a line that connect between two people even though

those two dont know each other before. Besides, no one cannot expect that it will happen

to them or not. It is called Love. Love is relationship between a person and a person or a

person and a thing. Moreover, love is a guide which is able to inspire many things in the

world including William Empson. His work also had inspired by many lovers. Aubade, It

is the pain, and missing dates are William Empson's poems which shown the same

structure to express the feeling of sadness to readers to understand love that is painful.

However, sometime love is not as beautiful as you think. Thus, William Empson used

refrain to emphasis the meaning of sadness, painful, and torment that influenced by lovers.

He used sadness to express feeling of couple that decided whether they want to

stay or to leave. Aubade was written in the Far East.(The poetry archive, n.d.) Hours

before dawn we were woken by the quake.(Empson, 2003) is the first line of this poem.

William Empson had used imagery and symbolism. He tried to build the image of an

earthquake which shown the determination of time of people, who were blind in every way.

Like, in an earthquake victim needed to make a decision for surviving with the biggest

pressure. Moreover, the first line of the second stanza And far too large for my feet to step

by.(Empson, 2003) was also used both imagery and symbolism. In addition, decision was

a large thing to pass over. It was the same as in the earthquake that the land will break

into a huge blank space so it was too far to cross over. It seemed the best thing to be up

and go.(Empson, 2003) is a sentence that William Empson used to refrain in every

stanza. It shown in 6 out of 10 stanza which was stated more than half of the poem.
Furthermore, The heart of standing is you cannot fly. (Empson, 2003) is also a sentence

that refrain in 5 out of 10 stanza. These two were the important part in this poem because

it emphasised the feeling and the thought that should be in mind while reading Aubade.

Thus, the accent was used to remind reader to think about the feeling in poem.

About painful, it was feeling that came from the kindness of lover. William Empson

wrote about the kindness which still remain after broke up in It is the pain to present love

and goodness. Whereas it was not only the bad side that can hurt and attack but also

good side. For the first stanza, he used Your chemic beauty burned my muscles

through.(Empson, 2015) to show the beauty of sweetheart that always stick in readers

mind. This statement shown that William Empson used imagery to build the atmosphere.

Moreover, in most of the stanza in this poem, he wrote one good thing in each stanza.

However, all of goodness or kindness that were still in readers mind. It could not bring

anything back. As after normal decision, it was hard to forget everything in a short period

of time. So, William Empson told it through this line Poise of my hands reminded me of

yours.(Empson, 2015) This was a line that repeat over and over in this poem because it

can emphasis the tone of the poem very well. William Empson used it to end every

stanzas so this sentence had carried a solid meaning. However, the word poise which was

not clear because it made confusion of what action of the hand is it. Therefore, the word

yours was always retell in every stanzas to emphasis the movement of the other person.

Lastly, this poem had cleverly shown the feeling of painful.

For the torment, it is occurred from the attempt to forget. The word torment sounds

very strong, and it made someone never expect that love can highly destroy things.

However, William Empson would know it by using Missing dates to explain it. In this

poem, it stated that The waste remains, the waste remains and kills. (Empson, 2013) in
every ending line of every stanzas or called refrain. This line shown a very beautiful refrain

because it can gather the feeling in the poem together. Moreover, it also pull feeling by

bringing very deep feeling. From the start of each stanza William Empson used action of

people that tried to brainwash themselves by removing old things as stated in this poem

They bled an old dog dry yet the exchange rills (Empson, 2013) for give imagery to

reader before read the last line. This had shown the way to change old thing to be a new

thing, but it did not work. More than that it was a poison which it came and made thing

worse. As you can see it through this line Slowly the poison the whole blood stream

fills. (Empson, 2013) which this was a another refrain in this poem. The poison that

slowly flew into our blood vessel, people can imagine how torture it is. Lastly, the refrain

can give the feeling go torment through the word.

In conclusion, A refrain was a tool of William Empson to emphasis a definition of

sadness, painful, and torment. People may think that not the only refrain can make the

mood repeatedly but he is the one who use refrain. Moreover, it made his poem was very

noticeable and was very unique from the other.

References

PoemHunter.com (2003, January 3). Aubade-Poem by William Empson. Retrieved from

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/aubade-4/

PoemHunter.com ( 2015, February 9). It Is The Pain-Poem by William Empson. Retrieved

from http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/it-is-the-pain/

PoemHunter.com (2013, April 8). Missing dates-Poem by William Empson. Retrieved from

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/missing-dates/

The poetry archive. (n.d.). William Empson. Retrieved from

http://www.poetryarchive.org/poet/william-empson