Wherefore feed, and clothe, and save,
“From the cradle to the grave,
Those ungrateful drones who would
Drain your sweat – nay, drink your blood?”
This kind of bee doesn’t have a sting so this could mean that if the ordinary people in England stay united, the powerful tyrants can’t harm them (like bees that fly around, disturbing, but without a sting to harm anyone).
In “Caged Bird”, Maya Angelou uses a metaphor of a bird inside a cage. That is the main metaphor, because the whole poem is a metaphor itself. A metaphor of slavery, in which the bird represents a slave who is isolated from the things he likes and needs. The cage in which the bird is kept in, represents the cell in which the slave is captive.
But there are other metaphors related to these themes in the same poem:
“Fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn.”
This worms could represent freedom, happiness, family, love… anything a slave (in this case a bird) would like to have with him.
Both poems have a special use of words that is connected to their main theme. For example, in “Song to the Men of England” the tone changes between stanzas V and VI:
“The seed ye sow, another reaps;
The wealth ye find, another keeps;
The robes ye weave, another wears;
The arms ye forge, another bears.”
In this stanza, the persona of the poem is telling the people to realise they are being constantly abused by the tyrants. But in stanza VI, the use of words and tone change to imperative.
“Sow seed, - but let no tyrant reap;
Find wealth, - let no impostor heap;
Weave robes, - let not the idle wear;
Forge arms, - in your defence to bear.”
Here the persona tells the English people what to do instead of letting the tyrants abuse them. He guides the people to freedom by saying this, and he calls the rulers “tyrants”, “impostors” and “idlers” to show the people that he is not afraid of them and to make them understand those are the things they really are.
We can see that stanzas V and VI have a similar structure and it could be said that it is the refrain of the poem.
“Caged Bird” also has a refrain that takes place in stanza 3 and on the last one. The only difference with the refrain in “Song to the Men of England” is that it uses the exact same words in both stanzas, without changing its tone.
Speaking about tone and use of words, there is something interesting in the refrain, which is that the last line doesn’t rhyme. This gives a sensation to the reader as if something was missing there (the rhyme or, as a another metaphor, the happiness of the slave). Another interesting point of this poem, is that is written in the present tense, this suggests that slavery is still happening nowadays, in the present.
Both poems have a similar meaning: slavery, poverty… and both want to make the reader conscious of these problems in life. Even though both poems have been written in the past, they talk about problems which can be still found in our lives.
Andreu Llopis García
Year 10