“The secret of these hills was stone and cottages
Of that stone made,
And crumbling roads
That turned on sudden hidden villages.”
Not only is the secret nature of the countryside implied but also the idea of man being part of that natural world using natural materials for his home, in this case stone, and thereby not alienating himself from the natural world. But now things have changed as Spender tells us in the first two lines of the second stanza; “Now over these small hills they have built the concrete,
That trails black wire:” Snaith shares Spenders sentiment and
midway in the third line of his first stanza writes” The statement of their steel, Contradicts nature’s softer architecture.
Earth will not accept them as it accepts
A wall, a plough, a church so coloured of earth
It might be some experiment of the soil’s.”
To both poets the idea of man’s existence blending in with nature is important.
Both poets realise that change will be inevitable. Snaith’s opening line in his second stanza says; “Traditions are being trod down like flowers dropped by children symbolising the loss of tradition in future generations.
Spender also uses nature to symbolise the overturn of tradition when he says in the third stanza of his poem
“The valley with its gilt and evening look,
And the green chestnut, Of customary root,
Are mocked dry like the parched bed of a brook.”
Sniath also implies that the change will be swift and uses the image of a farm boy sowing seed by hand a tradition that goes back to the time of the ancient Greeks being out of step with the new rational future. Snaith writes in his second stanza ; “Already that farm boy striding and throwing seed, In the shoulder-hinged half circle Millet knew, looks grey with antiquity as his dead forebears, A half familiar figure out of the Georgics.”this was a reference taken from the Virgil, a classic
Greek poem.
The poets Snaith and Spender try to imagine the future in a very limited way, both using the word trek or trekking to refer to change or development. Snaith write about the pylons; “Yet are they outposts of the trekking future. Into the thatch-hung consciousness of hamlets, They blaze new thoughts, new habits.” Echoing this thought Spender writes in his fifth and final stanza; “This dwarfs our emerald country by its trek,
So tall with prophecy;” Clearly both poets believed that monumental change would take place although the emphasis of the message in Snaith’s poem is retrospective and the image of lost tradition and a disregard for the past is presented in his last stanza, through the image of the farm boy. Spender in contrast looks to the future by making references to city development resulting from available electricity and in his fourth stanza writes;
“But far above and far as sight endures,
Like whips of anger,
With lightning’s danger
There runs the quick perspective of the future.”
Snaith refers to electricity in its natural state as lightning but by revealing its nature to be dangerous you sense that he feels that its use is ominous.
Although the subject content of both poems is similar, the style and presentation differs in its construction although the language used is not vastly dissimilar. In Spender’s poem there are five stanzas of four lines, that present an ordered and regular construction. The last word of the first line and the last word of fourth and final line of each stanza either rhymes or ends in a similar sound i.e. “cottages” and “villages” in the first stanza,
“concrete” and “secret” in the second stanza, “endures” and “future” in the fourth stanza. In the third and fifth stanza the words actually rhyme i.e. “Look” and “brook”, “trek” and “neck”. This ordered construction neatly separates the individual thoughts expressed in each new stanza. Spender also uses alliteration and assonance with great effect, as seen in the last line of his first stanza; “That turned on sudden hidden villages.” He also repeats word to add emphasis as in the first line of the fourth stanza; “But far above and far as sight endures.” Smith in contrast organises his poem into two stanzas of irregular length, the first being much longer than the second. There is no rhyming sequence yet there is a lyrical feel to the words due to word repetition, alliteration and assonance, and a regular meter. This is clearly seen in lines 2-4 in the first stanza;
“One after one they lift their serious shapes
That ring with light. The statement of their steel
Contradicts nature’s softer architecture.
Earth will not accept them as it accepts”
Snaith uses the break between the first and second stanza to add emphasis to the meaning of his words, the last line of first stanza ends; “They blaze new thought, new habits.”and the first line of the second stanza simply has one word “Traditions” which is placed at the end position of the line so that the eye flows from the last line of the first stanza to the new stanza noticing the break and the boldness of the single word on the first line.
Snaith and Spender clearly express their views on the infiltration of pylons through the countryside but the theme of their poems may be taken into the wider context of the emerging modern world with all its technological advances pushing out the traditions of centuries and questioning the true impact of technology and the new morality that accompanies it.