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I dreamt I saw an eye, a pretty eye
In your hands
Glittering, wet and sikening
Like a dull onyx set in a crown of thorns
I did not know you were dead
When you dropped it in my lap

What horrors of human sacrifice
Have you seen, executioner?
What agonies of tortured men
Grim Executioner
Who sat through nights and nights of pain
Tongue-tied by the wicked sappor
Gazing at you with hot imploring eyes?

Those white lilies tossed their little heads then
In the moon-steeped ponds;
There was bouncing gaiety in the crisp chirping of the cricket in the undergrowth
And as the surf-boats splintered the waves
I saw the rainbow in your eyes
And in the flash of your teeth
As each crystal shone,

I saw sitting hand in hand with melancholy
A little sunny child
Playing at the marbles with husks of fallen stars:
Horrors were your flowers then;
The blood-bright bougainvilleas,
They delighted you.

Why do you weep
And offer me this little gift
Of a dull onyx set in a crown of thorns?


Poem Analysis

This is a nightmare poem. And yet we are not allowed to escape without feeling by dismissing it as a dream. The poet uses elements that are realistic enough to enforce our reactions. Like a dream, the poem shifts in time and point of emphasis, from the gory picture of the abstracted eye (lines 1-6), to contemplation of the horror that is part of the experience of the executioner (lines 7-10)

Then we are taken back to the time of childhood where the beauty, liveliness and innocence of the surroundings (line 12-16) are contrasted with the disposition and not-so-innocent pastimes which formed the character of the executioner.

Finally, we are brought back to the present, to the gory dismembered eye and the implied rejection of the executioner's bloody peace-offering.

This is the way I’d like to go,

If you must know.

I would like to go while still young,

While the dew is wet on the grass;

To perish in a great air crash,

With a silver ‘plane burning bright

Like a flashing star in the night;

While the huge wreckage all ablaze,
Solemn sky landscape

Shines brightly for my last embrace

I’d like to see the flames consume

Each nerve and bone and hair and nail,

Till of dust naught but ash remains.

Or as stone, swiftly sink unseen.

But if I should hear someone wail,

Because dust has gone back to dust,

Mad with fury, I shall return

To smite the poor wretch on the head.

So, let me go when I am young,

And the dew is still on the fern,

With a silver ‘plane burning bright,

Like a flashing star in the night.


Mother, do not grieve when I’m gone!

This is my wish, I’d have it so.

This mere burden of flesh was I,

Whom you loved and tended dearly

But you, my love, where’er you be,

Remember these warm lips of mine

That poured their youthful passion out,

These wide eyes that mirrored my soul

And beheld wonders in your eyes;

This mind that godlike stood alone,

The head that lay in your gentle lap,

The very hand that held this pen,

The heart that daring reached the heights,

The all of me that gave you joy,

Cleansed now of all impurities

By the red all-devouring flames,

Will though dust, remain, believe me,

Part of th’eternal Mind of God.


Poem Analysis

R. E. G. Armattoe was born in 1913 at Denu in Gold Coast, now Ghana. When he was 13 his father sent him to Europe to complete his studies. He became a medical doctor and worked in Northern Ireland for ten years.
He returned to then Gold Coast and saw his parents so old, and had had repeated strokes, that turned them into vegetables. He wept inconsolably at his parents pathetic conditions, that he prayed for them to die so as to end their sufferings and misery. That was when he wrote the poem above – “The Way I would Like To Die”, and prayed to die young. So as to spare him the agony of getting old, and suffering some infirmities.

Line 4   while the dew is wet on the grass   the dew is wet on the grass in the morning-hence the image here recalls another metaphorical phrase, the morning of life, when one is young.

Line 31 this mind that godlike stood alone  Armattoe refers to himself, perhaps to his lone struggle against what he considered a political ineptitude and ignorance.

Armattoe died young indeed, though not in a plane crash.


There is a subtle change of mood in this poem. Where does it occur?

I met an old woman
Talking by herself
Down a lonely road.
Talking to herself,
Laughing all the time,
African old woman

Talking to herself
Down a country road.
Child, you cannot know
Why folks talk alone.
If the road be long
And travellers none,
A man talks to himself
If showers of sorrows
Fall down like arrows
The lone wayfarer
May talk by himself.
So an old woman
On lone country roads,
Laughing all the time,
May babble to herself
To keep the tears away.
Woman, you are sad!
'Tis the same with me

Poem Analysis

This is a sad poem, expressing a pathetic sense of loneliness. The poet begins the poem by introducing himself in the first person and goes on to tell a story about an experience he has had. It seems to be an experience of little importance, but the fact the poet is telling the story obviously means it has a great effect on him.

He tells us of an old woman he met on the road. He doesn't know her. He simply hears her talk. The many repetitions of words and phrases such as ''talking to herself','' ''road'' emphasises how lonely she is.

Line 8-11    The poet turns his attention to us and addresses us as ''child''. This gives us the impression that the poet is of age and apparently has authority to speak on matters of life. He simply observes that no one really knows why a person will talk to himself on a long road.
 He explains that loneliness and sorrow are the reason why a man would talk alone and same reasons applies to “an old woman ''To keep the tears away.”  In the last line, he ironically comforts himself with the knowledge that he is not alone in his loneliness.

The poet reveals that loneliness is as a result of peoples' coping mechanism. In their bid to cope with sadness, they create loneliness, thus creating more sadness.  Therefore, through his own experience and through his observations of others, the poet is able to reveal a life truth to his readers, that loneliness is not a solution to sadness.

In those days 
When civilization kicked us in the face
When holy water slapped our cringing brows
The vultures built in the shadow of their talons
The bloodstained monument of tutelage.

In those days
There was painful laughter on the metallic hell of the 
roads
And the monotonous rhythm of the paternoster
African vulture

Drowned the howling on the plantations.
O the bitter memories of extorted kisses
Of promises broken at the point of a gun
Of foreigners who did not seem human
Who knew all the books but did not know love.
But we whose hands fertilize the womb of the earth 
In spite of your songs of pride
In spite of the desolate villages of torn Africa
Hope was preserved in us as in a fortress
And from the mines of Swaziland to the factories of 
Europe
Spring will be reborn under our bright steps.

Poem Analysis

Line 5  tutelage  state of being under the guardianship or teaching of another, referring here to the colonial state.

Line 8 paternoster  the prayer Our Father

Line 10  extorted   forced, referring to the liberties the slave-owners and colonial masters took with the women under them.

Line 19 Spring   is the season in cold countries when the snows of winter begin to disappear, the sun emerges with more force and things begin to grow anew. It is symbolic of new life, of rebirth.


What are the conditions in the poem that made the poet angry?
What are the differences he draws between the colonisers and the Africans, and the kind of hope he has for the future?
Do you share the poet's feelings?

She did not call me by name
Not by the name my mother gave me
She called me by another name
A word
I have not heard it before
Yet I knew it was me.
Will you come under the cashew tree beside the cemetery?
Cashew tree


I know no cashew tree beside the cemetery
No, I don't.
Yet I will go.
Perhaps a revelation awaits me
Have they discovered the coloured cowrie?
Or the specific herbs that will conjure
They perhaps have found the lost wanderer
I went after her.
She stood still beneath the cashew
And spoke not a word.


Poem Analysis


This lyrical poem gives a feeling of mystery. It describes the type of event that would take place in a dream. It is as if the poet is being lured away; he knows this and yet he goes. Who is she? Could this be a love poem?
These lines gives details that take the poem beyond love poetry.

coloured cowrie  object of divination
the lost wanderer  this expression is often the symbol for somebody who travels, by himself, in search of knowledge

So could she be the Muse of Poetry? This would explain the references to the kinds of magic or mystic experience and knowledge that the poet often attributes to the poetry.

Describe the mood of the poem, pointing out the details that lead to your interpretation.
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