22.11.2010
Page.459
OFFERINGS by Hilary Tham

I came to you at sunrise,
With silvery dew on sleeping lotus
Sparkling in my gay hands;
You put my flowers in the sun.

I danced to you at midday,
With bright raintree blooms
Flaming in my ardent arms;
You dropped my blossoms in the pond.

Dew= rugiada
pond= pozzanghera
to bloom= fiorire
to drop= lasciar cadere
sparkling= frizzante

alliteration assonance semantic fields: nature feelings light

The title immediately gives the idea of love not accepted, of pessimistic sacrifice. In the two stanzas there are four lines, lines with three or four stresses, in a iambic scheme.
In the stanzas there is the repetition of the same pattern, not only structural but also semantic. In the first line the speaker does something in two moments of the day ( I came to you at sunrise, I danced to you at midday,) in the second line he or she offers flowers (With silvery dew on sleeping lotus, With bright raintree blooms); in the third line the intimate love feeling which grows as much as the sparkling of the flowers (Sparkling in my gay hands; Flaming in my ardent arms;), in the last line importance is given to the reaction of the loved person, who seems to accept the flowers in the first stanzas, but at the end he throws them away.
The semantic field is nature, and most of the words are derived from flowers. The semantic field of love is also in the poem.
The reinforcement of concepts increases as the day turns on, for example at sunrise the silvery dew sparkling in my gay hands becomes bright raintree blooms flaming in my ardent arms at midday.