Song for the Last Act BY LOUISE BOGAN

Song for the Last Act




Now that I have your face by heart, I look               

This is not a matter of simply memorizing someone’s features, but truly knowing them, understanding their expressions, moods, and tendencies. 

Less at its features than its darkening frame

The world that “frame[s]” her listener is darkening. This ties into the title of the poem, adding a feeling of temporality to the setting. These lines are spoken as if they are some kind of conclusion. They could be a final statement ending or closing out a particular period of time. 

Where quince and melon, yellow as young flame,        visual imagery, simile
                  olfactory too
Lie with quilled dahlias and the shepherd’s crook.

Beyond, a garden. There, in insolent ease

The lead and marble figures watch the show     tactile

Of yet another summer loath to go                   personification: allusion to the end of things

Although the scythes hang in the apple trees.

Now that I have your face by heart, I look.   kinaesthetic

Now that I have your voice by heart, I read

In the black chords upon a dulling page

Music that is not meant for music’s cage,

This line refers to music, particularly music notation, which is fading. It is as if she has caught it just in time to know what the world will soon lose. She speaks of the music as something which is not meant for music’s cage. It has become mixed with “words that shake and bleed.” This description is easier to understand when applied to love. Love, is not meant to be in a cage. Even if that cage was made with love in mind

Whose emblems mix with words that shake and bleed.

The staves are shuttled over with a stark

Unprinted silence. In a double dream

I must spell out the storm, the running stream.

The beat’s too swift. The notes shift in the dark.

she is attempting to come to terms with a larger world. She wants to increase her connection with the elements she has been ignoring, in favour of this person for so long. The speaker is having a hard time understanding what she is seeing and must take the time to “spell out” the landscape. Everything seems to be “shift[ing]” making any clear view impossible.

Now that I have your voice by heart, I read.       repetition: auditory/words are read


Now that I have your heart by heart, I see

This time though she has memorized this person’s “voice by heart.” She knows them well enough that she can look away and give her attention to something else. The speaker is beginning to see other elements of life aside from this one person. They were the overwhelming focus of her time. 

The wharves with their great ships and architraves;

The rigging and the cargo and the slaves

On a strange beach under a broken sky.       the world is still not quite in the right order. 

O not departure, but a voyage done!

The ships the speaker sees sitting in the harbour are not preparing for a voyage. Their journey is done. Here is another instance of an ending, corresponding with those mentioned previously. While there is not one clear part of the speaker’s life coming to an end one, one certainly understands that things are changing. 

The bales stand on the stone; the anchor weeps

Its red rust downward, and the long vine creeps

Beside the salt herb, in the lengthening sun.

Now that I have your heart by heart, I see.           turning point: no reason to continue toxicity

The poem concludes with a final use of the refrain. This time though it is the listener’s heart she has memorized. This line can be taken in two different ways. First, that they are so close she knows his heart like her own and/or that she now sees him as he really is. It is likely a combination of these two things that makes her long for a change. 

What is your reaction to the poem?

a) why so?

-diction: 

denotation:

connotation:

The poem uses a stale and almost archaic choice of words that becomes more unstable as the poem progresses, as we can see that the language used in the first stanza in contrast to the second where "dulling," "staves," "darkening," "architraves" etc descends into a more ominous tone, providing the progression of the poem with the use of more vivid figurative language. 

 

Blurred lines between literal and figurative language,  

Progression of the poem uses vivid visual imagery that dampens the reader with a sense of melancholy under its initial bright tones, where 'summer' contrasts to the harshness of 'loathes', and 'apples' lie in contrast to the bladed steel of 'scythes'. 
"black chords, dulling pages, shake and bleed, and the anchor weeps under a broken sky."  

The stanzas are followed by one line refrains that are altered to correspond with different elements of the speaker’s emotional state. Beginning: evaluates face value "by heart" going in to voice, and then the heart of the situation r/rotten.

-tone: melancholy, muted, passive, 

-imagery: visual, kinaesthetic, auditory:music, tactile

-sound: alliteration: consonance, assonance, 

-form: dramatic mono 

What is your understanding of the poem?

a) What is it about?

Louise Bogan’s poem, “Song for the Last Act,” discussed in this post, grew out of a childhood where love was only “real” when mixed with rage, guilt, and betrayal. This poem testifies to her courage in facing her past, breaking free from her self-destructive role of helpless, abused child.*

The speaker in “Song for the Last Act,” caught in a bad romance, has long been taken in by appearances but has finally seen her lover’s true face, heard her lover’s real voice, and truly knows her lover’s heart.
works as a mental and emotional stopping point for the speaker in this relationship. She is finally looking beyond her partner to everything fading and changing. The season of summer, a pattern of music, and a ship’s voyage all mark the end of something.

-how much of your understanding is influenced by your position?

NONE> VERY AMBIGUOUS, no clear theme given. idK.