Analysis of The elephant is slow to mate

Formal Pattern:

This poem is divided in six stanzas. Each of them is a quatrain. If we take a look at the metre we clearly see it varies -some verses have eight or ten syllables whereas the sorthest ones have just two or four. Sometimes it has half-rhyme -as in the first or the forth stanzas- and sometimes full rhyme -see the last two quatrains.

*Full rhyme (or perfect rhyme) occurs when the last stressed vowel and all following sounds of two or more words or phrases are identical.

*Half-rhyme (or near rhyme) occurs when either the last stressed vowel or all the following sounds of two or more phrases are identical, but not both.

By the way, do not mistake free verse for blank verse. Blank verse means that although the metre is regular, it has no rhyme. However, free verse is a kind of poetry that refrains from metre patterns, rhyme or any other musical pattern.

Interpretation:

This is a poem about nature, which deals with animals -elephants. If you look at the title, you see from the beginning that this poem it’s a paradoxe since one of the biggest animals, the elephant -often refearred to as beasts- is ironically slow to mate.

The clue of the poem is in the third stanza: without a word. The author is comparing animals with human beings. As you can see, D.H Lawrence uses some adjectives -shy, wise- to describe elephants, whereas they can only refer to human beings since animals haven’t got intelligence.

Animals can’t talk. They express their feelings and emotions with their bodies, by making noises… They have their own codes to communicate with other animals. Regarding to sex, animals and human beings are quite similar- we both can make love in a civillized way. This is what the author want us to realize, that animals and human beings aren’t that different.

The sublime -the power of nature- and the natural wisdom are other important topics in this poem.