Poems, Their Subject and Purpose

Bertolt Brecht, Philip Larkin and Edna St. Vincent Millay in their poems \"Send Me A Leaf\", \"The Trees\" and \"Autumn Day Break\" respectively,   all achieve different purposes through their poetry, whilst using the same subject matter. Bertolt Brecht describes a scene in which the protagonist asks someone known close to him to complete an arbitrary and hard task in exchange for very little. Philip Larkin on the other hand describes the connection between the constant cycles of life and death between leaves and human life. Lastly Edna St. Vincent Millay describes the cold beauty and starkness autumn season.







In the poem \"Send Me A Leaf\", Bertolt Brecht informs the responders of the effort friends go to for the smallest returns. He describes a scene in which the protagonist asks someone whom he knows closely to send him a leaf from a bush \"that grows at least one half hour/Away from your house\". He is showing the responders how this arbitrary and time consuming task can show the lengths to which a close friend will go to for very little in return. When the composer is detailing the task, he then demands for his friend to leave and be strong in addition to thanking the friend for the \"pretty leaf\", the small reward offered for the completion of the arbitrary task. He uses very simplistic words to get his point across through to any audience to achieve his purpose of teaching responders about the deeds that can be done for a friend.







In \"The Trees\", Philip Larkin describes the relationship between the coming and going of seasonal leaves to that of the life and death of human life. In it he describes \"The trees coming into leaf\" as \"a kind of grief\" detailing the sorrow he believe is felt by the organism each spring due to the death of the leafs each autumn. Even though he does describe the sorrow felt by both trees and humans, he does inform the responders about the forwardness of life, \"Last...