the idea continues in the next stanza with "Till"--I shall continue drinking until the highest order of angels remove their "snowy Hats," and saints hurry to the windows to watch me "Leaning against the--Sun--"; and these events will never take place: seraphs do not wear hats, and saints would hardly be interested in peering through windows to observe a "little tippler."The poem, in the Johnson version, ends with a dash--indicating further that the speaker never has to stop her drinking, as those drinking the literal alcohol must.
from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Dickinson’s Spiritual Intoxication
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Snow is Literal not Metaphorical
The carpe diem reading results from interpreting "snow" in the last line to be a metaphor for the cherry blossoms. And while that interpretation is not impossible, the poem’s achievement is greater if "snow" is taken literally.
from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Housman’s 'Loveliest of trees'
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The beauty of all the things portrayed in the octave pale in comparison to the beauty evoked by the "soul" to whom she is dedicating his sonnet, "To E." (Presumably, her husband Ernst Filsinger.)
The beautiful things described in the octave are natural phenomena, the "black silences" of night," the "shower of sunlight over Italy," and "water singing on the rocks," and the English lark, but there is also man-made beauty, the city of Ravello and the music of Bach.
from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Sara Teasdale’s ‘To E.’
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In the second quatrain, the speaker calls time "never-resting" and compares summer to winter. But he modifies winter with the adjective "hideous." And winter is hideous because the sap in the trees can no longer flow smoothly, being "check’d with frost." He is metaphorically comparing the sap in trees in winter, when the cold prevents it from flowing smoothly, to the young man’s blood in old age.
from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Shakespeare Sonnet 5
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In the second quatrain, the speaker shifts to a finance metaphor, by claiming that fulfilling his duty of producing offspring is a legitimate use of his beauty; by lending his beauty and fair qualities to his offspring, he makes the cosmos happy, as people who are willing to repay their loans are satisfied by complying with the regulations for borrowing.
from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Shakespeare Sonnet 6
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The speaker in Sonnet 7 "Lo! in the orient when the gracious light" begins his continuing entreaty of the young man to father a child by directing the young man to think about the passage of the sun through the day.
from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Shakespeare Sonnet 7
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But his emphasis is on the fact that the people as well as the whole atmosphere have changed, even the "drunken, vainglorious lout," whom he disdained has changed. And once again, in stanza three, he repeats, "A terrible beauty is born."
Stanzas four and five focus on a philosophical musing about how the heart becomes hard whether one is steadfastly dedicated to a cause or simply sacrificed too long.
from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Yeats’ 'Easter, 1916'
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