Great Regulars: Then the speaker becomes fully aware

that the students are not only listening to his poems, but they are also reacting to them. They are no longer "frozen fish"; they are "fish in an aquarium." At this point, he understands that "though I had/tried to drown them/with my words/that they had only opened up/like gills for them/and let me in."

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: D. C. Berry's Fishy Metaphor

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Then the speaker makes a disheartening pronouncement, immediately followed by an uplifting one. It is quite possible that the soul will fail in its heavenly pursuit; unity with God might remain "ungained," because of "a Life's low Venture," or following an unwholesome path through life.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Dickinson's 'Each Life Converges'

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The final stanza celebrates the young soldiers and glorifies further their mission with an extended comparison to "the stars": "As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,/Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;/As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,/To the end, to the end, they remain."

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Laurence Binyon's 'For the Fallen'

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