Great Regulars: The speaker then says, "You know

you are a fool/for having come this far." This assertion indicates that the ocean-swimmer has swum out too far, which becomes a symbol for other foolhardy endeavors the person might choose, for example, mountain climbing, auto-racing, or even travelling to foreign nations where one might encounter irreconcilable customs.

The lines, "You know you could never/swim fast enough," works for both parts of the metaphor. If a sea creature is coming after the ocean-swimmer, he might not be able to outpace it, and in life, if one bite's off more than one can chew, one might find it difficult to swallow.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Connelly's The Story

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The highly effective strategy of this poem is the use of the dog's conversation to represent the man's baser instincts and physical body. The man remains silent, never speaking, but his thoughts are revealed by the speaker of the poem and the dog. While the dog wants to "get crazy drunk," the man "is struck/by the oppressiveness of his past."

The man's "memories" have become as settled in his mind as he is settled in a neighborhood with a wife and a dog, and he thinks he can see "faces/caught up among the dark places in the trees." While the man is musing about solidified memories, the dog animalistically interjects, "Let's pick up some girls and just/rip off their clothes. Let's dig holes everywhere."

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Dobyns' How to Like It

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He then conjectures that if his eyes are seeing correctly, then his discernment is gone, leaving him unable to distinguish right from wrong, error from accuracy, moral from immoral. In sonnet 141, he blames his lack of discrimination on his "heart," while in sonnet 148, he simply condemns his ability to think clearly.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Shakespeare Sonnet 148

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The speaker has repeatedly groaned and complained that he treats the woman better than he treats himself. He swallows his pride and gives over his own thoughts and feelings to a woman who snubs him and abuses him and then has the audacity to insist that he does not really love her.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Shakespeare Sonnet 149

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While the reader of this poem cannot know if [William Carlos] Williams intended to elicit the mystique of the Marxian class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, that is exactly what happens when the reader encounters the term "proletarian."

As a member of the "bourgeoisie," Williams offers what he thinks to be a sympathetic look at the young woman's plight.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: William's Proletarian Portrait

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In Paramahansa Yogananda's "The Royal Way," from Songs of the Soul, the great yogi speaks from the point of view of an unrealized devotee who says, "I walk and wonder/In truth or blunder," and "Conundrum enclosed, bewildered am I--/As baffling mazes do they lie." He speaks as one of befuddled humanity who finds the contradictions or pairs of opposites of the world confusing.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Yogananda's The Royal Way

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