Great Regulars: The third stanza reveals the speaker's best mood,

one that he no doubt wishes he could retain throughout the day. He declares that it is very "sweet" "to sit alone with the class"; he can perceive that his teaching is reaching them like a "stream of awakening." A transference of knowledge passes from the teacher to the students, "whose brightening souls it laves/For this little hour."

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Lawrence's "Best of School"

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The teacher/speaker metaphorically compares his recalcitrant students to "hounds" that pull on the leash trying to free themselves from his instruction. They do not want to learn, and he does not want to teach. They are dogs who "hate to hunt" the knowledge to which the teacher is trying to lead them.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Lawrence's Last Lesson of the Afternoon

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Here is the truth: "suddenly, the wind lashing my chest,/the infinitely dense night dropped into my bedroom." Now the reader understands that the speaker in not in fact languishing in this surreal nightmare but has simply had a "dense night dropped into his bedroom."

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Neruda's "Ars Poetica"

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The "rising/empty planet" brings joy. Then the speaker appends the following phrase that hangs unconnected: "great stars clear as vodka,/so uninhabited and so transparent." There is great adventure in visualizing a star that is as clear as a Russian beverage. The speaker is suggesting the joy that would be attainable once he and his companion "arrive there with the first telephone."

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Neruda's The Future is Space

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The speaker then avers that he can find no reason to reprimand the Muse, who knows no "hatred." With human beings, the speaker can read changes of mood in their physical face with its "frowns, and wrinkles." The human will display "moods" easily read by those who take note, but the Muse, being ethereal, can steal away as surreptitiously as she steals in.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Shakespeare Sonnet 93

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