Poem help: After the burial by James Russel lowe. Need to find how it mirrors his feelings using metaphor/ etc

Question

Also how does tone in the poem mirror his daughter's death:

Yes, faith is a goodly anchor;
When skies are sweet as a psalm,
At the bows it lolls so stalwart,
In its bluff, broad-shouldered calm.

And when over breakers to leeward
The tattered surges are hurled,
It may keep our head to the tempest,
With its grip on the base of the world.

But, after the shipwreck, tell me
What help in its iron thews,
Still true to the broken hawser,
Deep down among sea-weed and ooze?

In the breaking gulfs of sorrow,
When the helpless feet stretch out
And find in the deeps of darkness
No footing so solid as doubt,

Then better one spar of Memory
One broken plank of the Past,
That our human heart may cling to,
Though hopeless of shore at last!

To the spirit its splendid conjectures,
To the flesh its sw

http://www.poems-and-quotes.com/discussion/topic_club.html?topic_id=73392 link to whole poem

Answer 1

Wow. Great poem. Look to lines that have feeling words in them. Like, "In the breaking gulfs of sorrow". The qualities of the image adds qualities to his feeling. Breaking gulfs= a gulf is deep inlet. It is split off, it is divided, it is deep. How do the qualities of a "gulf" relate to his feeling of "sorrow"? His sorrow is deep, split off, and divides him. His heart is.... etc.

Good luck!

English Teacher