Analysis of the Poem "To A Lost One" by Angela Manalang-Gloria

I.                    TITLE

                Readers might think that the meaning of the poem is directly communicated by the title itself. “To a Lost One” could be called a “dedicatory” or “memorial” poem which the author wrote for a loved one who had already perished or passed away. With this reason, readers may conclude that it involves an author speaking to a ghost as its point of view. But reading the whole poem, they will find out that the title can lead them to a wrong impression if they failed to read the entire literary piece. Its essence seemed to be the other way around.

II.                 DICTION

                Angela Manalang Gloria used “Filipinized” English which made the poem easy to decipher as her choice of words and phrases is the kind which everyone could relate. The author shares her experience to the readers as to how it feels to be left and haunted by a ghost of a person you love.

III.               TONE AND MOOD

                Without reading the entire poem, everyone would conclude that the author is the one directly speaking to a subject who has already passed away. But it’s ironic that the ghost is actually the one speaking to the one he had left. A kind of experience shared in this literary piece is the feeling of being haunted by the memory of your loved one, telling you not to forget him throughout your existence.

IV.               STRUCTURE

                The poem is composed of three quatrains, using the rhyme scheme abcb-defe-ghih in which the second and last line of the quatrain rhyme with each other. The author often uses the literary technique “enjambment” in which the sense of a line runs over the succeeding line.

e.g.       I shall haunt you, O my lost one, as the twilight

             haunts a grieving bamboo trail

                The poem has no strict meter and when read, its rhythm obviously conveys a melancholic and gloomy atmosphere.

V.                  IMAGERY & SYMBOLISM

                There are significant words used in the poem which carry its meaning.

Words	Denotation	Connotation
twilight	time after sunset	feeling of being haunted
dusk	time after the day and before night	darkness, loneliness, gloom
rain	shower from the sky	tears, crying, grief
champakas	flowers used in funeral	spirit of the dead

                

Bamboo Trail

Dusk

Angela Manalang-Gloria has drawn concrete pictures and images which set up the mood and atmosphere of the poem. “Twilight” and “dusk” suggest a time of the day which could be associated with darkness, gloom and death. The “bamboo trail” as a setting in a countryside reminds of a place perfect for solitude and given a description as “grieving”, it conveys a scene which is dark and eerie. “Wild champakas” as flowers used in funerals imply the loss and death of a loved one and its scent that haunt the ones they have left. “Melody of rain” connotes the sound of weeping or crying and literally, the sound of the falling rain which laments with your grief-stricken emotions.

VI.               IMAGINATIVE METAPHOR

I shall haunt you, O my lost one, as the twilight

Haunts a grieving bamboo trail,

•   The lines use simile as a figurative language. The way the ghost haunts the author is compared to a twilight which haunts a bamboo trail.
•  Personification is also used as the twilight haunts and the bamboo trail grieves.
•  Apostrophe is also applied to the calling of a “lost one”.

Dusk will peer into your

Window, tragic-eyed and still,

And unbidden startle you into remembrance

With its hand upon the sill.

• These lines again used personification. The tragic-eyed dusk will peer and startle you with its hand upon the sill of the window.

You shall not forget, for I am past forgetting.

• This is a paradox since the lines appear to be contradictory but it’s true in fact.

You shall not forget, for I am past forgetting

I shall come to you again

You shall not forget. Dusk will peer into your

Window, tragic-eyed and still,

• The poem also used repetition.

VII.             ANALYSIS BY STANZA

First Stanza

The point of view seems to be coming from the dead person rather than the one who has been left grieving. The emotions dominant in this stanza are grief and lamentation. The ghost feels so much lonely from the pain of being separated to his loved one and because of that, he continually “haunts” the woman through appearing in her strange dreams.

Second Stanza

The ghost tells the woman not to forget him and if ever she does, he will remind her through the light of stars in the night, scent of wild champakas and the melody of the falling rain. It is evident that the ghost definitely does not want to be forgotten by the one he loves.

Third Stanza

The ghost has a firm belief that the woman will not forget him. And he would not definitely let it happen because he would still do everything for the woman to remember him. It appears that the ghost could not forget the tragedy that happened.

VIII.          OVER-ALL ESSENCE OF THE POEM

Angela Manalang Gloria composed a poem which tells and describes the feeling of being haunted. To create such effect in the point of view of the poem, she made the ghost as the persona instead of herself. This poem merely conveys the true emotions of ghosts which feel the pain and loneliness of being separated to his beloved. Moreover, it is also dominant in the poem that the dead does not want to be forgotten and he would do everything just to make them remembered by their existing loved ones.