Mountain Graveyard Essay, Research Paper

The tone of a Mountain Graveyard and the diction of Robert Morgan

An almost barren area left contained within a palace of ever-growing, watchful giants. Lying alone visited seldom, becoming a mystery, a cell, or even a shrine to those who know of its existence. Feelings abound hidden in the secluded section of the forest. They range from love to hate, desire to abandonment, sorrow to joy all caused by what dwells there no, but what is no longer here. Here, being with us the living, for the ground is where they now lay. Not to be seen or touched by that of the human hand, just to be remembered by a statue or plaque. This is a picture of graveyard that lies atop a mountain, and is the basis for a poem written by Robert Morgan.

In picturing, a graveyard many of us view it as open and on a nicely trimmed field, with few trees to allow the sunlight to shine through to be seen and not clogged by that of tree limbs and leaves. Kept well maintained for all of the visitors. A mountain graveyard is seen to be a different in several ways as described by the vocabulary chosen by Morgan. The image shown through his declaration is that of large stones, gray colored slates, written on telling tales of mystery. Surrounding them would be the earth and the sacred cedars that crowd the ceiling above the earthly bedding allowing little light to shine through to the floor below.

Robert Morris uses the emotional variance of his readers to help portray the image of a mountainous graveyard throughout the poem entitled Mountain Graveyard with the great emphasis placed on his middle diction of word choices. His word alternations were selective for they are all anagrams. Some examples would be: slate tales (686), hated death (686). These words are simple in meaning, but the connotations that could be associated with them provide the reader with a greater depth of the portrayal that the author may have been trying to reach. A word with minor complexity, heart, meaning in relative definition an organ of the human body designed to pump blood. When transposed as done by Morris it provides several other levels of implications such as fragile, love, desire, loneness, and life. All of which vary within the scale of emotional range of the reader from negatives to positives.

The tone of the poem as expressed by Morris is one of sorrow and happiness. It is understandable that those are two different ends of the spectrum,

but they are also the middle ground of which day to day life is lived. The mountain is seen to be an area of height and graves are seen to be that buried underneath the

Earth, leaving us to wonder in between the earth and heavens. The tone of the poem would have to be that of the tone of life, it is neither positive nor negative, yet one of understanding and acceptance. The feelings expressed help to give us a way to rationalize the hated death (686) by ways of thinking it as a request by the deceased asleep please (686). Thus, the tone of the poem is that of life on average, mellow.

In conclusion, Robert Morgan s word choices and written tone leaves the reader in a sense of emptiness and fulfillment much like that of his poem which divides from one extreme to the other. Leaving the reader in the perfect situation after reading, and that being of contempt.

Works Cited

Morgan, Robert. Mountain Graveyard The Bedford Introduction to Literature.

Ed. Michael Myer. Boston and New York: BedfordSt. Martin s Press

1999,686