Alysis on Fullmoon and Little Freda

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FULL MOON AND LITTLE FRIEDA This is a poem that demonstrates the speaker’s affection for his daughter, a person who delights in observing the physical and the mental development of his daughter. The poem then describes very movingly and vividly the poet’s excitement in observing his daughter’s joy and surprise at seeing a full moon suddenly coming into her view against a picturesque countryside. It is that time of the evening, when cows are returning home and when the evening dew is about to cover the countryside. Up in the sky, the first star of the evening is about to appear, ‘to tempt a first star to a tremor’, just then Frieda sees a full moon and shouts in a childish joy, ‘moon’. The poem concludes by extolling the moon as an artist, a natural celestial body that can create this beauty. The poet sets the scene for the daughter’s observation and growth in the first line. It is that time of the day when everything seems slow, when all silences are turned up full volume, one of those long-shadowed hours of the evening. The poet tells that everything is shrunk to the two sounds, ‘the clank of a bucket and the bark of a dog’ against an intensified quietness of the evening. The poet carefully introduces her daughter and devotes a lot of attention to her; first, she is listening to the sounds of the environment, and then provides a description of a bucket filled with water which reflects the moon like a mirror. The ‘first star’ is reminiscent of the guiding star, the star of Bethlehem almost, in the sense that Hughes is creating a little nativity scene for us in his back yard. The poet quickly shifts his attention to the cows, ‘cows are going home’. It is milking time, so the cows are being moved from the field to the milking shed, and those who see milk as a symbol of maternal love might want to make more of those lines. The ‘in the lane
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