Reread the last stanza of John Montague's poem "The Fight". (p.20)

For minutes we fought

Standing and falling in

The river’s brown spate.

And I would still fight,

Though now I can forgive;

To worship or destroy beauty—

That double edge of the impulse

I recognize, by which we live:

But also the bitter paradox

Of betraying love to harm,

Then lunging, too late,

With fists, to its defense.

How is this stanza different from the rest of the poem?

In the first verses the poet presents a tone of harmony and joy, where the speaker of the poem describes a happy moment in his life, where he observes a swallow that gives him good ideas and feelings.

However, the last stage presents a struggle, which completely changes the tone of the poem, expressing a tone of disharmony, discomfort and adrenaline, because the pace of the poem becomes more frantic, as a fight should be.

mcarc09 mcarc09 · Answer 2 · 2021-11-19T12:05:14+01:00

The difference between the last stanza and the rest of the poem can be explained as follows:

- In the last stanza, the tone shifts, becoming more aggressive and disappointed, when the speaker describes the fight he and his friend had. In the rest of the poem, the tone is one of harmony and elation.

The speaker in "The Fight," by John Montague, is a young boy who finds a swallow's nest by a stream.

He is elated by the beauty and fragility of the freckled eggs in the nest. Excited, he calls a friend to come and see the eggs with him.

As they count the eggs together, there is a feeling of harmonious peace.

That feeling is broken when the friend runs away with the eggs and breaks them against a stone.

The tone drastically shifts from elated and harmonious to aggressive and disappointed.

The speaker cannot believe his friend could do such a thing - harm something so beautiful and defenseless.

They fight; and the speaker, who is now an adult, says he would still fight. He feels betrayed by his friend who repaid his love with harm.

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