Imagery

Simply put, imagery refers to the images suggested by a poem. The relationships between images can suggest important meanings in a poem. With imagery, the poem uses language and specific words to create meaning. For instance, Sachs uses imagery to demonstrate the cycle of life and death. The wreath is a circle without beginning and end. Birth and death are the cyclical representations of nature. Each birth must end in death, but the dead are not forgotten, according to Sachs, since they remain alive in memory.

Metaphor

A metaphor is an analogy that identifies one object with another and ascribes to one object the qualities of a second object. The metaphor may be simple, as with a single comparison, or the metaphor may be much more complex, as in Sachs's case, where most of the poem functions as a metaphor. Sachs uses the stars as a metaphor for...