Critics interpret "The Force That through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower" in a number of different ways. For M. L. Rosenthal, it is basically a tragic poem. In The Modem Poets: A Critical Introduction, he analyzes Thomas's style, asserting that the power of his poetry, particularly in his early work such as this poem, lies not in his themes but in the grandeur and power of his language. Like many critics, he finds the poem's ideas about the cycle of birth, growth, and death in man and nature the least compelling aspect of the poem. Rosenthal traces the comparison between man and nature and man and sub-organic nature through the first three stanzas. The fourth stanza reveals the tragic premise he finds in the poem. Although it reveals a passionate desire for a union, or communion, between all living things and the force which governs...