Charlotte Mew (1869-1928) Study Questions

"The Trees Are Down"

1. What are features of the poem's rhythms? Do they shift? Are they appropriate for its topic?
2. What is the poem's subject? Why do you think the poet inserts the initial quotation from the book of Revelations? Why is the cutting of the plane trees significant?
3. How does the speaker's memory of a dead rat express her mood? Does the visual arrangement of lines in stanza three reflect its content?
4. What is the sequence of the poem's thought? What are important images from the final stanza?
5. Can this poem be read as a poem on ecology? If so, what is its message?

"Domus Caedet Arborem"

1. What does the title mean? Why do you think the poet expresses her thought in Latin?
2. Do the poem's rhythms reflect its subject matter? What effect is created by the shortened last line? Do you think the poem's simplicity adds or detracts from its effectiveness?

"The Farmer's Bride"

1. What problem is described in the poem? What is the effect of telling the story from the husband's point of view?
2. Does the poem give any hints as to why the farm wife feels such an aversion to her marriage? What imagery describes the wife?
3. Do the poem's rhymes and rhythms reinforce its meaning? How do you think the reader is expected to respond at the end of the poem?

"Fame"

1. What seems to be the speaker's inner conflict? What are the poem's patterns of imagery?
2. What is meant by the final image of the "dead, newborn lamb"? How do the sounds and rhythms aid in conveying its meaning?

"The Forest Road"

1. What mental states does this poem seem to convey? What do you think is its subject (or subjects)?
2. What are the speaker's problems? Is she sane? Who/what is the "shadow that there that sings and calls/ But not for you?" Why does she say to "you" that she has struck its heart? Why do you think the "you" lies bleeding on the snow, and what is the speaker's relation to the murdered one?