The Secret Analysis

Two girls discover
the secret of life
in a sudden line of
poetry.

I who don't know the
secret wrote
the line. They
told me

(through a third person)
they had found it
but not what it was
not even

what line it was. No doubt
by now, more than a week
later, they have forgotten
the secret,

the line, the name of
the poem. I love them
for finding what
I can't find,

and for loving me
for the line I wrote,
and for forgetting it
so that

a thousand times, till death
finds them, they may
discover it again, in other
lines

in other
happenings. And for
wanting to know it,
for

assuming there is
such a secret, yes,
for that
most of all.


Submitted by Emily S

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This poem is about a person on the outside who is watching the two girls as they learn about life. The first stanza leads me to think of the two young girls reading a poem together that was written by the person on the outside while laying in the grass on a warm summer day. I can see them reading it, and interpreting it to mean something that strikes an emotion or sudden realization whithin them. Later on, in The Secret, it says that the girls, "have forgotten the secret" which I take to mean that they haven't really thought about the poem since they first read it together and that the secret was more of a childhood discovery than something no one has ever found before. In the line that reads,"I who don't know the secret wrote the line", to me this means that the author cannot see what the discovery the girls have made is, because the author is too old to feel the amazement in the world that children new to the earh feel.
This poem reminds me of when I was young and everything seemed to be a miracle. From a ladybug on a leaf to an airplane in the sky, it was all so new and exciting. I feel like the girls found something amazing in the poem just like I found something amazing in everything around me. "a thousand timees, till death finds them, they may discover it again in other lines, in other happenings." This supports my idea of the secret not being a secret at all, but simply a discovery that everyone has found, yet have forgotten.

| Posted on 2009-04-26 | by a guest

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This poem is about a third person observing two girls’ revelation about life. I don’t think they found anything tangible claiming to be the ‘secret of life’. “The two girls discover the secret of life in a sudden line of poetry.” This can mean that poems hold emotions which are the secret of life or what I believe the author intended which is that having a value for life itself is the secret to life. “I who don’t know the secret wrote the line.” Which means it’s not evident to all readers. Possibly it, the secret, is a state of mind. But it is obviously short term because “No doubt by now, more than a week later, they have forgotten the secret, the line, the name of the poem.” This implies that the secret itself is remembering life. I don’t think the author means the girls would have forgotten finding the poem/ meaning of life, I believe she means they would have forgotten the entire message which is the value of memories.

| Posted on 2009-02-06 | by a guest

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they notice something that denise doesn't that exsplains life but it disappears when it doesn't fit into there life...

| Posted on 2009-01-09 | by a guest

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now they have forgotten the secret, they are able to find the secret of life again, but it will probably be in another poem, or such

| Posted on 2008-06-19 | by a guest

.: The secret :.

This poem is about two girls who tell Levertov the have found the secret of life in one of her poems. I have to do a huge English project on this, and i cannot find any literary devices in this poem!

| Posted on 2008-05-17 | by a guest

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what Till death finds them, they may discover it again, in other lines in other happenings mean?

| Posted on 2008-03-20 | by a guest