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I SHALL NOT RETURN
"I Shall Not Return"
I shall not return. And night,
mildly warm, serene and silent,
will lull the world, under beams
of its solitary moon.My body will not be there,
and through the wide-open window,
a refreshing breeze will come
inquiring for my soul.I don't know if any await
the end of my double absence,
or who will kiss my memory
amidst caresses and weeping.But, there will be stars and flowers,
there will be sighs and hopes,
and love in the avenues
in the shadows of the trees.And that piano will be playing
as in this untroubled night,
and no one there to listen,
pensive, by my window frame.
-Juan Ramon Jimenez
ANALYSIS
In this poem it seem as if it is about a person dying. The person talks about in the first line of the poem how he will not return after his death. He will die under the "beams of its solitary moon" (line 3-4). He goes on to say that after his body is gone a breeze will come into his room looking for his soul. In lines 9-10 he questions the survivors (if any) left behind, asking himself if they will wait for the day of his death. "I don't know if any await the end of my double absence," (lines 9-10). He is also concerned who if any will remember him through the tears and moments of comfort in lines 11-12.
Lines 13-16 talk about the things in this person's life that go on with his life and will continue to go on after his death. There will always be the flowers, hopes and love found in the world. The poem is saying that life goes on with death. The next few lines of the poem are hard to understand. There is an introduction of a piano playing that has no understood meaning to the rest of the poem. One could only guess that the playing piano is from somewhere else where the dying person listens to it and he is saying that when he dies he will not be there to listen to the music, just as there will be no one to take his place when he dies.
POETIC TACTICS
In "I Shall Not Return", the structure of the stanzas plays an important role in the formation of the poem. The first stanza deals with the death of a human being. The second stanza deals with the coming of breezes to take his soul. The third stanza deals with the feelings left by the dead and how that person wonders if any will miss him. The last two stanzas take a strange turn to create opposite meanings from death to the happy thoughts of the world. The use of the word "but" in the fourth stanza creates a turning point in the poem. This alteration in the tone of the poem turns to things that are happy in nature and in spirit. The things mentioned in lines 13-16 represent the good in the world that continue with a persons death to represent the continuence of life after death. The last and final stanza deals with when a person dies no one will take their place. The good will always be remembered.