The Armadillo

‘the frail, illegal fire balloons’ – an early hint of instability and danger

‘still honoured in these parts’ – suggests she is an outsider in her community

‘the paper chambers flush and fill with light’ – the balloons have a mysterious beauty

‘it’s hard to tell them from the stars’ – emphasising the beauty

‘planets, that is – the tinted ones’ – the classic Bishop correction

‘they flare and falter, wobble and toss’ – this line has a jerky, uncertain sound (appropriate for the wind)

‘solemnly and steadily forsaking us’ – broad vowel sounds slow the pace of this verse, suiting the balloons’ graceful flight

‘another big one fell’ – shifting from the beauty to the detrimental side of the balloons

‘The flame ran down.’ – Bishop uses a lot more punctuation in this stanza, possibly reflecting her uncertainty towards the balloons

‘stained bright pink underneath’ – creative metaphor of the flames reflecting on the owls’ bodies

‘they shrieked up out of sight’ – an ‘extreme verb’ (cf. ‘splattered like an egg’)

‘rose-flecked, head down, tail down’ – powerful imagery of the armadillo, symbolic of the animals’ terror

‘so soft’ – sibilance ftw

‘fixed, ignited eyes’ – a strong contrast to the beautiful spectacle describe earlier

‘too pretty, dreamlike mimicry’ – Bishop takes a step back to give a moral response; is she speaking for the animals?

‘clenched ignorant against the sky’ – the armadillo’s distress provokes an emotional outburst of condemnation from the poet, a contrast to the detached and neutral tone found in the previous stanzas