Ter Conatus
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In the poem, Ter Conatus by Bernard O'Donoghue the writer expresses a number of tones. At times, his attitude seems to be a gentle caring one, and in other instances it is one of great sadness and regret. Among the various tones illustrated in the poem, there are two that seem to stick out and are expressed most strongly; in my eyes, those prevalent tones are the ones of regret and sorrow.
The tones of regret and sorrow are revealed several times throughout the poem and seem to be the main emotions that the author is trying to get across. The part of the poem that makes the felling of regret seem most obvious is in lines 26-28 when the author says " Almost breaking a lifetime of taking real things for shadows, He might have embraced her with a brothers arms." This pretty much obviously shows that the woman's brother feels a great sense of regret for not being more involved in his sister's life. He feels a sort of emptiness and believes that he could have avoided that feeling if only he would have been more involved in her life. The attitude of sorrow is roughly shown throughout the entire poem and is not most strongly expressed in just one or two lines. From the point when the author says "Sister and brother, nearly sixty years They'd farmed together, never touching once." There is an ery feeling of sadness and sorrow that can be felt during the entire poem...