The whole quatrain, with its exclamations and enjambed lines, leads upward in intensity to the expression of helplessness in the face of such terror. But because this intensity has been preceded by so much reticence, the emotion here seems earned. Lloyd Schwartz and Sybil P. Estees. University of Michigan Press, 1983. Copyright 1983 by the University of Michigan.
Winds suddenly transform lovely man-made lanterns into deadly apocalyptic flames.
She watches them rise exaltedly, but her attention shifts to the effects, once they burst and their flames are released, on the forest and animals below. But the poem is more reflexive than that. In earlier poetry Bishop had chosen to see bodily metamorphosis as aesthetically beautiful, to distance herself from the pain associated with mortality. The ending of the poem is conservative in that it emphasizes protection. If we read the poem as a whole, however, we see the conservative impulse challenged.