... These are all very strong verbs and are very different to the calming feel that Gillilan brings out in her poem. She creates this calm atmosphere by making the importance of little things to this woman huge. You can see how small things matter a lot to this woman such as "an eyelash" or "a hard crescent cut from a fingernail". All these objects are things that she wants to cling on to. In Auden's poem, the character is ready to "dispose" of the partner, and wants it confirmed to the world that it is over: "Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead". This finality makes the poem seem somewhat bitter, and is different to the character in Four Years. Here, the character does not want to dispose of anything, or for it to be confirmed that the man is dead, and instead clings on to anything possibly left of ...

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