Little Elegy
for a child who skipped rope

Here lies resting, out of breath,
Out of turns, Elizabeth
Whose quicksilver toes not quite
Cleared the whirring edge of night.

Earth whose circles round us skim
Till they catch the lightest limb,
Shelter now Elizabeth
And for her sake trip up death.

I need to find out what the actual meaning of this poem is and the metaphoric meaning.... and theme of this poem.... please help!!! all i no about this poem is that it is about death

I think it's about a child who is near death and was fond of skipping. Therefore the metaphor is that she getting her breath back between turns on the rope - meaning she is lying ill before, hopefully, resuming her life. The edge of night in the next bit is death and is also portrayed as the rope tripping her up. The Earth then becomes life (the rope in the metaphor), circling round us, and tripping up even the most skilful. Then the poet asks the earth (the rope) to protect her from Death, who is now taking his turn to be the skipper, by tripping Death up!

Clear as mud?

It's a nice little poem, new to me.

I have read a lot of Kennedy's stuff, mostly light verse, which this clearly is not. I think the Elizabeth must already be dead, since the title says it is an elegy. The metaphor seems to compare life & death with the process of jumping rope.

Out of turns puns the turns of the jump rope with the turning planet. Quicksilver toes I guess means 'fast', not resembling liquid metal. Whirring is a swishing sound, like spinning, again comparing the rope to the spinning globe.

How the earth can trip up death is less clear. One infers she goes to heaven rather than just resting in the dirt, but the logic does not follow, at least to my reading.

The rhythm itself reminds me of 'now I lay me down to sleep', but maybe that's just me.

I actually don't think that she's dead or dying- I think that she's resting between turns jumping rope, and Kennedy is extrapolating this to 'My God, what if she were dying!' We all have those moments where we realize we can't protecct the ones we love.

pam

You're about the fifth person lately with the real meaning/metaphorical meaning issue- maybe you could get your teacher to post what he or she wants.

Quick = alive in this context. Quicksilver = live silver = mercury (that runs about) as opposed to ordinary silver which just lies there.
Also in the creed (old prayer book translation) "He comes to judge the quick and the dead"