“Evening Hawk” Poem Analysis: Exploring Humanity’s Fragility

Poem Analysis: Robert Penn Warren's "Evening Hawk"

In his poem “Evening Hawk,” Robert Penn Warren asserts that humanity is wrong to believe that it is superior to nature and other creatures. He utilizes intense and forlorn imagery combined with dark diction to express a gloomy mood and emphasize the idea that humans are not all-powerful and are indeed fragile creatures.

Depicting Nature's Mood: Stark Imagery and Diction

The first stanza of the poem is a crisp description of a hawk flying through the air at sunset.

The stanza has no fluff; it is clear-cut in its imagery. Instead of describing the color or brightness of the sunlight, the poem describes it as a “plane of light.” There are no added affectionate words. The poem also refers to a mountain peak as a “black angularity of shadow.” The use of somber diction when describing the setting illustrates that the mood or tone of the poem will be somewhat dark and depressing.

Symbolism of the Hawk: Time, Power, and Humanity's Fallibility

The hawk is first introduced as “his wing scything down another day.” Scything is a synonym for shearing or cutting, so the hawk is cutting away time. The hawk is also depicted as “steel-edged,” meaning it is hard and cruel. The readers should be able to infer that the hawk is dangerous, not soft. The hawk is cutting away the “stalks of Time,” which are “heavy with the gold of our error.” The error is referred to as human error. The hawk is taking the last light with him as he goes, which can also be thought of as the hawk taking away our time. The hawk is represented as an image of time, so because the hawk is flying away with the last bit of sun, it means humans are out of time. Nature has decided that humanity only contributed “errors” and is therefore “unforgiven.”

Nature vs. Humanity: A Somber Reflection

The poem refers to the bat as having “immense wisdom”; this goes to prove that nature is more intelligent than humans. The poem also alludes that all the history that humankind thinks is so important could just leak into the darkness and be forgotten. The poem clearly demonstrates a belief that nature is superior to humans and that humans have only contributed to errors. The poem’s mood is dark, which the author achieves by using words such as “black angularity,” “error,” “steel-edged,” and “scything.” These words have negative or depressing connotations, which assist the poem in demonstrating that all of mankind’s achievements and failures are only equal to “a leaking pipe in the cellar.”

Through the use of gloomy diction, Warren manages to indicate that humans will soon be held accountable for their actions by nature. Nature is represented as the hawk, who is in control of time. The hawk decides when humans are to be finished. This plays into the idea that humans are not as superior as they think themselves to be. Their fate can be decided simply based on the ruling of a relentless hawk.

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