Charles, Frost's "Departmental" is one of the few *overtly* critical poems he wrote about the New Deal. And it is mild, comical satire--not cutting, as in many of the others, like "Neither Out Far Nor In Deep," on which I've published an essay (where again, an animal image, the "gull," has double meaning). As to Terrell's wasp cocoon, I might add that a casque, which is a specifically military word for helmet, is not cocoon-shaped. Perhaps Terrell confused the homonym "cask," a barrel, with the cocoon idea. Anyway, to suppress the military associations in the passage--the ant/centaur, and the casque, and the "rathe to destroy"--would amount, IMHO, to losing half of what Ez wanted to suggest. ==Dan At 09:01 PM 8/23/00 -0700, you wrote: >Dan, > How about Frost's "ant" poem "DEpartmental"? It fits your theory rather >well. > >Burt, > On Terrell's wasp cocoon, I think he is mistaken. Pound describes the >emerging young wasp as green but not the casque of the cocoon. I take it >those are Paper wasps or Mud Daubers. In either case their "casque" >constructions are gray or brown not green. > I favor the Monarch butterfly as Pound's subject. Go to- > > http://adver-net.com/Monemerg.html >(The wonders of the Net!) > > The Monarch larva feeds on the milkweed plant. See Notes for Canto CXVII >et seq. > > "Milkweed the sustenance > as to enter arcanum." > "Arcanum" has hermetic and alchemical transmutational overtones as well as >metaphoric. > >CDM > HOME: Dan Pearlman 102 Blackstone Blvd. #5 Providence, RI 02906 Tel.: 401 453-3027 email: [log in to unmask] Fax: (253) 681-8518 http://www.uri.edu/artsci/english/clf/ OFFICE Department of English University of Rhode Island Kingston, RI 02881 Tel.: 401 874-4659