Richard Wilbur, the speaker in this poem, uses a stream of structure, syntax, diction, and imagery characterized by a patchwork of present thoughts, feelings, and sensory perceptions to reveal rather vividly a horrific scene of death. It is rather simple to gain a sense of the attitudes he has of the death of the toad by piecing together the random details of all the things that actually occurs and in the settings that they occur.
             The structure of this poem helps the reader understand the speaker's conflicting feelings. It is divided into three stanzas, with each stanza containing six lines. The stanzas almost exhibit the shape of a diamond and the second line always juts out on the right. It is possible that Wilbur is trying to draw with his words, an image of the toad with only one leg, of which the leg being the second line of each stanza sticking out beyond all other lines. The passage of time is short but gives a feeling of development of an entire story of the toad's corpse as it lies placidly "under the cineraria leaves, in the shade". The final stanza describing the last moments of the day helps the reader feel the speaker's desire to see the toad as it comes to its fruition of life.
             Like most other poems, the first letter of every line is capitalized. The words sticking outmost on the left within the three stanzas are capitalized and play a major role in linking the rest of the words in that stanza. "Day" is capitalized and is a transition word for that last stanza. It alliterates with its acts of "dwindle" and "drowning" so that to show to the speaker the aging of time. Throughout the poem, the reader finds that Wilbur's placement of punctuation next to every rhyming word contrasts vividly the deep path after death and the etched surroundings at this toad's burial site. Death is initial after the power motor
             ...