The poem I read was "The Bells", by Edgar Allen Poe. At first I had a bit of difficulty deciphering the meaning of this poem, but after looking over it very carefully, the use of time and what the poem is about, came to me.
             At first read, I thought that this poem was about bells, but I was mistaken. One could read it this way, but I have read it another. True, the poem is called "The Bells", but the use of the word bells symbolizes something. What does it symbolize? Well, through the whole poem, Poe uses the word bells in repetition many times. The use of the repetition stresses meaning. If it didn't, Poe wouldn't repeat the word bells so many times. "...To the swinging and the ringing of the bells, bells, bells-Of the bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells..."(Poe871)
             The use of this repetition represents an extremity. "The pendulous motion can represent the extremes of good and evil, death and immortality." (Symbolism Dictionary)
             Poe uses time in this poem very well. There is a gradual change from good to evil and a changing of actual. To start out, the changing of time, I think, is one of the most obvious things that sticks out.
             In the first stanza, everything in the writing seems cold, and we are told that it is cold. "How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, In the icy air of the night!" (Poe871). By the time the next stanza rolls around, it is summer. "Through the balmy air of the night how they ring out their delight!-" (871). Several months go by between stanza one and two. This shows a long space between the first stanza and the second, showing that the man stays in the same mental state until stanza two.
             As for the changing of good to evil, this is all in the reader's perspective. The way I read "The Bells", was, that this poem is about a man that starts out good and pure, marries a girl, she dies, and he goes crazy. For me, the bells represent the man's mental health. To start out, ...