Nothing to be Said

This poem talks about lots of different people and the way they live their lives and the different contrasting ways in which they spend their time. From the it questions the meaning of life, and presents life as an inescapable journey to death for all of us. 

Stanza 1:

• This stanza contrasts different types of people and social groups, be they civilized or primitive, firstly 'nations vague as weed, for nomads among stone'. This contrasts large civilizations with lonely 'nomads', however suggests nature is what they have in common. 
• 'small-statured cross faced tribes' are then contrasted with 'cobble close families', the alliteration used to emphasize this contrast and show he is talking about people from all walks of life, no one can escape death. 
• 'life is slowly dying' shows the one thing everybody has in common is the natural process of death, and it provides equality. It also suggests the point of life is just to die. 

Stanza 2:

• This looks at what people fill their time doing in between birth and death, and how different types of people do things  'separate ways'.'Separate' suggests isolation, that people just care about their individual lives. 
• 'building, benediction' alliteration, emphasizes the idea of filling time with personal things like religion.
• 'measuring love and money' suggests those are the two key things in life and people feel the need to compete with them. 
• 'ways of slowly dying' shows we may all have different ways of dying but they all have the same outcome. 
• 'the day spent hunting pig, or holding a garden party' shows a direct contrast between the civilized upper class and the more animalistic, but suggests neither is better which suggests that it doesnt matter at all how you spend your time, you are insignificant. 

Stanza 3:

• 'hours giving evidence or birth advance on death equally slowly' reinforces the idea that it doesnt matter how you spend your time, you will still die. 
• 'to some means nothing; others it leaves nothing to be said' suggests their are two views of death, those that don't think about it, care about it or care to understand it, or those that are almost overwhelmed by the prospect of it, who both understand and are scared of the meaning of it.