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In these diminutive poems, the reader's attention is deflected outwards to a precious, symbolic detail-violets, the cuckoo song, a bird in flight. The same powerful, selective faculty is operating here as in the poem by Sri Chinmoy with its intense concentration on the moon, the songs and the birds. The details themselves are exalted by their extreme concentration so that they become tokens or emblems for an inner condition that is ultimately inexpressible. The vision of the bird flying into the clouds or beyond the horizon "to an unknown land" is tinged with the sadness of transience. Through understatement these poets give play to the expressive punctuation of silence; through economy and omission they invite breadth and intensity.
 
An interesting comparison in terms of poetic procedure in handling despair or sadness is provided by a poet such as Yeats. In his poem "The Wild Swans at Coole" he too uses natural forms, in this instance swans, to summon a complex inner response. As the poem begins, the poet is a passive, dispassionate observer:

The trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine-and-fifty swans.[6]

However, as the poet merges his mind in the contemplation of the swans upon the water, the picture becomes filled with the memory of movement and sound:

I saw, before I had well finished,
All suddenly mount
And scatter wheeling in great broken rings
Upon their clamorous wings.