A Burnt Offering — Summary

The speaker burns a lover’s letters, an act the title frames as a sacrifice—a burnt offering. Because there is no wind, the smoke doesn’t scatter. It hangs in the air, and as it lingers, the speaker sees in it the shape of the beloved’s face. That image makes the poem feel suspended, almost breathless. The speaker isn’t raging or trying to forget; instead, the mood is quiet, intimate, and heavy with grief. The final “My Beloved” sounds like a direct address to someone still deeply missed. Burning the letters may have been an attempt at release, but the stillness keeps the past present. The smoke becomes a ghost-like trace, and the face in it shows how memory refuses to be burned away.