“Twelfth Song of Thunder” is a chant, which means it’s meant to be sung out loud. So we might not be surprised to notice that the poem is very repetitive when we read it out loud. We discussed the poem’s use of refrains over in “Form and Meter,” so be sure to check that out. Apart from the cyclical nature of the repeated words and lines in this poem, though, the sounds of the words themselves are pretty straightforward.
Nope, you won’t find any fancy alliteration or consonance here. That’s largely because this poem doesn’t need any linguistic prettying up. Its subject matter—the harmonic splendor of nature—is all the simple beauty this poem needs. The words cut straight to the heart of that beauty, without any tricky sound techniques to distract us.