All in green went my love riding Literary Elements

The speaker of “All in green went my love riding” is a first-person observer. The phrase “my love” in the first line is an indicator of the first-personal structure; as “observer,” the speaker gives his description of the hunt throughout most of the poem. The speaker is absent from the poem until the final stanza, in which he narrates his own death—it is this final twist that transforms the poem into an intensely personal and emotional piece.

Four unrhymed “verses” (triplet + couple + triplet + couplet); ballad meter with nontraditional trochees and spondees

This entire piece is an extended metaphor picturing a love affair as a successful hunt. The tragedy of being rejected by one’s love interest, or the paralyzing experience of falling in love, is compared to the experience of being killed in a hunt.
The poem, however, also includes several rather brief instances of metaphors and similes. “Fleeter be they than dappled dreams” is a simile that compares the swift (or ephemeral) nature of the deer to that of dreams. “Riding the echo down” is a synesthetic metaphor that compares the echo (in this context, possibly that of the horn) to a horse that the hunter rides. “Softer they be than slippered sleep” is a simile comparing the softness of the deer to that of sleep. “The famished arrow sang,” another synesthetic metaphor, compares the shooting of an arrow to the act of singing. “Paler be they than daunting death,” a simile, compares the color of the deer to the ominous image of death.

Alliteration is perhaps the most conspicuous sound device of this poem. There are repetitions of the "r" sound (“merry deer ran,” “red rare,” “red roebuck”), "d" sound (“dappled dreams,” “daunting death”), "s" and "sl" sounds (“swift sweet,” “slippered sleep,” “sleek slim”), l sound (“lean lithe”), "f" sound (“fleet flown,” “Four fleet”), "t" and "th" sounds (“tall tense,” “they than”), "h" sound (“Horn at hip”), "b" sound (“Bow at belt”), and "w" sound (“white water”).
Some of these alliterations mimic the sensory imagery of the poem. For instance, the sibilance of the "s" and "sl" sounds and the liquid consonants "r" and "l" mirror the images of fluidity, motion, and speed. The dental consonants "d" and "t" create a sense of tension, especially in the eleventh stanza, around words like “death” and “tense.”
The poem also features notable instances of assonance. Repeated internal rhymes such as “hounds crouched” (featured in every stanza beginning with “four lean hounds”) contribute to the rhythmicality. The assonant pairs — “cruel bugle,” “level meadows,” “famished arrow,” and “lucky hunter” — which mark the end of the end of each “verse,” also establish a structure of repetition throughout this poem.

The ending of the poem is an example of situational irony. The opening stanzas seem to suggest that this will be a poem about love and beauty; when the opening line says “All in green went my love riding,” we begin to expect an ode dedicated to the speaker’s love. Because the speaker is largely absent from the poem, and focuses on his description of the pastoral landscape—the deer, the meadows, the golden valleys—rather than explicitly confessing his own feelings about them, we get a sense that he is outside the hunting scene, as an observer rather than a participant. The final line of the poem, in which the romance fails, the speaker turns out to be a deer, and even dies taking an arrow shot by his own lover, contradicts our expectations surrounding the situation constructed by the previous stanzas of the poem.

Imagist, modernist poetry

Spatial setting: a mountainous and verdant mythical landscape / Temporal setting: at dawn, in the spring or summer (historical period unspecified)

Detached, mournful, solemn

The speaker (the deer) vs. The speaker's love (the hunter) and her hounds

In the literal sense, the major conflict of this poem lies in the chase—the deer are pursued and killed by the hunter. The hunt, however, is a metaphor for an emotional conflict, in which the speaker is rejected and destroyed by his lover.

The climax of this poem is the very last line, where the speaker, who turns out to be a deer, is shot in the heart by the hunter and falls dead (“my heart fell dead before”). The conclusion is not only unexpected but also the most violent image described in this poem.

Foreshadowing in this poem occurs in the eleventh and twelfth stanzas, in which the images of the deer grow increasingly ominous (“Paler be they than daunting death”), and the hounds move into rougher terrain (“the sheer peaks ran before”). The word "death" foreshadows the death of the speaker, and the intensity of these images prepares us for the sudden tragedy at the end of the poem.

The speaker somewhat understates the pain he experiences at the end of the poem. He does not go on about the agony of being shot down or describe the emotional effects of rejection. The brevity and matter-of-factness of the line “my heart fell dead before,” along with the abrupt ending of the poem, intensifies our response to the speaker’s tragedy.

Hunting on horseback, bow at belt, horn at hip, and shooting down deer with her arrows, the speaker’s love is an allusion to the Roman goddess Diana, the goddess of the hunt. The speaker, in love with the hunter goddess, metamorphosing into a deer, and shot down by Diana, may be an allusion to the mythical figure Actaeon. The arrows may also be a nod to the Roman god Cupid and his love arrows. The hunter’s colors—green and gold—juxtaposed with the horse, evoke Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The sadism of the speaker’s love borrows from the “cruel woman” motif from courtly love literature and Troubadour poetry. (Guido Cavalcanti's "Voi, Che per Gli Occhi Miei Passaste al Core" is the classic example.)

The bugle and the arrow are instances of metonymy. The hunter is referred to using objects that are associated with her hunting activities. In other words, it is the hunter who is triumphing in her hunts when the poem says that the bugle or arrow sings.

Cummings personifies the hounds in “four lean hounds crouched low and smiling,” the bugle in “the cruel bugle sang,” and the arrow in “the famished arrow sang.” By associating them with human qualities, Cummings uses the hounds, the bugle, and the arrow to describe the activities, feelings, and sensations of the hunter: in reality, the hunter is the one who would be capable of being hungry, pursuing animals, and singing.

The line “Paler be they than daunting death,” comparing the color of the deer to death itself, may be considered an example of hyperbole, because it exaggerates the emotional intensity of the deer imagery.