I follow the storyline, but I feel like there is some additional symbolism for the tongue that I'm missing. What does it mean when his tongue is replaced by a green and growing flower? What exactly happened to the police men escorting him by train, that he apparently killed? And there's got to be some meaning behind his lover digging him out with a jaw bone.
Perhaps the first stanza really belongs at the end. The "lonely place" is his grave, and the jawbone is what is left of his mouth after he is executed. (Thus the flower growing from his decaying remains.) Perhaps that is why he warns about "guiding the tongue." He was silent before the judge, somehow said something the free himself on the train, and was a free man after that. It was when he couldn't guide his tongue any more that he met his fate, and was "planted by the sea" by the authorities.
Perhaps the first stanza really belongs at the end. The "lonely place" is his grave, and the jawbone is what is left of his mouth after he is executed. (Thus the flower growing from his decaying remains.) Perhaps that is why he warns about "guiding the tongue." He was silent before the judge, somehow said something the free himself on the train, and was a free man after that. It was when he couldn't guide his tongue any more that he met his fate, and was "planted by the sea" by the authorities.
In which case, the name of his lover (Grace) must have two meanings. The Grace he killed couldn't have dug up the flower that sprung from his corpse, so maybe he is referring to more a spiritual grace in the first stanza - followed by an account of how his tongue got him into trouble when he confessed to killing the woman Grace.
I follow the storyline, but I feel like there is some additional symbolism for the tongue that I'm missing. What does it mean when his tongue is replaced by a green and growing flower? What exactly happened to the police men escorting him by train, that he apparently killed? And there's got to be some meaning behind his lover digging him out with a jaw bone.
Perhaps the first stanza really belongs at the end. The "lonely place" is his grave, and the jawbone is what is left of his mouth after he is executed. (Thus the flower growing from his decaying remains.) Perhaps that is why he warns about "guiding the tongue." He was silent before the judge, somehow said something the free himself on the train, and was a free man after that. It was when he couldn't guide his tongue any more that he met his fate, and was "planted by the sea" by the authorities.
Perhaps the first stanza really belongs at the end. The "lonely place" is his grave, and the jawbone is what is left of his mouth after he is executed. (Thus the flower growing from his decaying remains.) Perhaps that is why he warns about "guiding the tongue." He was silent before the judge, somehow said something the free himself on the train, and was a free man after that. It was when he couldn't guide his tongue any more that he met his fate, and was "planted by the sea" by the authorities.
In which case, the name of his lover (Grace) must have two meanings. The Grace he killed couldn't have dug up the flower that sprung from his corpse, so maybe he is referring to more a spiritual grace in the first stanza - followed by an account of how his tongue got him into trouble when he confessed to killing the woman Grace.
I still think there's more that I'm missing.