The theme of the poem, "Rising five" by Norman Nicholson is that humans, adults and children, like nature are impatient and are always looking to the future and, in effect, are dead if they do not spend a moment to appreciate what is around them (the present). This theme is demonstrated by means of subject matter, carefully chosen diction, figures of speech, parallel construction and antithetical parallelism.
To demonstrate the theme of impatience the poet begins the poem by quoting the boy when he says "I'm rising five, not four" which also introduces an irony that one so young should me…
