What is the analysis of the poem "the starry night" by Robert fagles?

from http://students.ed.uiuc.edu/barnhart/majorproject/panda.htm --

Poetry and art have long gone together as sources of creative expression. Sometimes, these two mediums even intertwine as a poet reflects upon a painting as a starting point for a piece of writing. The poet may interpret what is happening in the scene or what the painter was feeling when creating the masterpiece. Since the poem is an interpretation, it may or may not reflect what you see in the painting. Consider this examples. Robert Fagles chose to write about Vincent Van Gogh's painting "The Starry Night." Study the details of the painting before you interpret the poem.

[Look at the painting.]

"The Starry Night"

by Robert Fagles

Long as I paint

I feel myself

less mad

the brush in my hand

a lightning rod to madness


But never ground that madness

execute it ride the lightning up

from these benighted streets and steeple up

with the cypress look its black is burning green

I am that I am it cries

it lifts me up the nightfall up

the cloudrack coiling like a dragon's flanks

a third of the stars in heaven wheeling in its wake

wheels in wheels around the moon that cradles round the sun

and if I can only trail these whirling eternal stars

with one sweep of the brush like Michael's sword if I can

cut the life out of the beast - safeguard the mother and the son

all heaven will hymn in conflagration blazing down

the night the mountain ranges down

the claustrophobic valleys of the mad


Madness

is what I have instead of heaven

God deliver me - help me now deliver

all this frenzy back into your hands

our brushstrokes burning clearer into dawn.


What aspect of the painting did Fagles choose to focus on as a starting point for writing?

What is the tone of the poem and which reflects more closely what you see as the mood of the painting?

What elements of poetry did Fagles use and how did those elements contribute to the poem as a whole?

What details of the painting do you see in the poem?

Who is the speaker in the poem? Why did Fagles use the pronoun "our" in the last line of his poem?

Thank you so much, this help my insight on the poem. It gave me a different view from which to look and now I understand! This is for my English lit. class in college and the questions you used to explain and change my view were so helpful and I shall share them with the class along with my analysis. Thanks so much.

Please let me know what happened with the class discussion and your analysis.