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Which metaphors have you already located, Amanda?
MrP
The poem is'nt litterlay about the destruction of nature, it''s infact about forgetting your past, and allowing youself to be free of that burden (of the past) so that you can continue to go forward to the future "don't dwell on the past". the theme comes from along time ago when burning leave was a ritual for people, and it signified forgettin the past and continueing witht he future. This ritual was banned because it was a fire hazard, which is why this generation has no idea what this poem means.
I think the poem does not describe a forest fire but the process of gathering dead leaves and flower stems in an English garden in Autumn and burning them (we'd compost them these days, but in Binyon's day, dead plant matter would have been considered rubbish fit only for a bonfire).
HTH
You're right on both counts, Anon: the poem was first published in 1944, and it describes, not a forest fire, but a horticultural conflagration.