sure, call it "atmosphere" if you like, as long as you're willing to subject it to verbal analysis, as long as you're willing to show how and why the atmosphere is exactly of the nature that it is, and that it arises, in other words-- and here is the relationship between richards and empson-- out of a complex state of mind; that poetry, the poetry of this speaker, this speaker/murderer, is attempting desperately to reconcile and harmonize, just as he is attempting desperately to be reconciled and harmonized with the society from which he has alienated himself and, of course, is failing.