The poem "Toads" is an extended metaphor. The poem is describing two toads. The first one is the speaker's material wants. "Just for paying a few bills!" and "that's the stuff/ That dreams are made on;" are examples of how the first toad is referring to material wants. The second toad is the speaker's spiritual wants/ religion. His spiritual wants hold him back from getting his material wants. This is clear in the eighth stanza. One way to tell what the toads mean is that the first toad "Squat[s] on my life" and the second toad "Squats in me." Stanza three is a large alliteration, but I am not totally sure its purpose. The central purpose of this poem makes a lot of sense to me and often is a problem I also have. I work hard to obtain my material wants, but sometime my morals hold me back from getting some things, which they should. The final stanza says that the contradicting toads annoy him, but he would rather have both of them, than just one.
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