“The Death of a Toad” follows a man’s paradoxical progression of thought as he witnesses a toad’s death. The man is the speaker who reflects on the toad’s death in the only way he is able, with the uniquely human faculty of consciousness. This faculty is what makes humans innately different from all other living beings on earth and what makes them the break in the pattern of evolutionary time. Until humans evolved, every species followed the same evolutionary pattern; the species evolved, grew and survived on instinct, then died and eventually became extinct or otherwise adapted through random genetic mutation. The speaker’s ability to think at a higher level is what allows him to imagine the toad’s last thoughts. He imagines humanity’s fate will resemble the toad’s fate through the same pattern of evolutionary time. However, as the speaker’s thoughts drift away from the toad and back to himself, he perceives the power that man has over his environment and unconsciously implies that man’s fate may be different from the toad’s fate. 

The speaker watches the toad die and imagines it to be reflecting on its life as a person would. As a result, the toad’s “thoughts” and actions seem to be deliberate and calculated. However, the toad does not know it is dying, and therefore it is the speaker who thinks that the “hobbling” toad  “sanctuaried” itself to die in peace, much like a wounded person would. The speaker feels as though the toad is deeply yearning to drift back in time “toward some deep monotone,” the sound of innumerable amphibians croaking and to “ebullient seas” bubbling with new life and  new energy. In the speaker’s mind, the toad desires to drift back towards “Amphibia’s emperies,” or the toad’s “heaven,” a uniquely human constructed idea of the afterlife.

The speaker imagines that like the toad, humanity’s fate will follow the same pattern of evolutionary time. The speaker seems to believe, for the first two stanzas of the poem, that just as cold blooded animals have become “rare,” so will people, and just as the toad lies still as if  “return[ing] to stone,” people will also return to the earth in death. If the fate of humanity is similar to the fate of lesser animals, then humans will once again become a part of the earth in the natural cycle of life. In the infinite span of time, the era of “Amphibia’s emperies” could seem like a day that “dwindles, drowning, and at length is gone,” thus the speaker believes man’s “emperies,” will also disappear. Therefore, while the speaker is ostensibly contemplating “The Death of a Toad,” the speaker’s implicit concerns are about whether the fate of humanity will be similar to that of lesser animals. 

The difference between man and toad is man’s ability to reflect, and as a result change his environment. After the toad dies, the speaker notes the “castrate lawn,” unconsciously implying man’s ability to control his environment. The ability to think at a higher level makes people not only uniquely different from all other animals, but also enables them to reflect and change their environment. Therefore, the toad’s death may lead the speaker to believe that there are many similarities between man and toad, and by extension all lesser animals. However, the one crucial difference, consciousness, is what allows man to reflect on his situation and ultimately change it.