The Cop and the Anthem

Summary

Soapy who is a tramp, is the protagonist in the story. He has no job to earn his food and no place to sleep. He was very restless because winter was fast approaching. The signs in the environment warned Soapy of the coming winter. Leaves were withering due to the onset of winter. He had to find a place to protect himself from the winter because the newspapers couldn’t keep him warm in the park. He could not have spent the winter sleeping on the bench which was his home.

Soapy’s plans for the winter were not very high. He wished to spend three months on the Island which was a place where prisoners were kept. To go on the Island one had to be arrested by police on some charge. Unless one committed a crime one could not be taken to the Island. Therefore Soapy decided to commit a petty crime so that he would be arrested by the police and sent to the Island. Since he did not like to live on charity he did not seek food and shelter in any other place where he would have been expected to do some work in return. This was the reason that made him to decide to go the Island where he didn’t have to work hard. Moreover he could enjoy privacy in the Islands which was not possible in any other place. This determination of going to the Islands made Soapy to think of committing a petty crime which would attract the attention of the police and would eventually help him go to the Island.

There were many ways for achieving his goal. Soapy planned to go into a restaurant, eat lavishly and not refuse to pay the bills. The restaurant people would immediately call the cops and that would mean the accomplishment of Soapy’s desire. Therefore he started walking out of Madison Square, to the place where the streets called Broadway and Fifth Avenue meet. There he stopped in front of a large and brightly lit restaurant. His coat was good enough to go inside the restaurant and he started thinking about the meal which he would order. But unfortunately as soon as Soapy stepped inside the restaurant than the waiter stopped him because Soapy’s shoes were worn out and so were unfit for such a place. Disappointed Soapy, now saw a shop with wide glass window, bright with electric lights, at the corner of the Sixth Avenue road. Soapy picked up a stone and hit the glass. The cop along with other people came to the corner. On enquiry, when Soapy admitted the fact that he was the one who had broken the glass, the cop refused to believe him because he thought that the person who broke the glass, would not stand there to admit the crime. Therefore Soapy’s second attempt to get caught in the hands of cop failed.

Finding it very difficult to fulfill his desire, Soapy saw another restaurant across the street. The restaurant did not seem to be of great pretentions. He thought that there he would be allowed with his shoes. He went inside and had food for which he refused to pay the bill. Instead of calling the cop Soapy was thrown outside the restaurant by two waiters who beat him up. After the third failure, going to the Island seemed only a dream for Soapy. Soapy sick at heart, walked half a mile and tried again. This time he wanted to go and talk to a woman who was standing in front of a shop window. He also saw a cop standing nearby. This time he was sure that he would be able to achieve his dream. He went near her and tried to perform the role of a ‘masher,’ but in return the woman herself stretched out her hand and held him. At this he seemed doomed to liberty.

 In the next corner, in front of a theatre he made an attempt of disorderly conduct. He danced, sang, shouted. But the cop mistook him to be a Yale lad celebrating goose egg they gave to Hartford College for which they (cop) were instructed to leave them (lad) free. Soapy’s desire was turning into an impossible dream when he came across a man in a cigar store with an umbrella. Soapy in a very casual manner took the silk umbrella and walked away hoping this time to be caught in the hands of police. The man walked hastily for Soapy only to confirm whether that umbrella belonged to Soapy or not, which he (man) had picked that morning in a restaurant.

Soapy by then was completely disheartened. He cursed the cops. He thought that just because he wanted to fall into their clutches that they were treating him like a king. But in an unusually quiet corner Soapy came to a standstill. There was an old church, quaint and rambling and gabled. Through one violet-stained window a soft light glowed, where, no doubt, the organist loitered over the keys, making sure of his mastery of the coming Sabbath anthem. Soapy was transfixed listening to the anthem. It was serene atmosphere with very few people walking on the streets along with the moon being lustrous. One was reminded of a country churchyard.

Soapy was familiar with the anthem. It reminded him of his earlier days when had family, friends, collars, etc. The conjunction of Soapy’s receptive mind and the influence of the old church stirred Soapy’s heart and brought about a sudden change in him. It was at that moment that he realized the pit in which he has forced himself to fall- the degraded days, unworthy desires, dead hopes, wrecked faculties and base motives that made up his existence. With this, he came to the conclusion that he would work hard and make his living, instead of depending on anyone or anything. He was determined that he would come out of this mire and make a better existence in the world.  Suddenly Soapy felt an arm on his shoulder and when he turned he saw a police man. On asking what he was doing there, Soapy didn’t have anything to say. On not finding any reason for standing in front of the church, the cops announced three months of stay for Soapy in the Islands.

STRONG MERCY

-         Rabindranath Tagore

Rabindranath Tagore, a poet, playwright, novelist, painter and a musician, is a perfect embodiment of art itself.

Tagore, in the later stage of his life, believed that language is never complete to express the fullness of thoughts of an artist. Hence besides writing, painting became his medium of expression. However, Tagore is well known for his literary works to which the Noble prize was awarded (for Gitanjali).

Strong Mercy is one of Tagore’s many poems from Gitanjali, a compilation of poems foreworded by English’s well known poet W.B. Yeats. The poem is supposed to be a contrastive analysis of man’s nature against the nature of God. While God is full of mercy, man on the other hand is desirous and passionate towards things that can take him away from God. But Tagore opines that the more the man walks away from Him, His mercies are stronger still, to bring him back onto His track.

General English (I Semester)

La Belle Dame Sans Merci

La Belle Dame sans Merci (French: "The Beautiful Lady Without Mercy"[1] ) is a ballad written by the English poet John Keats. It exists in two versions, with minor differences between them. The original was written by Keats in 1819. He used the title of a 15th century poem by Alain Chartier, though the plots of the two poems are different.[2] The poem is considered an English classic, stereotypical to other poems of John Keats, a Romantic poet. It avoids simplicity of interpretation despite simplicity of structure. At only a short twelve stanzas, of only four lines each, with a simple ABCB rhyme scheme, the poem is nonetheless full of enigmas, and has been the subject of numerous interpretations.

Keats' poem describes the condition of an unnamed knight who has encountered a mysterious woman who is said to be "a faery's child." It opens with a description of the knight in a barren landscape, "haggard" and "palely loitering". He tells the reader how he met a mysterious but very fair lady whose "eyes were wild." The damsel told the knight that she "loved him true" and took him to her "elfin grot," but upon arriving there, she "wept, and sigh'd full sore." Having realized something that the knight does not yet understand, the mysterious maiden sets the knight to sleep. The knight has a vision of "pale kings and princes," who cry, "La Belle Dame sans Merci [the beautiful, pitiless damsel] hath thee in thrall!" He awakes to find himself on the same "cold hill's side" on which he continues to wait while "palely loitering."

The Story

The poet meets a knight by a woodland lake in late autumn. The man has been there for a long time, and is evidently dying.

The knight says he met a beautiful, wild-looking woman in a meadow. He visited with her, and decked her with flowers. She did not speak, but looked and sighed as if she loved him. He gave her his horse to ride, and he walked beside them. He saw nothing but her, because she leaned over in his face and sang a mysterious song. She spoke a language he could not understand, but he was confident she said she loved him. He kissed her to sleep, and fell asleep himself.

He dreamed of a host of kings, princes, and warriors, all pale as death. They shouted a terrible warning -- they were the woman's slaves. And now he was her slave, too.

Awakening, the woman was gone, and the knight was left on the cold hillside    

Stanzawise summary:

Part I: The Anonymous Speaker

Most readers take the anonymous speaker at face value: he is a concerned passerby who comes upon the knight accidentally and who describes accurately and factually the condition of the knight and the place where they meet. However, is it possible that the knight's pitiful condition exists only in the mind or perception of the anonymous speaker? We have only his word that the knight looks pale, haggard, woe-begone, etc. To carry this train of thought to an extreme, we could ask whether there really is a knight. Could this entire poem be the hallucination of a madman? If we accept any of these interpretations of the anonymous speaker, is the meaning of the poem affected? Is the effectiveness of the poem affected?

Do we automatically make assumptions about the speaker? Is the anonymous speaker male? Whether the speaker is male or female, do we assume that the speaker is white? Why? Do these assumptions affect our reading of the poem and its effect on us?

Stanzas I-II

In the first two lines of stanzas I and II, the anonymous speaker asks a question. The first line of both questions is identical ("O, what can ail thee, knight-at-arms"). The second lines differ somewhat; in stanza I, the question focuses on his physical condition ("Alone and palely loitering"); in stanza II, the question describes both the knight's physical state and his emotional state ("Haggard and woe-begone"). This repetition with slight variation is called incremental repetition and is a characteristic of the folk ballad.

This speaker sees no reason for the knight's presence ("loitering") in such a barren spot (the grass is "wither'd" and no birds sing). Even in this spot, not all life is wasteland, however; the squirrel's winter storage is full, and the harvest has been completed. In other words, there is an alternative or fulfilling life which the knight could choose. Thus lines 3 and 4 of stanzas I and II present contrasting views of life.

Click here for vocabulary and allusions in stanzas I and II.

Stanza III

This stanza elaborates on the knight's physical appearance and mental state, which are associated with dying and with nature. In the previous stanzas, the descriptions of nature are factual; here, nature is used metaphorically. His pallor is compared first to the whiteness of a lily, then to a rose; the rose is "fading" and quickly "withereth." The lily, of course, is a traditional symbol of death; the rose, a symbol of beauty. The knight's misery is suggested by the "dew" or perspiration on his forehead.

What is Keats trying to emphasize by using both "fading" and "fast withereth"? Is there a difference in the effect of "fading," the word Keats uses, and "faded"?

Part II: The Knight

The knight's narrative consists of three units: stanzas IV-VII describe the knight's meeting and involvement with the lady; stanza VIII presents the climax (he goes with her to the "elfin grot"); the last four stanzas describe his sleep and expulsion from the grotto. Thus, the first four stanzas (IV-VII) are balanced by the last four stanzas (IX-XII). The poem returns to where it started, so that the poem has a circular movement; reinforcing the connection of the opening and the ending, Keats uses the same language.

Stanzas IV-IX

The roles of the knight and the lady change. In stanzas IV, V, and VI, the knight is dominant; lines 1 and 2 of each stanza describe his actions ("I met," "I made," "I set her"), and lines three and four of these three stanzas focus on the lady.

But a shift in dominance occurs; stanza VII is devoted entirely to the lady ("She found" and "she said"). In stanza VIII the lady initiates the action and takes the dominant position in lines 1 and 2 ("She took me" and "she wept and sigh'd"); the knight's actions are presented in lines three and four. In Stanza IX, she "lull'd" him to sleep (line 1) and he "dream'd." The rest of this stanza and the next two stanzas are about his dream.

Click here for vocabulary and allusions in stanzas IV-IX.

Stanzas X and XI

Eight and a half lines of this poem are devoted to his dream (the poem itself is only 48 lines long) and the last six lines are about the consequences of the dream. The men he dreams about are all men of power and achievement (kings, princes, and warriors). Their paleness associates them both with the loitering pale knight and with death; in fact, we are told that they are "death-pale." The description of her former lovers, with their starved lips and gaping mouths, is chilling. Is it appropriate that he awakens from this dream to a "cold" hill?

Can a political meaning be read into the poem based on the fact the fact that the men in his dream are all kings, princes, and warriors? Or is there a simpler explanation for their status? The knight is of their kind and class, so naturally he dreams of men like himself. Perhaps La Belle Dame sans Merci is attracted to this kind of man. Or Keats may merely be imitating the folk ballad, which is a traditional and conservative form and tends to observe class lines.

Click here for vocabulary and allusions in stanzas X and XI.

Stanza XII

The knight uses the word "sojourn," which implies he will be there for some time. The repetition of language from stanza I also reinforces the sense of no movement in connection with the knight. Ironically, although he is not moving physically, he has "moved" or been emotionally ravaged by his dream or vision.

The Significance of La Belle Dame sans Merci. (Critical analysis)

Whereas the impact of the lady on the knight is clear, her character remains shadowy. Why? You have a number of possibilities to choose among; which one you choose will be determined by how you read the poem.

1. We see the lady only through the knight's eyes, and he didn't know her. As a human being, he cannot fully understand the non- mortal; she is a "faery's child," sings a "faery's song," and takes him to an "elfin grot." She speaks "in language strange" (VII). Whether she speaks a language unknown to the knight or merely had an unfamiliar pronunciation, the phrase suggests a problem in, if not a failure of communication. They are incompatible by nature.

2. The references to "faery" and "elfin" suggest enchantment or imagination. Her "sweet moan" and "song" represent art inspired by imagination. The lady, symbolizing imagination, takes him to an ideal world. The knight becomes enraptured by or totally absorbed in the pleasures of the imagination--the delicious foods, her song, her beauty, her love or favor ("and nothing else saw all day long"). But the imagination or visionary experience is fleeting; the human being cannot live in this realm, a fact which the dreamer chooses to ignore. The knight's refusal to let go of the joys of the imagination destroys his life in the real world.

Or is she possibly the cheating or false imagination, not true imagination? Does the food she gives him starve rather than nourish him? The men in his vision have "starved lips." Think of the ending of "Ode to a Nightingale" with its "deceiving imp."

3. This possibility is a variant of choice #2. The lady represents the ideal, and the poem is about the relationship of the real and the ideal. The knight rejects the real world with its real fulfillments for an ideal which cannot exist in the real world. In giving himself entirely to the dream of the ideal, he destroys his life in the real world.

4. The lady is evil and belongs to a tradition of "femmes fatales." She seduces him with her beauty, with her accomplishments, with her avowal of love, and with sensuality ("roots of relish sweet, / And honey wild, and manna dew"). The vision of the pale men suggests she is deliberately destructive. The destructiveness of love is a common theme in the folk ballad.

5. Is the knight self-deluded? Does he enthrall himself by placing her on his horse and making garlands for her? The knight ignores warning signs: she has "wild wild" eyes, she gives him "wild" honey, she avows her love "in language strange," and she "wept and sigh'd full sore" in the elfin grotto. Also he continues to desire her, despite the wasteland he finds himself in and despite the warning of his dream.

Notes

"La Belle Dame Sans Merci" means "the beautiful woman without mercy." It's the title of an old French court poem by Alain Chartier. ("Merci" in today's French is of course "thank you".) Keats probably knew a current translation which was supposed to be by Chaucer. In Keats's "Eve of Saint Agnes", the lover sings this old song as he is awakening his beloved.

"Wight" is an archaic name for a person. Like most people, I prefer "knight at arms" to "wretched wight", and obviously the illustrators of the poem did, too. ("Until I met her, I was a man of action!")

"Sedge" is any of several grassy marsh plants which can dominate a wet meadow.

"Fever dew" is the sweat (diaphoresis) of sickness. Keats originally wrote "death's lily" and "death's rose", and he refers to the flush and the pallor of illness. If the poet can actually see the normal red color leaving the cheeks of the knight, then the knight must be going rapidly into shock, i.e., the poet has come across the knight right as he is dying, and is recording his last words. (The knight is too enwrapped in his own experience to notice.)

"Sidelong" means sideways. A "fragrant zone" is a flower belt. "Elfin" means "pertaining to the elves", or the fairy world. A "grot" is of course a grotto. "Betide" means "happen", and "woe betide" is a more romantical version of the contemporary expression "---- happens". "Gloam" means gloom. A "thrall" is an abject slave.

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On Running After One’s Hat

-         G.K. Chesterton

G.K. Chesterton was one of the most significant writers of the 20^th centaury. He has been called the ‘Prince of Paradox’. He was a literary and social critic, historian, playwright, novelist, catholic theologian, debater and mystery writer. Chesterton’s writing consistently displayed wit and sense of humor. He employed paradox while making serious comments on the world, government, politics, philosophy, theology and many other topics.

The essay ‘On Running After One’s Hat’ is a typical example of Chesterton’s style of writing, with its fun and wit.

In the essay, Chesterton basically talks about the inconveniences of life and the right attitude which one has to develop towards them.

Chesterton’s own experience

In the beginning of the essay, the essayist talks about Battersea, his ‘own romantic town’ which was flooded, when he was in the countryside away from the flooded place. Instead of feeling glad, he says that he was envious about the opportunity he lost, to savor the beauty of the place, when it was flooded, because he considered Battersea, to be the most beautiful of human localities and thinks that when it was flooded, the waters would have doubled the beauty of the place and would have made it a vision of Venice. Venice being the romantic town built in water. He substantiates this attitude of his as he is well aware that not many would like the idea of enjoying flood or fire.

After this, he deviates from the discussion of his own experience and gives a different examples of inconveniences and talks about the right attitude and spirit with which they must be faced and at the end course back to his own experience and says that nothing more than inconvenience is caused by floods and to him inconvenience is just an adventure wrongly considered by the most unimaginative person.

Other instances of Inconveniences

Ø     A person having to hang about a railway station for a very long time considers it to be inconvenience.

Ø     Chesterton gives the example of a school boy who enjoys the same situation imagining various things like signal lights to be the new sun and the new moon and the falling of the wooden arms to be the staff of the king etc.

He further says that he himself was of the attitude of that little boy and also says that most of the purple hours of his life has been spent in waiting at Clapham Junction. Here Chesterton is trying to advocate the quality of simplicity of thought and imagination.

Ø     He comes to the topic of the title of the essay ‘On Running After One’s Hat’. He says that people dislike the idea of running after one’s hat not because it is tiring or exhausting because the same people run much faster in sports. So the main idea behind this hesitation is that people think that it is humiliating to run after their hat and become laughing stock to the on lookers.

Ø     Chesterton says that man is basically a comic creature but this sense of humiliation blocks the minds of people. The high opinions, the standards that they set for themselves become an obstacle for human beings towards attaining perfection. When he says that man is basically a comic creature, he is talking about the basic reality of life, the triviality of al the pomp, glory and luxury with which man isolates himself from others.

He even goes to the extent of saying that most of the things that man    does are comic and holds a man running after a hat better over a man running after a wife where he strikes a philosophical note which continues in the next part of the essay where he talks about the possibility of making running after ones hat, a sport of upper class people which comes with a sarcastic suggestion on the social system with the mention of upper class people in particular (Description in the text book).

He furthers the philosophical note of the previous paragraph where he says that the idea of making running after one’s hat is executed, it would equalize sports with humanitarianism. Humanitarianism is a theory which believed that man can attain perfection without divine aid. This is the area where Chesterton blends the two extremes of profundity and triviality. The trivial thing like running after one’s hat could make man perfect. These two ideas could be related in a very simple manner. The one, who would not consider it humiliating to run after his hat is the one who has realized the fact that man is basically a comic creature and who is aware of the basic and ultimate reality of life and this, in a way would pave towards attain perfection.

This is the point where inconvenience again becomes an amusement or adventure. Once the constraint of humiliation is removed, he can imagine himself as a jolly hunts man pursuing a wild animal, and finally, he can amuse himself, fill his heart with please and thanks with the realization of the fact that he has given so much of unaffected and innocent joy to the onlookers with all his gestures and bodily attitude.

Ø     Then he gives the example of the people who get annoyed if, while facing a the inconvenience of taking a fly out of a glass of milk or a cork out of a glass of wine and gives the best way how people can make such inconvenience an opportunity for exiting amusement instead of  being exasperated (tiring) and annoyed (refer text book)

Ø     The reference to the political condition of England and France in this part of the essay also strikes a sarcastic note. The idea of a person imagining himself involved in a tug-of-war between French and England while trying to pull out a jammed drawer could also be taken as his comment upon struggle and supremacy between world powers.

Ø     Here again he advocates the qualities of patience and imagination (Anglers/Fisherman)

Ø     The sentence ‘inconveniences that make men swear and women cry are imaginative, things all together of mind’ strikes as the key note of the essay in the first half itself. It means that conditions which are looked at as inconvenience are not exactly so, it depends upon the mentality, the view points and perspectives of people towards things. Its also clear when he says that the ‘sense of wrong doing is subjective and relative’ thing seems to be wrong, problematic, rather inconvenient because of the stubbornness of attitude. But if a person has the right attitude, flexibility and simplicity of thought and imagination, he would look at any situation in the best possible aspect of it. This is ended with an allusion reference which says that “Wine is good with everything except water” could also be looked at from the other angle to say that “Water is good with every thing except wine.”

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 THE DARKLING THRUSH

In the sense of brevity and descriptive art The Darkling Thrush is the masterpiece of Thomas Hardy which at the same time expresses his mixed reaction - pessimism and optimism for the coming generation. At the fag end of the nineteenth century, i. e.  on 31^st December 1900, the last day of 19^th century , the day the poem is composed, the poet is somewhat listless. The vast desolate winter atmosphere and lifelessness create a fit occasion to give rise in the poet’s mind to the central thought embodied in the poem- a pensive  reflection to life and society.

 Poems of the Past and the Present (1901), which includes The Darkling Thrush, contains many poems expressing Hardy's dismay with British imperialism. There he also mourns the passing of agricultural society and sees little cause to celebrate England’s rapid industrialization, which destroy the customs and traditions of rural life. Here in The Darkling Thrush ,in the transition of two centuries, he finds nothing hopeful or constructive. Yet there remains remote possibilities which the thrush prophesies.                                        

  First of all the poet presents a desolate winter scene at the close of the day. People living nearby had retired indoors. There was frost which was pale as ghost. The inclement weather of the winter still prevailed and the sun has already set on the western horizon. The stems of the bine trees have already reached the sky. Each and every member of the society was in earnest quest of their domestic entertainments. The poet is leant upon the gate. The sharp features of the landscape appeared to be the corpse or dead body of the nineteenth century. The century was almost dying. The process of birth and growth seemed to have stopped in the rigorous winter. The sky was cloudy, a storm was blowing. Every living being felt gloom and depression. But suddenly a song issued from the dark and decayed branches of the tree. It was spontaneous and it comes from the inner most core of the heart. It was excessively joyous and delightful. An old thrush that was lean, frail and weak was singing to his heart’s content in the midst of enveloping darkness. His plume was perturbed by the gust of wind. The poet finds the ray of hope in the bird’s song. He hopes for the coming golden future.

                Hardy’s thrush represents his pessimism in the midst of optimism or reversal. It seems that Hardy is stranded between optimism and pessimism, between hope and despair. The poet is acutely suffering from a kind of dilemma or conflict. The evening symbolizes left helpless, despair, frustration, metal darkness and disillusionment. But the song of the thrush symbolizes the spirit of hope a hope for a world of beauty, a world which is devoid of ugliness, the hope of the beginning of a new era or century or Millennium. It represents the passing away of an old century and heralding of a bright and hopeful new century.

                In The Darkling Thrush, Hardy the pessimist sings the glory of Hardy, the optimist. Although all was not right with his world, yet all was not wrong, all was not dead. Only for a moment, the pulse of the life seemed to stop but in the very next moment with all spontaneity life spring up with all its “joy illimited”. Beneath the wintry desolation there lies the eternal pulse of germ and birth. Behind the death of the old century there is the birth of new century, behind death and despair there is hope and life. From the very title of the poem it is clear that the thrush is sitting in the dark in the encircling gloom just like Hardy himself in “the long drip of human tears”. Yet out of this gloom bursts a song of hope, out of the goodnight air trembles forth an air of good morning – “if winter comes can spring be far behind”. The thrush thus symbolized the spirit of resurrection of new life of joy and hope that lay in store of the future, the store of the new century. The poet has not been transported out of the “growing gloom” of the present century but his response to the thrush’s song is positive. Although the “blessed Hope” i.e. knowledge of hope and prosperity only the bird has and of which the poet is yet unaware, Hardy accepts the bird’s song as a sign that there is hope for the future.

                Hardy’s The Darkling Thrush is the basis of Hardy’s self-designated “evolutionary meliorism”. Hardy has a growing consciousness or awareness of the ‘blessed hope’ for the future generation. Hardy is basically pessimistic but a note of optimism is noticed here in his faith in man’s future. The song of the thrush is joyous and spontaneous. The bird by virtue of its instinct knows the future but the poet is not aware of. Here Hardy’s attitude to nature is philosophical. Nature’s outward appearance may change but life in Nature in never dead.

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THE PULLEY

Theme: . The theme of this poem is a relationship between God and his creation of man. God is the father and uses this pulley to pull man back to him and keep him good. “The Pulley” illustrates the life of a man growing up, experiencing life, and developing a pulley relationship with God.

In George Herbert’s poem “The Pulley”, there is a direct parallel to Pandora’s Box. Pandora’s Box contains all the evils of the world; opening the box releases evil that cannot be undone. In the poem, “The Pulley,” by George Herbert, he uses a metaphorical pulley on Man so that God can keep a pull on man to come to his salvation and not take part in opening Pandora’s boxIn the beginning of this poem, Herbert states that

Lines 1-3“When God at first made man, / Having a glass of blessing standing by, / Let us (he said) pour all on him we can.”

 These lines tell the reader that when God created man, God gave everything he had to offer to the man. He literally poured his blessings on the man. God blesses the man and gives him all his riches because God feels that  man is worthy of these riches. God does this out of the goodness of his heart and love for the man.

Metaphor :a glass of blessing compared to the creation of mankind

Lines 6-7 Herbert says, “So strength first made a way, / Then beauty flowed, then wisdom, honour, pleasure.”  

The reader must understand that after he blessed the man in the preceding passage of the poem, he flourishes the man with gifts like, wisdom, honor, and pleasure. Then, after God gives man everything he has to offer, Herbert states,

Lines 8-10  “When almost all was out, God made a stay, / Perceiving that, alone of all His treasure, / Rest in the bottom lay.”

This part of the poem means that after everything God has passed upon the man, and after there was almost nothing left, God gave the rest. This demonstrates God was a true savior and had incredibly respectable morals to be able to give everything he has away and not be filled with greed to keep anything for himself.

Pun: Rest 1.Remaining 2.Physical Rest (peace of mind)

(Lines 14-15)  “For if I should (said he) / Bestow this jewel also on My creature, / He would adore My gifts instead of Me.” (11-13) Herbert is saying that God will endow all his gifts on man, but then man might start to worship the gifts instead of God. If this were to happen, Herbert says, “And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature: / So both should be losers.”

In other words, if the man worships the gifts instead of God, then both the Man and God are failures. Man failed to understand that God is the true God and creator and he should worship him and not gifts. Also, God failed because he did not make it clear to the man who he should worship and the man chose a different path other than God. Both are failures because the man chooses to pursue something unholy and not worthy like God intended. This is the choice that every man must make, because Pandora’s box is temping but the man must understand that God is doing everything he can out of love.

Lines 16-17 In the last passage of the poem, Herbert states, “Yet let him keep the rest, / But keep them with repining restlessness.”

 The reader needs to understand that if God and man are both failures, God says to let the man keep the gifts, but with discontent in every aspect of his life following this choice. Herbert follows with, “Let him be rich and weary, that at least, / If goodness lead him not, yet weariness / May toss him to My breast.” (18-20) Therefore, God says, let the man be rich and weary. If God’s goodness does not lead the man to worship him, let the weariness make the man go back to God. Again, we are back to the pulley. The man has a choice, he can either be weary and live a miserable life, or realize how good God has made it for him and continue to stay under his protection. God only wants what is best for his creation. He hopes that man will worship him on his own, but if not, let the despair lead him back to God and the good life.

God has withheld the gift of rest from man knowing fully well that His other treasures would one day result in a spiritual restlessness and fatigue in man who, having tired of His material gifts, would necessarily turn to God in his exhaustion. God, being omniscient and prescient, knows that there is the possibility that even the wicked might not turn to Him, but He knows that eventually mortal man is prone to lethargy; his lassitude, then, would be the leverage He needed to toss man to His breast

After reading this poem, the reader will come to realize that God is only seeking to make the best possible life for all humans. He hopes that people will choose the right path and obey God, for he has created them. If man does not choose the right path, they will be surrounded by Pandora’s box until they decide to change and worship their one and only God. In this poem, Herbert is making a very strong point that God has created man, and all humans make mistakes; therefore, God has created a metaphorical pulley that reminds humans they are still connected, but might need that extra pull to come back to worshiping their true creator.

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The World is too much with Us

n    William Wordsworth

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Commentary:

The poem falls in line with a number of sonnets written by Wordsworth in the early 1800s that criticize or admonish what he saw as the decadent material cynicism of the time. This relatively simple poem angrily states that human beings are too preoccupied with materialistic pleasures and have lost touch with the spiritual and with nature. In the sestet, the speaker dramatically proposes an impossible personal solution to his problem—he wishes he could have been raised as a pagan, so he could still see ancient gods in the actions of nature and thereby gain spiritual solace. His thunderous “Great God!” indicates the extremity of his wish in Christian England, one did not often wish to be a pagan.

On the whole, this sonnet offers an angry summation of the familiar Wordsworthian theme of communion with nature and states precisely how far the early nineteenth century was from living out the Wordsworthian ideal. The Petrarchan sonnet is important for its rhetorical force.

Theme and Summary:

The speaker complains that “the world” is too overwhelming for us to appreciate it. We’re so concerned about time and money that we use up all our energy. People want to accumulate stuff, so they see nothing in Nature that they can “own.” According to the speaker, we’ve sold our souls. We should be able to appreciate beautiful events like the moon shining over the ocean and the blowing of strong winds, but it’s like we’re on a different wavelength from Nature. The speaker would rather be a pagan who worships an outdated religion so that when he gazes out on the ocean (as he is doing now), he might feel less sad. If he were a pagan, he’d see wild mythological gods like Proteus, who can take many shapes, and Triton, who looks like a mer-man.

Society is so bent on making and spending money in smoky factories and fast-paced business enterprises that it ignores the pristine glory of nature, which is a reflection of the divine. This is a universal theme that is relevant in today’s world.

Tone:

The tone is angry, modulated with sarcasm and seeming vengefulness. First, the poet scolds society for devoting all its energies to material enterprises. While pampering their bodies, he says people are starving their souls. He next announces sarcastically that he would rather be a pagan; at least then he could appreciate nature through different eyes and even see Proteus rising from the sea—perhaps to wreak vengeance on complacent humankind.

Initially he uses first person plural and later first person singular, use of first person plural enables him to chastise the world without seeming preachy or sanctimonious, for he is including himself in the reprim.

Figurative Devices:

Personification: The winds that will be howling…like sleeping flowers.

Classical allusions: Proteus, Triton

Oxymoron: sordid boon

Imagery

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