Image: Emily Dickinson – Amherst College – Daguerrotype of the poet at age 17, circa 1847 – likely the only authentic, extant likeness of the poet
Emily Dickinson’s “Going to Heaven!”
The speaker of “Going to Heaven!” muses on the certainty of heaven with equal measures of astonishment and earthly attachment, moving through three stanzas of tender, searching honesty.
Introduction and Text of “Going to Heaven!”
The speaker in Emily Dickinson’s “Going to Heaven!” addresses an unnamed listener, confessing her astonishment at heaven’s inevitability while simultaneously expressing a glad reluctance to leave the Earth behind.
On the literal level, the poem is a musing on what the speaker does and does not know about dying and what follows. She knows heaven is coming; she does not know when or how, and that gap between certainty and comprehension is the poem’s central drama.
On my literary website, Linda’s Literary Home, I have argued that the concept of immortality was one of Dickinson’s deepest preoccupations throughout her creative life, a question she returned to with unfailing curiosity and spiritual seriousness.
The poem moves stanza by stanza from bewilderment, to communal longing, to a final and deeply personal grief held alongside gladness. The speaker never resolves the tension between loving the Earth and accepting heaven; she simply holds both, honestly and without apology. That honesty is what gives the poem its enduring emotional power.
Going to Heaven!
I don’t know when – Pray do not ask me how! Indeed I’m too astonished To think of answering you! Going to Heaven! How dim it sounds! And yet it will be done As sure as flocks go home at night Unto the Shepherd’s arm!
Perhaps you’re going too! Who knows? If you should get there first Save just a little space for me Close to the two I lost – The smallest “Robe” will fit me And just a bit of “Crown” – For you know we do not mind our dress When we are going home –
I’m glad I don’t believe it For it would stop my breath – And I’d like to look a little more At such a curious Earth! I’m glad they did believe it Whom I have never found Since the mighty Autumn afternoon I left them in the ground.
Commentary on “Going to Heaven!”
The speaker’s musing enacts a spiritual journey moving from bewilderment through communal longing to grief and gladness held together in the same breath. Each stanza adds a new layer to the speaker’s understanding of what heaven means and what it will cost her.
First Stanza: What I Do Not Know
I don’t know when – Pray do not ask me how! Indeed I’m too astonished To think of answering you! Going to Heaven! How dim it sounds! And yet it will be done As sure as flocks go home at night Unto the Shepherd’s arm!
The speaker opens by announcing plainly that she cannot answer her listener’s questions about when or how she will go to heaven, not because she doubts it, but because the fact of it leaves her too astonished to speak.
The exclamation “Going to Heaven!” is less a cry of joy than a gasp of disbelief that such a thing should be true. The speaker is not refusing to answer; she is genuinely overwhelmed.
She then makes a striking admission: heaven “sounds” dim to her, meaning the word itself feels thin and inadequate against the magnitude of what it names. This insight spring from a characteristically Dickinsonian observation—the language of religion, worn smooth by repetition, fails to convey the actual force of the reality it describes. The speaker senses the reality is immense; she simply cannot yet grasp it.
Yet the stanza closes in warmth and confidence, comparing the soul’s going to heaven to flocks returning to the shepherd’s arm at nightfall. Paramahansa Yogananda teaches, in his “On Understanding Death and Loss,” that death is not a catastrophe but a natural passage of the soul into greater freedom and divine awareness.
The speaker’s shepherd simile expresses exactly that understanding: going home is the soul’s most natural motion, as inevitable and as gentle as a lamb finding its shepherd at dusk.
Second Stanza: You, too, maybe!
Perhaps you’re going too! Who knows? If you should get there first Save just a little space for me Close to the two I lost – The smallest “Robe” will fit me And just a bit of “Crown” – For you know we do not mind our dress When we are going home –
The speaker now turns to her listener with sudden warmth, wondering aloud whether that person, too, may be going to heaven. “Who knows?” she asks—a phrase of genuine spiritual humility, acknowledging that she cannot determine the soul’s schedule, her own or anyone else’s. The tone shifts from private astonishment to something communal and tender.
She then makes her most touching request: that a small space be saved for her near “the two I lost.” The term “two” points to specific, beloved persons already departed, whose identity the speaker keeps private but whose absence she carries openly.
The capitalized “Robe” and “Crown” gently deflate the grandeur traditionally associated with heavenly reward; the speaker asks for the smallest of each, expressing a humility that is as genuine as it is quietly playful.
The stanza closes by returning to the phrase “going home,” linking it directly to the shepherd simile of the first stanza and reinforcing the poem’s central conviction that death is not exile but return.
Paramahansa Yogananda’s teachings explain that the soul is a perfect reflection of God’s consciousness and that its passage beyond the physical plane is a homecoming to its Eternal Source.
The speaker’s easy dismissal of heavenly dress—“we do not mind our dress / When we are going home”—reflects that same priority: the reunion matters infinitely more than the clothing.
Third Stanza: Glad for not Believing
I’m glad I don’t believe it For it would stop my breath – And I’d like to look a little more At such a curious Earth! I’m glad they did believe it Whom I have never found Since the mighty Autumn afternoon I left them in the ground.
The speaker now delivers the poem’s most surprising statement: she is glad she does not yet fully believe in her going to heaven, because that belief, fully realized, would stop her breath and take her from “such a curious Earth.”
She is not denying heaven; she is confessing that she still loves the Earth too much to be entirely ready to leave it. On my literary website Linda’s Literary Home, I have discussed Dickinson’s deep attentiveness to the natural world alongside her spiritual curiosity as a parallel devotion, neither canceling out the other.
The speaker then turns her gladness in a new direction: she is glad that “they did believe it”—those she has not seen since a mighty autumn afternoon when she left them in the ground.
That single phrase, “left them in the ground,” is the poem’s most direct and devastating moment, stripping away all metaphor to name the plain fact of burial. Their belief in heaven was their comfort in dying, and she honors it with a gladness that is inseparable from grief.
Paramahansa Yogananda teaches that souls who have departed dwell in expanded freedom and love, and that the bonds of deep spiritual friendship are not broken by death but simply suspended until reunion.
The speaker closes the poem holding two kinds of gladness at once —gladness to remain a little longer on the curious Earth, and gladness that those she loved and buried believed in the heaven toward which she, too, is inexorably going.
Time’s hands unveil as morning’s glow fades, A silver face like pewter forward parades. In silence, like the dove on fence post still, The pewter visage moves with quiet will.
The mind holds desires in a brimming cup, No calming stone of regret to lift up. As blood flushes cheeks in meandering flow, A vein in the brain bursts, letting life go.
Skin stays unchanged through centuries long, Where invented wheels roll, heavy and strong. Unswayed by mourners’ destiny so grim, An endless route of minds, intruding, skims.
The turtle’s dark lips part in silent speech, Each soul burns star-like, beyond earthly reach. Over rocks of intrigue and fury they soar, As mapping songs on breezes gently pour.
Stone wise, the world remains a place so hard, Brute gales and pestilence, hidden, stand guard. Tempting the margins with blasts of sin’s might, The devil plays judge, spinning games of spite.
From Spoon River Anthology, Edgar Lee Masters’ American classic, the epitaph “Cassius Huffier” is written in the American-Innovative sonnet tradition: reversing the Petrarchan octave and sestet, while revealing the depravity of the speaker.
Introduction and Text of “Cassius Hueffer”
Edgar Lee Masters’ “Cassius Hueffer” from the Spoon River Anthology offers up the acerbic belly-aching of a man who hated life so completely that even after his death, he continues his belly-aching about the epitaph written on his tombstone.
Cassius Hueffer
They have chiseled on my stone the words: “His life was gentle, and the elements so mixed in him That nature might stand up and say to all the world, This was a man.” Those who knew me smile As they read this empty rhetoric.
My epitaph should have been: “Life was not gentle to him, And the elements so mixed in him That he made warfare on life, In the which he was slain.” While I lived I could not cope with slanderous tongues, Now that I am dead I must submit to an epitaph Graven by a fool!
Commentary on “Cassius Hueffer”
From Spoon River Anthology, Edgar Lee Masters’ American classic, the epitaph “Cassius Huffier” is written in the American-Innovative sonnet tradition: reversing the Petrarchan octave and sestet, while revealing the depravity of the speaker.
The Sestet: “They have chiseled on my stone the words”
They have chiseled on my stone the words: “His life was gentle, and the elements so mixed in him That nature might stand up and say to all the world, This was a man.” Those who knew me smile As they read this empty rhetoric.
The speaker, Cassius Hueffer, lays out the epitaph that is carved into his grave marker: “His life was gentle, and the elements so mixed in him / That nature might stand up and say to all the world, / This was a man.”
In order to refute the truth of such a claim, Huffier reports that the statement will make the people who were well acquainted with him “smile” because those folks would know well that those kind words are merely, “empty rhetoric.
The epitaph states that Hueffer had been a gentle, loving man in whom “the elements” stacked themselves up to render him a genuine “man.” The epitaph leads people to believe that Cassius Hueffer was a warm man, who always had a kind greeting for those he encountered, and he behaved as a caring soul who was loved and admired by everyone he met.
Of course, Hueffer knows otherwise; therefore, he declares that those words are merely “empty rhetoric.” Huffier is also aware that the people who chafed under his abusive character flaws would comprehend immediately the emptiness of that rhetoric.
The Octave: “My epitaph should have been”
My epitaph should have been: “Life was not gentle to him, And the elements so mixed in him That he made warfare on life, In the which he was slain.” While I lived I could not cope with slanderous tongues, Now that I am dead I must submit to an epitaph Graven by a fool!
After striking down such a beautiful yet vacuous epitaph as it is written, Hueffer suggests his own version, the one that he knows ought to be chiseled on his grave marker: “Life was not gentle to him, / And the elements so mixed in him / That he made warfare on life, / In the which he was slain.”
Hueffer contests the idea that his life was “gentle,” but he does not actually dispute the accuracy of the claim that his own life was gentle, just the “idea” that life was gentle “to him.”
Hueffer contends that life did not deal gently with him. He then employs the same form to assert, “the elements” were “mixed in him” in such a way as to urge him always to be at “warfare on life.” Thus, he battled in life like a warrior, but finally, he “was slain.”
The speaker does not elaborate about the manner in which he was “slain,” but he does contend that he was not able to abide “with slanderous tongues.” He continues in his vagueness, however; thus, the reader remains without any information about either the nature of the slander, or how Hueffer left this earth.
But his last dig at life and society and particularly the person who is responsible for the inaccurately carved epitaph is especially focused as it points an accusing finger: “Now that I am dead I must submit to an epitaph / Graven by a fool!”
Resentful in Life, Resentful in Death
Although many readers of this poem may remain puzzled by the specifics of Hueffer’s life—why he carried on as such a misanthrope? what was the nature of the slander he actually suffered? how did he finally die?—such issues, in the long run, are not vital to the message of the poem, which is simply the grievance of a man who lived a resentful life and now undergoes a resentful death.
Representing the fifth epitaph in Masters’ Spoon River Anthology is the character named Robert Fulton Tanner, who compares his life to a rat caught in a trap.
Introduction and Text of “Robert Fulton Tanner”
Edgar Lee Masters’ “Robert Fulton Tanner” is the fifth epitaph in the American classic Spoon River Anthology. Fulton is a pathetic character, who discovers that building a better mouse trap might only get up a cockeyed metaphor to fling at this thing vaguely called “Life.”
Robert Fulton Tanner
If a man could bite the giant hand That catches and destroys him, As I was bitten by a rat While demonstrating my patent trap, In my hardware store that day. But a man can never avenge himself On the monstrous ogre Life. You enter the room—that’s being born; And then you must live—work out your soul, Aha! the bait that you crave is in view: A woman with money you want to marry, Prestige, place, or power in the world. But there’s work to do and things to conquer— Oh, yes! the wires that screen the bait. At last you get in—but you hear a step: The ogre, Life, comes into the room, (He was waiting and heard the clang of the spring) To watch you nibble the wondrous cheese, And stare with his burning eyes at you, And scowl and laugh, and mock and curse you, Running up and down in the trap, Until your misery bores him.
Commentary on “Robert Fulton Tanner”
The fifth epitaph in Masters’ Spoon River Anthology features the character named Robert Fulton Tanner, who compares his life to a rat caught in a trap.
First Movement: Holding a Grudge
“Robert Fulton Tanner” holds a grudge, and he holds it against “Life.”” He thus blames “Life” for his misery, and he muses on the notion of being able the bite that hand of Life that has bitten him. If he could have bitten that “giant hand,” then what? He does not say. It appears he did not think beyond that luscious ability. Or perhaps he thinks such biting would be enough to avenge his plight.
Reader/listeners are free to imagine the consequence of such biting, and the only safe conclusion is that Tanner would feel better if he could have accomplished such a biting. Likening that “giant hand” to God, as well as Life, Tanner reveals that he is a hardware store owner, who had determined that he had built a better mouse trap.
But while demonstrating that “patent trap,” a rat bit his hand. And that bitter event unleashed in Tanner’s mind all that would go wrong in his life henceforth. From that day forth, he would see himself as a victim of the giant hand, which caught him and destroyed him.
Second Movement: Biting God’s Hand
If only one could bite that giant hand—of God, of Life, or of whatever—living would be improved for the man. Unfortunately, that is never going to happen, and Tanner knows it.
Tanner then goes on a philosophically tinged discourse, likening being born to entering a room. He observes that one must “live” and “work out [one’s soul].” He pities himself for having to do such work, but then transforming himself into the rat seeking bait, he admits that sought to marry a woman who had money.
And then he marries her for “prestige, place, or power in the world.” The reader’s likely sympathy at this point turns to disgust at the incivility of this speaker. Who seeks a woman to marry to achieve wealth and power? Only scoundrels unworthy of the very wealth and power they seek.
Third Movement: Life Requires Effort
Having discovered that all of life requires some kind of effort, he highlights his having to perform and struggle just to get to the woman in order to woo her. But to him, she is just a piece of rat bait. He must exert much effort just to get to her. But like the rat who spies a piece of cheese, he does what it takes to grasp that morsel.
After achieving his goal of marrying the woman he sought, he finds not the wealth, the power, the prestige he thought he was pursuing, but that that “ogre, Life,” is entering the room again, watching him munch at the bait, while scowling and laughing at him.
What has he achieved? Only more of that monster Life eating at him. Of course, the reader realizes that the only ogre in this lazy, evil opportunist’s life is Robert Fulton Tanner himself. He has destroyed his own life because he failed to understand honesty, sincerity, and genuine affection while striving for self-improvement.
Fourth Movement: Self-Professed Victims
Self-professed victims are all the same: someone else is to blame for their misery. They have no role in making themselves miserable. They cannot see that it is exactly what they have done that has resulted in all the misery of their lives.
The final image of Robert Fulton “[r]unning up and down in the trap” is most appropriate. But his ignorance of how he got there is the real ogre in his life. It is not God or “Life” that will become “bored” with his misery; it is his own self who will experience that boredom until he discovers a way out of it.
Paramahansa Yogananda’s “My Krishna Is Blue” reveals the chanter’s yearning for union with Krishna consciousness. He is envisioning a state beyond ordinary awareness, where the soul rises to the highest level of divine realization—self-realization.
Introduction and Text of “My Krishna Is Blue”
Paramahansa Yogananda’s “My Krishna Is Blue” is a devotional chant consisting of three movements. Through chant repetition and simplicity, the chanter dramatizes his profound love for Krishna and his longing to dwell perpetually in the Divine Presence.
The chant progresses from recognition to aspiration and finally to spiritual identification. The chanter first notices a correspondence between Krishna and the blue tamal tree, then expresses a desire to ascend to its highest branch, and finally longs to die where Krishna sat.
On the literal level, the chanter appears to be praising a tree associated with Krishna. On the mystical level, however, the imagery points beyond physical nature toward the soul’s desire to attain the exalted consciousness embodied by Krishna.
My Krishna Is Blue
My Krishna is blue; the tamal tree is blue. My Krishna is blue; The tamal tree is blue. So I do love thee, tamal tree! So I do love thee, my tamal tree!
And when I die, O Mother! Do put me high On a branch of the tamal tree, On a branch of the tamal tree.
Where Krishna sat, there I would die, Where Krishna sat, there I would die, On a branch of the tamal tree, On a branch of the tamal tree.
Commentary on “My Krishna Is Blue”
Paramahansa Yogananda’s “My Krishna Is Blue” reveals the soul’s devotion to the Divine Beloved. The chanter’s simple chant also expresses a profound spiritual aspiration toward God-union.
First Movement: “My Krishna is blue”
My Krishna is blue; the tamal tree is blue. My Krishna is blue; The tamal tree is blue. So I do love thee, tamal tree! So I do love thee, my tamal tree!
The chanter begins by establishing an identity between Krishna and the tamal tree. Both are described as blue, and that shared quality causes the chanter to regard the tree with affection and reverence.
The repetition carries the force of devotional musing rather than ordinary description. The chanter seems to be dwelling lovingly upon a spiritual correspondence that links the visible object with the Divine Reality symbolized by Krishna.
Because Krishna and the tamal tree share the same color, the tree becomes more than a botanical object. It functions as an emblem of Krishna consciousness and therefore deserves the chanter’s devotion.
The declaration—“So I do love thee, tamal tree!”—reveals that the chanter’s love for the tree derives from its association with Krishna. The affection is not directed toward matter but toward the divine presence reflected through matter.
The repeated address, “my tamal tree,” adds intimacy to the relationship. The chanter regards the tree as a sacred possession because it serves as a reminder of the beloved Lord.
Paramahansa Yogananda frequently emphasizes perceiving God’s presence throughout creation. Paramahansa Yogananda explains that divine consciousness may be perceived behind all forms, and the chanter’s vision reflects that spiritual perception.
On my literary website Linda’s Literary Home, I have discussed how poets often employ physical imagery to suggest metaphysical realities. The chanter similarly employs the visible tamal tree as a symbol pointing toward an invisible spiritual state.
The stanza therefore moves beyond literal description. Through the repeated equation of Krishna and the blue tamal tree, the chanter transforms a natural image into a symbol of divine consciousness.
Second Movement: “And when I die, O Mother!”
And when I die, O Mother! Do put me high On a branch of the tamal tree, On a branch of the tamal tree.
The second stanza shifts from recognition to aspiration. Having established the sacred significance of the tamal tree, the chanter now expresses a fervent desire regarding his own destiny.
The address to “Mother” adds emotional intensity, referring to the Divine Mother. The invocation conveys humility and dependence before a higher power. At first glance, the request appears unusual. The chanter asks to be placed “high” upon a branch of the tamal tree rather than buried or laid to rest in some conventional manner.
The word “high” becomes the stanza’s crucial term. The chanter does not merely seek proximity to the tree; he desires elevation within it. Such elevation suggests ascent rather than location. The imagery points toward a higher level of consciousness rather than a merely physical position.
The branch functions as a metaphorical rather than literal destination. To imagine a devotee sincerely wishing to have his body suspended in a tree would diminish the spiritual seriousness of the chant. Instead, the high branch symbolizes the summit of awareness. The chanter longs to rise to the highest attainable state of realization.
Paramahansa Yogananda repeatedly teaches that human consciousness may ascend from body-awareness to soul-awareness through spiritual discipline. The chanter’s longing for the highest branch harmonizes with that teaching of spiritual ascent.
On my literary website Linda’s Literary Home, I have often observed that poetry rarely states its deepest meanings directly. Through symbol and suggestion, poets allow intuition to perceive realities that ordinary language cannot adequately express. Thus the high branch becomes an image of supreme spiritual attainment. The chanter prays not for physical elevation but for the soul’s ascent into divine consciousness.
Third Movement: “Where Krishna sat, there I would die”
Where Krishna sat, there I would die, Where Krishna sat, there I would die, On a branch of the tamal tree, On a branch of the tamal tree.
The final stanza reveals the chanter’s ultimate desire. He wishes to die precisely where Krishna sat. The statement deepens the symbolic significance of the branch. It is not merely high; it is the place occupied by Krishna. If Krishna represents perfected divine consciousness, then the branch symbolizes the level of realization attained by that consciousness. The chanter longs to occupy the same spiritual station.
The repeated line intensifies the devotional yearning. The chanter does not seek worldly rewards, intellectual accomplishment, or heavenly pleasures. Instead, he desires complete identification with Krishna. The aspiration is one of union rather than admiration from a distance.
The word “die” also carries spiritual significance. Mystical literature frequently employs death as a symbol for the dissolution of ego-consciousness.The chanter therefore longs for the extinction of the limited self in the very state inhabited by Krishna. Such a death would not signify annihilation but fulfillment.
Paramahansa Yogananda teaches that the soul’s highest goal is realization of its unity with Spirit. The chanter’s desire to die where Krishna sat reflects precisely such a yearning for God-union. The repeated return to the tamal tree completes the chant’s symbolic design. What began as a blue tree associated with Krishna culminates as a metaphor for the highest spiritual center.
The chant’s simplicity is permeated with remarkable depth. Through the image of a blue tamal tree and its highest branch, the chanter dramatizes the soul’s longing to rise into Krishna consciousness and experience the liberating realization of divine union.
Edgar Lee Masters’ “Ollie McGee”and “Fletcher McGee”
“Ollie McGee” and her husband “Fletcher McGee” report their complaints in the third and fourth poems from Masters’ Spoon River Anthology. The couple elucidates the status of their marriage.
Ollie McGee Speaks
Mrs. McGee begins by posing a question and then launches her accusation.
Ollie McGee
Have you seen walking through the village A man with downcast eyes and haggard face? That is my husband who, by secret cruelty Never to be told, robbed me of my youth and my beauty; Till at last, wrinkled and with yellow teeth, And with broken pride and shameful humility, I sank into the grave. But what think you gnaws at my husband’s heart? The face of what I was, the face of what he made me! These are driving him to the place where I lie. In death, therefore, I am avenged.
Commentary on “Ollie McGee”
Ollie McGee offers her take on her marriage with Fletcher McGee.
First Movement: Question and Accusation
Have you seen walking through the village A man with downcast eyes and haggard face? That is my husband who, by secret cruelty Never to be told, robbed me of my youth and my beauty; Till at last, wrinkled and with yellow teeth, And with broken pride and shameful humility, I sank into the grave.
Mrs. “Ollie McGee” begins with a query, wondering if her listeners have observed, “a man with downcast eyes and haggard face,” ambling throughout the village from time to time. She then admits that that haggard face belongs to the man who was her husband.
The speaker then begins to hurl accusations at the man. The wife reveals that he is guilty of horrifying cruelty: the man took away his wife’s youth as well as her beauty. This theft continued over the lifetime of their miserable marriage. Mrs. McGee then died, “wrinkled and with yellow teeth.” He stole her pride and made her suffer “shameful humility.”
Second Movement: Vengeance
But what think you gnaws at my husband’s heart? The face of what I was, the face of what he made me! These are driving him to the place where I lie. In death, therefore, I am avenged.
Ollie then offers a further inquiry, as she questions whether her listeners know what “gnaws at my husband’s heart.” She contends that two images likely unsettle her husband’s heart and mind: “the face of what I was”and “the face of what he made me.” Mrs. McGee asserts that these images are taking his life, “driving him to the place where I lie.” Thus she has convinced herself that she is getting her revenge in death.
Fletcher McGee Speaks
Fletcher McGee offers his own complaint but reveals himself to be a criminal in his own behavior.
Fletcher McGee
She took my strength by minutes, She took my life by hours, She drained me like a fevered moon That saps the spinning world. The days went by like shadows, The minutes wheeled like stars. She took the pity from my heart, And made it into smiles. She was a hunk of sculptor’s clay, My secret thoughts were fingers: They flew behind her pensive brow And lined it deep with pain. They set the lips, and sagged the cheeks, And drooped the eyes with sorrow. My soul had entered in the clay, Fighting like seven devils. It was not mine, it was not hers; She held it, but its struggles Modeled a face she hated, And a face I feared to see. I beat the windows, shook the bolts. I hid me in a corner— And then she died and haunted me, And hunted me for life.
Commentary on “Fletcher McGee”
Two miserable people made each other miserable, but who was the actual culprit in this dungheap of a marriage?
First Movement: Accusations Returned
She took my strength by minutes, She took my life by hours, She drained me like a fevered moon That saps the spinning world. The days went by like shadows, The minutes wheeled like stars.
Mr. “Fletcher McGee” also begins his epitaph with appalling accusations against his wife. Just as he had done, she had foisted on him unspeakable cruelty: “she took my strength,””she took my life,” “she drained me.”
This speaker also includes time measurements to each complaint, in order to increase and compound the pain he claims he suffered at the hands of this woman. Mr. McGee then asserts, “the days went by like shadows, / the minutes wheeled like stars.” His days were dark but time seemed to drag on in an other worldly fashion. He seemed unable to concentrate on anything worthwhile.
Second Movement: Vengeance Returned
She was a hunk of sculptor’s clay, My secret thoughts were fingers: They flew behind her pensive brow And lined it deep with pain. They set the lips, and sagged the cheeks, And drooped the eyes with sorrow. My soul had entered in the clay, Fighting like seven devils. It was not mine, it was not hers; She held it, but its struggles Modeled a face she hated, And a face I feared to see. I beat the windows, shook the bolts. I hid me in a corner— And then she died and haunted me, And hunted me for life.
After fiercely complaining that Mrs. McGee ruined his life, Mr. McGee freely and somewhat gleefully confesses that he, in fact quite deliberately, ruined hers. Instead of pitying his wife for her unhappiness and shrewish behavior, he came to possess the ability to smile about her suffering. His “smiles”grew out of the fact that he had power over her.
He came to see her only as “a hunk of sculptor’s clay.” Thus Mr. McGee went about working to sculpt ugly features onto his wife’s face. This despicable husband asserts that, “my secret thoughts were fingers.” He continues with the sculptor metaphor, as he affirms what Ollie has earlier said about the man.
The miserable husband freely confesses and describes his fingers as sculptors, motivated by his “secret thoughts”which “lined” “her pensive brow” “deep with pain.” Mr. McGee again freely admits that he, in fact, “set the lips, and sagged the cheeks, / And drooped the eyes with sorrow.”
He then bizarrely asserts that his “soul had entered in the clay.” Thus his soul became the force of evil, “fighting like seven devils.” He appears to have become so hooked on making her miserable that he just could not stop himself. His evil served him like a dangerous drug.
Mr. McGee then admits that he actually killed her: “I beat the windows, shook the bolts.” He vaguely claims that he hid “in a corner,” and “she died and haunted me / And hunted me for life.”
He took advantage of his weak, depressed, sorrowful wife. He fully realized what he was doing. Therefore, it becomes clear that Ollie was correct about her lout of a husband, who was in fact a criminal.
At least, Mrs. McGee can feel somewhat avenged in death. But a pathetic irony is laced within these pitiful confessions. Readers are left to doubt that any vengeance or feeling “haunted”can, in fact, offer these tortured souls any meaningful rest.
His words did roam through lanes of rustic gold, By fields where amber wheat doth kiss the sky, Along the river’s bend, both swift and bold, O’er arches wrought of stone they softly fly.
Through wooded snares and breezes light they sweep, Above the crawfish in their misty play, Each sound ablaze, as if the night to keep, A flame of moonshine gilds the fleeting day.
His phrases dance round lilies of the morn, And spark a gleam within mine eyes to shine, Like candlewood where autumn shades are born— Yet sad to say his wayward soul doth not align.
Beneath the boughs, my heart did strain to hear, His tongue’s dulcet tones, to me now no longer dear.
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