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  • William Butler Yeats’ “The Second Coming”

    William Butler Yeats’ “The Second Coming”

    William Butler Yeats’ “The Second Coming” remains one of the most widely misunderstood poems of the 20th century. Many scholars and critics have failed to criticize the exaggeration in the first stanza and the absurd metaphor in the second stanza, which render a potentially fine poem a critical failure.

    Introduction with Text of “The Second Coming”

    Poems, in order to communicate, must be as logical as the purpose and content require. For example, if the poet wishes to comment on or criticize an issue, he must adhere to physical facts in his poetic drama. If the poet wishes to emote, equivocate, or demonstrate the chaotic nature of his cosmic thinking, he may legitimately do so without much seeming sense.

    For example, Robert Bly’s lines—”Sometimes a man walks by a pond, and a hand / Reaches out and pulls him in” / / “The pond was lonely, or needed / Calcium, bones would do,”—are ludicrous [1] on every level.   Even if one explicates the speaker’s personifying the pond, the lines remain absurd, at least in part because if a person needs calcium, grabbing the bones of another human being will not take care of that deficiency. 

    The absurdity of a lake needing “calcium” should be abundantly clear on its face.  Nevertheless, the image of the lake grabbing a man may ultimately be accepted as the funny nonsense that it is.   William Butler Yeats’ “The Second Coming” cannot be dismissed so easily; while the Yeats poem does not depict the universe as totally chaotic, it does bemoan that fact that events seem to be leading society to armageddon.

    The absurdity surrounding the metaphor of the “rough beast” in the Yeats poem renders the musing on world events without practical substance.

    The Second Coming

    Turning and turning in the widening gyre   
    The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
    Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
    The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   
    The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
    The best lack all conviction, while the worst   
    Are full of passionate intensity. 

    Surely some revelation is at hand;
    Surely the Second Coming is at hand.   
    The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out  
    When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
    Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert   
    A shape with lion body and the head of a man,   
    A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,   
    Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it   
    Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.   
    The darkness drops again; but now I know   
    That twenty centuries of stony sleep
    Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,  
    And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,   
    Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? 


    Commentary on “The Second Coming”

    William Butler Yeats’ “The Second Coming” remains one of the most widely anthologized poems in world literature.  Yet its hyperbole in the first stanza and ludicrous “rough beast” metaphor in the second stanza result in a blur of unworkable speculation.

    First Stanza: Sorrowful over Chaos

    Turning and turning in the widening gyre   
    The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
    Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
    The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   
    The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
    The best lack all conviction, while the worst   
    Are full of passionate intensity. 

    The speaker is sorrowing over the chaos of world events that have left in their wake many dead people.  Clashes of groups of ideologues have wreaked havoc, and much blood shed has smeared the tranquil lives of innocent people who wish to live quiet, productive lives. 

    The speaker likens the seemingly out of control situation of society to a falconer losing control of the falcon as he attempts to tame it.   Everyday life has become chaotic as corrupt governments have spurred revolutions.  Lack of respect for leadership has left a vacuum which is filled with force and violence.

    The overstated claim that “The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity” should have alerted the poet that he needed to rinse out the generic hyperbole in favor of more accuracy on the world stage.  

    Such a blanket, unqualified statement, especially in a poem, lacks the ring of truth:  it simply cannot be true that the “best lack all conviction.”  Surely, some the best still retain some level of conviction, or else improvement could never be expected.  

    It also cannot be true that all the worst are passionate; some of the worst are likely not passionate at all but remain sycophantic, indifferent followers.  Any reader should be wary of such all-inclusive, absolutist statements in both prose and poetry.  

    Anytime a writer subsumes an entirety with the terms “all,” “none,” “everything,” “everyone,” “always,” or “never,” the reader should question the statement for its accuracy.  All too often such terms are signals for stereotypes, which produce the same inaccuracy as groupthink.

    Second Stanza: What Revelation?

    Surely some revelation is at hand;
    Surely the Second Coming is at hand.   
    The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out  
    When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
    Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert   
    A shape with lion body and the head of a man,   
    A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,   
    Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it   
    Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.   
    The darkness drops again; but now I know   
    That twenty centuries of stony sleep
    Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,  
    And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,   
    Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? 

    The idea of “some revelation” leads the speaker to the mythological second coming of Christ.  So he speculates on what a second coming might entail.  However, instead of “Christ,” the speaker conjures the notion that an Egyptian-Sphinx-like character with ill-intent might arrive instead.  

    Therefore, in place of a second coming of godliness and virtue, as is the purpose of the original second coming, the speaker wonders:  what if the actual second coming will be more like an Anti-Christ?  What if all this chaos of bloodshed and disarray has been brought on by the opposite of Christian virtue?

    Postmodern Absurdity and the “Rough Beast”

    The “rough beast” in Yeats’ “The Second Coming” is an aberration of imagination, not a viable symbol for what Yeats’ speaker thought he was achieving in his critique of culture. If, as the postmodernists contend, there is no order [2] in the universe and nothing really makes any sense anyway, then it becomes perfectly fine to write nonsense. 

    Because this poet is a contemporary of modernism but not postmodernism [3], William Butler Yeats’ poetry and poetics do not quite devolve to the level of postmodern angst that blankets everything with the nonsensical.  Yet, his manifesto titled A Vision is, undoubtedly, one of the contributing factors to that line of meretricious ideology. 

    Hazarding a Guess Can Be Hazardous

    The first stanza of Yeats’ “The Second Coming” begins by metaphorically comparing a falconer losing control of the falcon to nations and governments losing control because of the current world disorder, in which “[t]hings fall apart; the centre cannot hold.” 

    Political factions employ these lines against their opposition during the time in which their opposition is in power, as they spew forth praise for their own order that somehow magically appears with their taking the seat of power.

    The poem has been co-opted by the political class so often that Dorian Lynskey, overviewing the poem in his essay, “‘Things fall apart’: the Apocalyptic Appeal of WB Yeats’s The Second Coming,” writes, “There was apparently no geopolitical drama to which it could not be applied” [4].

    The second stanza dramatizes the speaker’s musing about a revelation that has popped into his head, and he likens that revelation to the second coming of Christ; however, this time the coming, he speculates, may be something much different.  

    The speaker does not know what the second coming will herald, but he does not mind hazarding a dramatic guess about the possibility.   Thus, he guesses that the entity of a new “second coming” would likely be something that resembles the Egyptian sphinx; it would not be the return of the Christ with the return of virtue but perhaps its opposite—vice. 

    The speaker concludes his guess with an allusion to the birth of such an entity as he likens the Blessed Virgin Mother to the “rough beast.”   The Blessèd Virgin Mother, as a newfangled, postmodern creature, will be “slouching toward Bethlehem” because that is the location to which the first coming came.  

    The allusion to “Bethlehem” functions solely as a vague juxtaposition to the phrase “second coming” in hopes that the reader will make the connection that the first coming and the second coming may have something in common.  The speaker speculates that at this very moment wherein the speaker is doing his speculation some “rough beast” might be pregnant with the creature of the “second coming.” 

    And as the time arrives for the creature to be born, the rough beast will go “slouching” towards its lair to give birth to this “second coming” creature: “its hour come round at last” refers to the rough beast being in labor. 

    The Flaw of Yeats’ “The Second Coming” 

    The speaker then poses the nonsensical question: “And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, / Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”   In order to make the case that the speaker wishes to make, these last two lines should be restructured in one of two ways: 

    And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
    Slouches towards Bethlehem to give birth? 

     or

    And what rough beast‘s babe, its time come at last,
    Is in transport to Bethlehem to be born?

    An unborn being cannot “slouch” toward a destination.  The pregnant mother of the unborn being can “slouch” toward a destination.   But the speaker is not contemplating the nature of the rough beast’s mother; he is contemplating the nature of the rough beast itself.  

    The speaker does not suggest that the literal Sphinx will travel to Bethlehem. He is merely implying that a Sphinx-like creature might resemble the creature of the second coming.  Once an individual has discounted the return of Jesus the Christ as a literal or even spiritual fact, one might offer personal speculation about just what a second coming would look like. 

    It is doubtful that anyone would argue that the poem is dramatizing a literal birth, rather than a spiritual or metaphorical one.    It is also unreasonable to argue that the speaker of this poem—or Yeats for that matter—thought that the second coming actually referred to the Sphinx.   A ridiculous image develops from the fabrication of the Sphinx moving toward Bethlehem. Yeats was more prudent than that. 

    Exaggerated Importance of Poem

    William Butler Yeats composed a manifesto to display his worldview and poetics titled A Vision, in which he set down certain tenets of his thoughts on poetry, creativity, and world history.   Although seemingly taken quite seriously by some Yeatsian scholars, A Vision is of little value in understanding either meaning in poetry or the meaning of the world, particularly in terms of historical events.  

    An important example of Yeats’ misunderstanding of world cycles is his explanation of the cyclical nature of history, exemplified with what he called “gyres” (pronounced with a hard “g.”)  Two particular points in the Yeatsian explanation demonstrate the fallacy of his thinking:

    1. In his diagram, Yeats set the position of the gyres inaccurately; they should not be intersecting but instead one should rest  one on top of the other:  cycles shrink and enlarge in scope; they do not overlap, as they would have to do if the Yeatsian model were accurate. 

    Image b:  Gyres – Inaccurate Configuration from A Vision p. 68 – 1280

    Image c:  Gyres –  Accurate Configuration

    2.  In the traditional Second Coming, Christ is figured to come again but as an adult, not as in infant as is implied in Yeats’ poem “The Second Coming.”

    Of great significance in Yeats’ poem is the “rough beast,” apparently the Anti-Christ, who has not been born yet.  And most problematic is that the rough beast is “slouch[ing] towards Bethlehem to be born.”  The question is, how can such a creature be slouching if it has not yet been born?  There is no indication the speaker wishes to attribute this second coming fiasco to the mother of the rough beast.

    This illogical event is never mentioned by critics who seem to accept the slouching as a possible occurrence.  On this score, it seems critics and scholars have lent the poem an unusually wide and encompassing poetic license.

    The Accurate Meaning of the Second Coming

    Paramahansa Yogananda has explained in depth the original, spiritual meaning of the phrase “the second coming”[5] which does not signify the literal coming again of Jesus the Christ, but the spiritual awakening of each individual soul to its Divine Nature through the Christ Consciousness.  

    Paramahansa Yogananda summarizes his two volume work The Second Coming of Christ: The Resurrection of the Christ Within You:

    In titling this work The Second Coming of Christ, I am not referring to a literal return of Jesus to earth . . . 

    A thousand Christs sent to earth would not redeem its people unless they themselves become Christlike by purifying and expanding their individual consciousness to receive therein the second coming of the Christ Consciousness, as was manifested in Jesus . . . 

    Contact with this Consciousness, experienced in the ever new joy of meditation, will be the real second coming of Christ—and it will take place right in the devotee’s own consciousness. (my emphasis added)

    Interestingly, knowledge of the meaning of that phrase “the second coming” as explained by Paramahansa Yogananda renders unnecessary the musings of Yeats’ poem “The Second Coming”and most other speculation about the subject. Still, the poem as an artifact of 20th century thinking remains an important object for study. 

  • William Butler Yeats’ “Leda and the Swan”

    Image:  William Butler Yeats https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2015/06/12/413619716/in-the-rolling-hills-of-galway-spirit-of-w-b-yeats-lives-on  Corbis - NPR
    Image:  William Butler Yeats – Corbis – NPR

    William Butler Yeats’ “Leda and the Swan”

    William Butler Yeats’ “Leda and the Swan” focuses on an ancient Greek myth. Leda, wife of Tyndareus, was impregnated by Zeus disguised as a swan. Yeats’ speaker offers his musing regarding the nature of such an act and how it might have impacted Leda’s mental capacities.

    Introduction and Text from “Leda and the Swan”

    The London news outlet The Telegraph, April 28, 2012 edition, features an article titled, “‘Mythical’ Swan Photo Taken Down After ‘Bestiality’ Fears” [1], in which Hannah Furness reports about an incident involving this ancient myth.

    Derrick Santini’s photograph depicting the mythological coupling of Leda and the god Zeus in his disguise as a swan was on display at The Scream, a gallery owned by Tyrone and Jamie Wood, sons of Ronnie Wood, legendary guitarist for The Rolling Stones.  

    A London police officer caught a glimpse of the photographic art piece and reported his observation; then two of the officer’s uniformed colleagues showed up at The Scream to investigate further.

    Because of the law declaring bestiality an “arrestable offence,” the officers informed the gallery owners that they would have remove the offending piece of art.  The curators quickly complied because the work had already been on display the entire month and was scheduled for removal anyway. 

    Had the officers appeared and made their censorious demands on the opening day the display, the gallery owners would likely have taken their battle over the issue to court. Jamie Wood explained,

    We would of course have fought to keep the piece up otherwise.   If anyone wants to view it, we still have it at the gallery. The purpose of art is to provoke debate and Derrick’s piece has certainly done that.

    This scenario bespeaks a troublesome direction for Western culture—an law officer was unable to recognize a piece of art depicting an ancient Greek myth.  Nevertheless, the clash between art and culture remains an issue for all time periods.

    William Butler Yeats’ “Leda and the Swan” focuses on the ancient Greek myth, wherein the woman, Leda, wife of Tyndareus, was impregnated by the god Zeus in disguise as a swan.  Yeats’ speaker is musing regarding the nature of such an act and how it might have impacted Leda’s mental capacities afterward.

    William Butler Yeats’ refurbishing of the famous copulation scene features a modern day rethinking of the event, but adding to it implications that likely the original myth creators would find amusing at best, disturbing at worst.  

    In fact, the symbolism of the myth continues to offer occasion for interpretation, and individuals will approach the act of interpretation according to their own moral standards as well as their own repository of facts.

    Yeats’ poem “Leda and the Swan” is an innovative sonnet (aka American-innovative sonnet) [2], sporting 15 lines rather than the traditional 14.  In the Shakespeare 154-sonnet sequence, sonnet 99 [3] also contains an extra line, as the first stanza becomes a cinquain replacing the traditional quatrain.

    Leda and the Swan

    A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
    Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
    By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
    He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.

    How can those terrified vague fingers push
    The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
    And how can body, laid in that white rush,
    But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?

    A shudder in the loins engenders there
    The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
    And Agamemnon dead.
                        Being so caught up,
    So mastered by the brute blood of the air,
    Did she put on his knowledge with his power
    Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?

    Reading of “Leda and the Swan” by Siobhan McKena”

    Commentary on “Leda and the Swan”

    William Butler Yeats creates a speaker who is offering an interpretation of the ancient Greek myth, apparently to pose a question on which he has been and would likely continue to cogitate.

    First Stanza:  In the Middle of Things

    A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
    Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
    By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
    He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.

    The poem begins in medias res, that is, the coupling is in progress after the sudden descension of the swan that has swooped down and is now engaging with the woman Leda.   

    The wings of the swan continue to flutter, after he has caused the woman to stagger.  He grasps her thighs with his “dark webs,” then grips her by the neck, holding her against his body.  The woman remains helpless, unable to loosen herself from this grip.

    This myth has often been interpreted as a rape, and Yeats’ interpretation certainly provides the violence that could indeed lead to that line of thinking. However, based on the actual mythic narrative, a case might be made that Leda was not actually an unwilling party to this act of coupling.  Later that same day, Leda copulates with her husband. 

    The extraordinary result from those two acts is Leda giving birth to two sets of twins: one set includes Helen and Polydeuces fathered by the swan-Zeus, and the other set of twins is Castor and Clytemnestra fathered by Tyndareus.

    Second Stanza:  Questions

    How can those terrified vague fingers push
    The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
    And how can body, laid in that white rush,
    But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?

    The speaker of the Yeats poem speculates that the girl cannot push the swan away from her; she is too weak with only “terrified vague fingers,” and he is full of a “feathered glory,” after all he is a god—he is Zeus.

    Zeus’ ability to loosen Leda’s thighs is absolute; thus, there is no hope that she could do other than to remain resigned to enduring that gigantic avian’s heart beating upon her. All she can do is struggle helplessly as he forces his masculinity into her feminine receptacle through his “white rush.”

    Virtually all rhetorical questions function to answer themselves, and this speaker engages two rhetorical questions that follow that format.  Yet, at the same time, those questions demonstrate that the speaker remains open to other answers.  Fundamentally, this speaker is musing upon these events, as he wonders about certain issues, but in the end, he can offer no final answer to his questions.

    Third Stanza:  Changing the Course of World History

    A shudder in the loins engenders there
    The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
    And Agamemnon dead.
                        Being so caught up,
    So mastered by the brute blood of the air,
    Did she put on his knowledge with his power
    Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?

    The swan/Zeus deposits his semen into Leda’s vaginal cavity, and all hell breaks loose.  That spewed-forth froth coupling with Leda’s human ova will result in two children, who will change the course of history, especially Helen of Troy [4], over whom the Trojan War broke out.

    Agamemnon then dies at the hands of his wife Clytemnestra, who was angered by her husband’s sacrifice of their daughter, Iphigenia.  As Agamemnon was preparing to sail into war to retrieve Helen, his fleet encountered difficulty which would be assuaged only by sacrifice of his daughter. 

    Loss of their daughter Iphigenia angered his wife Clytemnestra, so she later kills him. Thus after that climactic “shudder in the loins,” the war flames out which results in the “broken wall, the burning roof and tower / And Agamemnon dead.”

    The images of the “broken wall” and the “burning roof and tower” imply sexual imagery:  the penetrated female by the male penetrator, as well as the plundering of the city of Troy, by the marauding band of warriors.

    In the final musing of the poem, also fashioned as a rhetorical question, the speaker offers his final speculation. He wonders if while Leda was apparently violated by the intrusion of the god Zeus disguised as a swan, perhaps she was also altered.

    Perhaps, she actually was able to take on a portion of his “knowledge” and a slice of his “power,” even though he remained “indifferent” to her predicament.  Because of the god’s indifference, his swan’s beak just allows the violated woman to “drop.”  Did she “drop” with a thud or a swish?

    The Power of Myth

    Because this poem originates from an interpretation of a Greek mythological narrative, it continues to be open to various interpretations. The decidedly absurd nature of a swan coupling with a human being in conjunction with the scientific fact that conception cannot be accomplished across species clearly indicates that the myth’s dramatic meaning that cannot be taken literally. 

    Then, too, there is the issue that Leda’s and Zeus’s offspring are born from eggs—not merely eggs in the form of human ova, but resembling avian eggs; it is helpful to remember that Zeus coupled with Leda as he masqueraded as an large bird—a swan. 

    In the original Zeus/Leda mythic narrative, the issue of coupling appears to be a seduction and not a rape.   For example, about the nature of Zeus’ engaging women in sex, the ancient rhetorician Isocrates [5] has stated,

    Zeus, lord of all, reveals his power in all else, but deigns to approach beauty in humble guise. For in the likeness of Amphitryon he came to Alcmena, and as a shower of gold he united with Danae, and in the guise of a swan he took refuge in the bosom of Nemesis, and again in this form he espoused Leda; ever with artifice manifestly, and not with violence, does he pursue beauty in women.

    According to the Isocrates interpretation, Zeus seduced woman humbly in his various forms, and the god did so not out of selfish lust but for the sake of pursuing and enjoying the beauty in the women who possessed it.

    Many artistic expressions—see two examples below—focusing on the Zeus/Leda narrative for their subject matter portray Leda holding the swan affectionately, therefore, supporting Isocrates’ interpretation that the act was seduction not rape.  

    However, the Yeats poem is one of the interpretations that forces readers to reinterpret the myth as the rape of Leda by Zeus as a swan.  Even though the Yeatsian speaker offers only a waffling about what he believes about the whole affair, ultimately he does seem to be strongly suggesting that the act was a rape. 

    Cleverly, the Yeatsian speaker also takes the direct emphasis off the issue of rape vs seduction by simply posing the rhetorical question about whether Leda took on some of the Zeusian powers.

    Sources

    [1]  Hannah Furness. “‘Mythical’ Swan Photo Taken Down After ‘Bestiality’ Fears.”  The Telegraph.  April 28, 2012.
    [2]  Linda Sue Grimes.  “Literary Devices: Tools of the Commentarian.” Linda’s Literary Home. February 9, 2026.
    [3]  – – -.  “Shakespeare Sonnet 99: ‘The forward violet thus did I chide’.” Linda’s Literary Home. February 12, 2026.
    [4]  Editors.  “Helen of Troy.”  GreekMythology.com.  Accessed October 1, 2026.
    [5] George Norlin, editor.  “Isocrates: Helen.” Perseus Digital Library.  Accessed October 1, 2026.

    Examples of Art Depicting Affection Not Rape

    Image b:  Leda and the Swan - Italian Ministry of Culture — Leda e il cigno, Bartolomeo Ammannati https://catalogo.beniculturali.it/detail/HistoricOrArtisticProperty/0900286615?utm_source=chatgpt.com
    Image b:  Leda and the Swan – Italian Ministry of Culture — Leda e il cigno, Bartolomeo Ammannati

    Image c:  Leda and the Swan https://www.theoi.com/Gallery/H18.1.html  Theoi Greek Mythology
    Image c:  Leda and the Swan Theoi Greek Mythology

  • Walt Whitman’s “Passage to India”

    Image: Walt Whitman https://americanwritersmuseum.org/american-voices-walt-whitman/ American Writers Museum
    Image: Walt Whitman – American Writers Museum

    Walt Whitman’s “Passage to India”

    The deathbed edition of Walt Whitman’s “Passage to India” consists of nine parts, featuring his sprawling signature style, in which an omniscient speaker offers a colorful history of world civilization from earliest times to his own contemporary period.

    Introduction and Text of “Passage to India”

    The speaker in Walt Whitman’s “Passage to India” offers a marvelous drama, elucidating the many human achievements that have moved the citizens of the world from earliest times to contemporaneous civilization.  

    The speaker unveils the panorama of an ever-evolving world of individuals, who despite their flaws, have demonstrated their capabilities for bringing about a true “city on the hill [1],” where peace can reign and true joy can be established for every soul.

    Walt Whitman’s classic poem is displayed in his wide-ranging, dramatic style, which includes his famous catalogues of people, places, events, and traditions.  Into this poem, Whitman’s speaker packs the essence of world history, literature, and religion, as he sings his song of love for all peoples and all cultures that exist upon the Earth.  

    Passage to India

    1

    Singing my days,
    Singing the great achievements of the present,
    Singing the strong light works of engineers,
    Our modern wonders, (the antique ponderous Seven outvied,)
    In the Old World the east the Suez canal,
    The New by its mighty railroad spann’d,
    The seas inlaid with eloquent gentle wires;
    Yet first to sound, and ever sound, the cry with thee O soul,
    The Past! the Past! the Past!

    The Past—the dark unfathom’d retrospect!
    The teeming gulf—the sleepers and the shadows!
    The past—the infinite greatness of the past!
    For what is the present after all but a growth out of the past?

    (As a projectile form’d, impell’d, passing a certain line, still keeps  on,
    So the present, utterly form’d, impell’d by the past.)

    2

    Passage O soul to India!
    Eclaircise the myths Asiatic, the primitive fables.

    Not you alone proud truths of the world,
    Nor you alone ye facts of modern science,
    But myths and fables of eld, Asia’s, Africa’s fables,
    The far-darting beams of the spirit, the unloos’d dreams,
    The deep diving bibles and legends,
    The daring plots of the poets, the elder religions;
    O you temples fairer than lilies pour’d over by the rising sun!
    O you fables spurning the known, eluding the hold of the known, mounting to heaven!
    You lofty and dazzling towers, pinnacled, red as roses, burnish’d  with gold!
    Towers of fables immortal fashion’d from mortal dreams!
    You too I welcome and fully the same as the rest!
    You too with joy I sing.

    Passage to India!
    Lo, soul, seest thou not God’s purpose from the first?
    The earth to be spann’d, connected by network,
    The races, neighbors, to marry and be given in marriage,
    The oceans to be cross’d, the distant brought near,
    The lands to be welded together.

    A worship new I sing,
    You captains, voyagers, explorers, yours,
    You engineers, you architects, machinists, yours,
    You, not for trade or transportation only,
    But in God’s name, and for thy sake O soul.

    3

    Passage to India!
    Lo soul for thee of tableaus twain,
    I see in one the Suez canal initiated, open’d,
    I see the procession of steamships, the Empress Eugenie’s leading  the van,
    I mark from on deck the strange landscape, the pure sky, the  level sand in the distance,
    I pass swiftly the picturesque groups, the workmen gather’d,
    The gigantic dredging machines.

    In one again, different, (yet thine, all thine, O soul, the same,)
    I see over my own continent the Pacific railroad surmounting  every barrier,
    I see continual trains of cars winding along the Platte carrying  freight and passengers,
    I hear the locomotives rushing and roaring, and the shrill steam- whistle,
    I hear the echoes reverberate through the grandest scenery in the  world,
    I cross the Laramie plains, I note the rocks in grotesque shapes, the buttes,
    I see the plentiful larkspur and wild onions, the barren, colorless, sage-deserts,
    I see in glimpses afar or towering immediately above me the  great mountains,
    I see the Wind river and the Wahsatch  mountains,
    I see the Monument mountain and the Eagle’s Nest, I pass the  Promontory,
    I ascend the Nevadas,
    I scan the noble Elk mountain and wind around its base,
    I see the Humboldt range, I thread the valley and cross the river,
    I see the clear waters of lake Tahoe, I see forests of majestic  pines,
    Or crossing the great desert, the alkaline plains, I behold enchanting mirages of waters and meadows,
    Marking through these and after all, in duplicate slender lines,
    Bridging the three or four thousand miles of land travel,
    Tying the Eastern to the Western sea,
    The road between Europe and Asia.

    (Ah Genoese thy dream! thy dream!
    Centuries after thou art laid in thy grave,
    The shore thou foundest verifies thy dream.)

    4

    Passage to India!
    Struggles of many a captain, tales of many a sailor dead,
    Over my mood stealing and spreading they come,
    Like clouds and cloudlets in the unreach’d sky.

    Along all history, down the slopes,
    As a rivulet running, sinking now, and now again to the surface  rising,
    A ceaseless thought, a varied train—lo, soul, to thee, thy sight, they rise,
    The plans, the voyages again, the expeditions;
    Again Vasco de Gama sails forth,
    Again the knowledge gain’d, the mariner’s compass,
    Lands found and nations born, thou born America,
    For purpose vast, man’s long probation fill’d,
    Thou rondure of the world at last accomplish’d.

    5

    O vast Rondure, swimming in space,
    Cover’d all over with visible power and beauty,
    Alternate light and day and the teeming spiritual darkness,
    Unspeakable high processions of sun and moon and countless stars above,
    Below, the manifold grass and waters, animals, mountains, trees,
    With inscrutable purpose, some hidden prophetic intention,
    Now first it seems my thought begins to span thee.

    Down from the gardens of Asia descending radiating,
    Adam and Eve appear, then their myriad progeny after them,
    Wandering, yearning, curious, with restless explorations,
    With questionings, baffled, formless, feverish, with never-happy hearts,
    With that sad incessant refrain, Wherefore unsatisfied soul? and Whither O mocking life?

    Ah who shall soothe these feverish children?
    Who justify these restless explorations?
    Who speak the secret of impassive earth?
    Who bind it to us? what is this separate Nature so unnatural?
    What is this earth to our affections? (unloving earth, without a  throb to answer ours,
    Cold earth, the place of graves.)

    Yet soul be sure the first intent remains, and shall be carried out,
    Perhaps even now the time has arrived.

    After the seas are all cross’d, (as they seem already cross’d,)
    After the great captains and engineers have accomplish’d their  work,
    After the noble inventors, after the scientists, the chemist, the geologist, ethnologist,
    Finally shall come the poet worthy that name,
    The true son of God shall come singing his songs.

    Then not your deeds only O voyagers, O scientists and inventors, shall be justified,
    All these hearts as of fretted children shall be sooth’d,
    All affection shall be fully responded to, the secret shall be told,
    All these separations and gaps shall be taken up and hook’d and  link’d together,
    The whole earth, this cold, impassive, voiceless earth, shall be  completely justified,
    Trinitas divine shall be gloriously accomplish’d and compacted by the true son of God, the poet,
    (He shall indeed pass the straits and conquer the mountains,
    He shall double the cape of Good Hope to some purpose,)
    Nature and Man shall be disjoin’d and diffused no more,
    The true son of God shall absolutely fuse them.

    6

    Year at whose wide-flung door I sing!
    Year of the purpose accomplish’d!
    Year of the marriage of continents, climates and oceans!
    (No mere doge of Venice now wedding the Adriatic,)
    I see O year in you the vast terraqueous globe given and giving all,
    Europe to Asia, Africa join’d, and they to the New World,
    The lands, geographies, dancing before you, holding a festival garland,
    As brides and bridegrooms hand in hand.

    Passage to India!
    Cooling airs from Caucasus far, soothing cradle of man,
    The river Euphrates flowing, the past lit up again.

    Lo soul, the retrospect brought forward,
    The old, most populous, wealthiest of earth’s lands,
    The streams of the Indus and the Ganges and their many affluents,
    (I my shores of America walking to-day behold, resuming all,)
    The tale of Alexander on his warlike marches suddenly dying,
    On one side China and on the other side Persia and Arabia,
    To the south the great seas and the bay of Bengal,
    The flowing literatures, tremendous epics, religions, castes,
    Old occult Brahma interminably far back, the tender and junior Buddha,
    Central and southern empires and all their belongings, possessors,
    The wars of Tamerlane, the reign of Aurungzebe,
    The traders, rulers, explorers, Moslems, Venetians, Byzantium, the Arabs, Portuguese,
    The first travelers famous yet, Marco Polo, Batouta the Moor,
    Doubts to be solv’d, the map incognita, blanks to be fill’d,
    The foot of man unstay’d, the hands never at rest,
    Thyself O soul that will not brook a challenge.

    The mediaeval navigators rise before me,
    The world of 1492, with its awaken’d enterprise,
    Something swelling in humanity now like the sap of the earth in spring,
    The sunset splendor of chivalry declining.

    And who art thou sad shade?
    Gigantic, visionary, thyself a visionary,
    With majestic limbs and pious beaming eyes,
    Spreading around with every look of thine a golden world,
    Enhuing it with gorgeous hues.

    As the chief histrion,
    Down to the footlights walks in some great scena,
    Dominating the rest I see the Admiral himself,
    (History’s type of courage, action, faith,)
    Behold him sail from Palos leading his little fleet,
    His voyage behold, his return, his great fame,
    His misfortunes, calumniators, behold him a prisoner, chain’d,
    Behold his dejection, poverty, death.

    (Curious in time I stand, noting the efforts of heroes,
    Is the deferment long? bitter the slander, poverty, death?
    Lies the seed unreck’d for centuries in the ground? lo, to God’s due occasion,
    Uprising in the night, it sprouts, blooms,
    And fills the earth with use and beauty.)

    7

    Passage indeed O soul to primal thought,
    Not lands and seas alone, thy own clear freshness,
    The young maturity of brood and bloom,
    To realms of budding bibles.

    O soul, repressless, I with thee and thou with me,
    Thy circumnavigation of the world begin,
    Of man, the voyage of his mind’s return,
    To reason’s early paradise,
    Back, back to wisdom’s birth, to innocent intuitions,
    Again with fair creation.

    8

    O we can wait no longer,
    We too take ship O soul,
    Joyous we too launch out on trackless seas,
    Fearless for unknown shores on waves of ecstasy to sail,
    Amid the wafting winds, (thou pressing me to thee, I thee to me, O soul,)
    Caroling free, singing our song of God,
    Chanting our chant of pleasant exploration.

    With laugh and many a kiss,
    (Let others deprecate, let others weep for sin, remorse, humiliation,)
    O soul thou pleasest me, I thee.

    Ah more than any priest O soul we too believe in God,
    But with the mystery of God we dare not dally.

    O soul thou pleasest me, I thee,
    Sailing these seas or on the hills, or waking in the night,
    Thoughts, silent thoughts, of Time and Space and Death, like waters flowing,
    Bear me indeed as through the regions infinite,
    Whose air I breathe, whose ripples hear, lave me all over,
    Bathe me O God in thee, mounting to thee,
    I and my soul to range in range of thee.

    O Thou transcendent,
    Nameless, the fibre and the breath,
    Light of the light, shedding forth universes, thou centre of them,
    Thou mightier centre of the true, the good, the loving,
    Thou moral, spiritual fountain—affection’s source—thou reservoir,
    (O pensive soul of me—O thirst unsatisfied—waitest not there?
    Waitest not haply for us somewhere there the Comrade perfect?)
    Thou pulse—thou motive of the stars, suns, systems,
    That, circling, move in order, safe, harmonious,
    Athwart the shapeless vastnesses of space,
    How should I think, how breathe a single breath, how speak, if, out of myself,
    I could not launch, to those, superior universes?

    Swiftly I shrivel at the thought of God,
    At Nature and its wonders, Time and Space and Death,
    But that I, turning, call to thee O soul, thou actual Me,
    And lo, thou gently masterest the orbs,
    Thou matest Time, smilest content at Death,
    And fillest, swellest full the vastnesses of Space.

    Greater than stars or suns,
    Bounding O soul thou journeyest forth;
    What love than thine and ours could wider amplify?
    What aspirations, wishes, outvie thine and ours O soul?
    What dreams of the ideal? what plans of purity, perfection, strength?
    What cheerful willingness for others’ sake to give up all?
    For others’ sake to suffer all?

    Reckoning ahead O soul, when thou, the time achiev’d,
    The seas all cross’d, weather’d the capes, the voyage done,
    Surrounded, copest, frontest God, yieldest, the aim attain’d,
    As fill’d with friendship, love complete, the Elder Brother found,
    The Younger melts in fondness in his arms.

    9

    Passage to more than India!
    Are thy wings plumed indeed for such far flights?
    O soul, voyagest thou indeed on voyages like those?
    Disportest thou on waters such as those?
    Soundest below the Sanscrit and the Vedas?
    Then have thy bent unleash’d.

    Passage to you, your shores, ye aged fierce enigmas!
    Passage to you, to mastership of you, ye strangling problems!
    You, strew’d with the wrecks of skeletons, that, living, never  reach’d you.

    Passage to more than India!
    O secret of the earth and sky!
    Of you O waters of the sea! O winding creeks and rivers!
    Of you O woods and fields! of you strong mountains of my land!
    Of you O prairies! of you gray rocks!
    O morning red! O clouds! O rain and snows!
    O day and night, passage to you!

    O sun and moon and all you stars! Sirius and Jupiter!
    Passage to you!

    Passage, immediate passage! the blood burns in my veins!
    Away O soul! hoist instantly the anchor!
    Cut the hawsers—haul out—shake out every sail!
    Have we not stood here like trees in the ground long enough?
    Have we not grovel’d here long enough, eating and drinking like mere brutes?
    Have we not darken’d and dazed ourselves with books long enough?

    Sail forth—steer for the deep waters only,
    Reckless O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me,
    For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
    And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

    O my brave soul!
    O farther farther sail!
    O daring joy, but safe! are they not all the seas of God?
    O farther, farther, farther sail!

    Commentary on “Passage to India”

    Walt Whitman’s “Passage to India” undertakes the mammoth task of presenting a wide-ranging historical account of world civilization through the accomplishments of a humanity for which the poet holds deep affection and admiration.   As this poet’s speaker has elsewhere deemed everything a miracle, he also deems all humanity capable of miraculous achievements.

    Part 1: Present Achievements

    In the opening segment of the poem, the speaker celebrates the great achievements of the present: the building of the Suez Cana [2] l, the completion of which the speaker suggests heralds the completion the mission of the world-exploring Genoese, who was seeking a water route to the Far East.   The speaker then celebrates the laying of the Atlantic cable, and the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad. 

    The speaker also pays tribute to the past, averring that the present is what it is because of what happened in the past. He emphasizes dependence of past experience by his repetition: “The Past! the Past! the Past!”

    Part 2: Elucidating Myths and Fables

    The first versagraph of Part 2 exclaims and commands his passage to India to elucidate the Asian myths and fables. He then suggests that it is not merely modern science that informs and delights the soul, but it is also myths and fables from around the entire world.  He is deeply enthralled by the world religions, “The deep diving bibles and legends.”

    Next, he then asserts through a rhetorical question the ancient rôle that India has played in the founding of the ways of knowing God and God’s purpose for humankind:  “Passage to India! / Lo, soul, seest thou not God’s purpose from the first?”

    Then the speaker praises the adventurous spirit [3] that spans the earth and connects the peoples. He especially pays homage to all those adventurers for making their journeys not merely for material purposes but also for spiritual enlightenment.

    Part 3: The Great Explorer

    After having merely mentioned the opening of the Suez Canal in Part 1, the speaker celebrates in detail that opening of that Canal and then turns to the Pacific railroad, for which he marvels at its ability to tie the two coasts together.

    The speaker muses on the connections being made possible inside of the United States by the Transcontinental Railroad as well as the connections being made possible with the world through the construction of the Suez Canal.  

    He pays homage to the discoveries of the Italian explorer, the “Genoese,” who dreamed of reaching the Far East over a less dangerous route that earlier explorers had experienced.  The speaker affirms that the idea of connecting East and West has now been accomplished after having been introduced in the great past by those of great vision.

    Parts 4:  Many Voyages

    The musing speaker can be seen following the movements of the many sea captains and sailors who appear to him like “clouds” in a storm of historical theatre.  These thoughts bring scenes of the voyages, the plans, the tempest-torn struggles that ultimately resulted in the discovery of new lands where new nations would be formed.

    The speaker, whose soul seems to be flooding his vision with allusions filled with scenes  of all those many voyages, including that of Vasco de Gama, to the New World which resulted in his native land’s opulence.  

    The speaker holds the belief that all those struggling explorers were fulfilling the promise that life on Earth holds for the children living a miraculous existence.  Humankind, he suggests, continues to seek out ways to keep heavenly promises.

    Part 5: Earth’s Vastness

    Addressing the vast planet Earth as “O vast Rondure, swimming in space,” the speaker becomes especially emotional as he considers the grand processes of people and events that have taken place on the cosmic stage. 

    Throughout the historical play, the first pair of human beings—Adam and Eve—appeared, followed by “their myriad progeny.”  And with them the many states of human longings and craving have continued to appear, as they motivate each generation to wander, to yearn, to remain curious as they restlessly explore their surroundings.

    The speaker muses on the “never-happy hearts” that continue to question as they remain baffled in a formless feverishness.  These souls continue to sally forth with a “sad incessant refrain” containing the queries, “Wherefore unsatisfied soul? and Whither O mocking life?”  The speaker continues to wax cosmically as he marvels at the vastness of the earth and predicts that a poet will be instrumental in linking all the cultures.

    Parts 6: Melding of Cultures

    The speaker reveals that he sees the passage to India as the event to aid in the melding of “land, geographies,” and that passage continues to move rhythmically grasping metaphorically a “festival garland” as a couple at their wedding might do.

    The speaker avers that his own soul will take a voyage to India: “Caroling free, singing our song of God, / Chanting our chant of pleasant exploration.”  He remains in a celebratory mood as he brings into his catalogue activities that reveal the varied cultures and long-standing traditions of the world.

    Part 7: Transcending Earth

    But the speaker is transcending the physical earth and insists that the destination of his journey is not merely to a geographical place called India; his journey is a mystical one.  He insists that humanity is on a journey “where mariner has not yet dared to go.”  He suggests that the journey is so fundamental that humanity will take up that travel even at great risk.  

    The speaker is metaphorically imagining that he will “farther, farther, farther sail!”  And he will, of course, be doing that “sailing” through the instrumentality of imagination and intuitive understanding. 

    He is suggesting that he has, in fact, transcended the very idea of “passage” or travel from one earthly location to another.   He is now revealing the efficacy of soul experience, which even transcends mental experience.

    Part 8: Mystical Journeying

    Such spiritual journeying was brilliantly depicted in the quotation [4] by Swami Sri Yukteswar in Paramahansa Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi: “What one does not trouble to find within will not be discovered by transporting the body hither and yon.” The speaker in Walt Whitman’s wide-ranging song of journey dramatizes the heart of that great swami’s message.  

    The Whitman speaker understands that as great as material, physical achievements are, the more important aspect of unity between the East and the West will be achieved through soul awareness, and not merely those physical and material exchange of ideas, material goods, or political diplomacy.

    Part 9: Homage to All Travelers: Geographic and Soul

    While honoring those travelers who have adventurously opened up the world to others, the speaker in Whitman’s poem also pays homage to those spiritual travelers who have opened up the spiritual level of being beyond this world. This Whitman speaker is dramatizing his ideas, his musings, and his knowledge of history to bring his insights to the citizens of the world. 

    He likely believes that if the members of his audience can engage their own imagination in understanding the miraculous and even divine nature of the earthly experience, they will be able to range farther and further also, not only over the earth but also far beyond it.

    Sources

    [1]  King James Bible Online.  Matthew 5:14.  Accessed April 1, 2025.
    [2]  J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings, eds. Walt Whitman: An Encyclopedia. (New York: Garland Publishing. 1998. Print.
    [3]  Robin Ekiss.  “Walt Whitman: ‘A Passage to India’.” Poetry Foundation.  October 7, 2009.
    [4]  Swami Sri Yukteswar in Paramahansa Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi.  Self-Realization Fellowship.  Original publication date:  1946.  This printing 2007. Print.  Via Wikisource.

  • this building

    320a Image created by Gemini and Grok inspired by the poem.jpg
    Image created by Gemini and Grok inspired by the poem

    this building

    for Thomas & the RB                   

    this building is our world.
    we must learn to love it as we fault it.
    with its mouth of glass and steel
    it sucks our life like an armored leech.
    we must not let it suck out our hearts
    for if we do, it will swallow our love
    as it does the dreams of the students
    who sit for our classes.
    we must not let this building our world
    twist our minds into nests for birds of gloom
    for if we do, no butterflies
    will delight us with wisdom.
    we must not shatter our will
    against the newest testament
    that declares the messiah hath arrived
    and his or her name is called VAX.
    for is we do, we will not intuit
    that a messiah named VAX is better
    than no messiah at all.
    we must not let this building our world
    calculate us among the weak in spirit
    for it we do, we will learn to fear
    the words that ignite our souls
    to burn the dross from our mood-dimmed brains.
    this is our building, our own world,
    for all of its cold, sharp edges,
    for all of its slave laborers,
    and for all of its empty promises—
    it does offer our only shelter
    our only ground where we can meet, 
    smile and say our small hellos

  • Edgar Lee Masters’ “Mrs. Williams” 

    Image: Edgar Lee Masters http://www.poorwilliam.net/al-082314.html Poor William’s Almanack
    Image: Edgar Lee Masters – Poor William’s Almanack

    Edgar Lee Masters’ “Mrs. Williams” 

    Mrs. Williams is the mother of Dora Williams, a despicable character if ever there was one.  But Mrs. Williams has a philosophical turn of mind and has some advice for the wives of Spoon River.

    Introduction and Text of  “Mrs. Williams”

    In Edgar Lee Masters’ “Mrs. Williams” from his American classic Spoon River Anthology, the speaker is the mother of “Dora Williams,” who after a life of prostitution, married and then killed two wealthy husbands.

    It is possible that she was poisoned by her third husband, who was an Italian count, likely one of those impoverished Europeans who attached themselves to wealthy American women in order to continue their opulent life-styles—at the same time

    giving the women royal titles that were not the custom in the United States.

    This phenomenon marked a period of American history known as the “Gilded Age.”

    A real-life example of such a marriage is that of  Barbara Hutton, heiress of the Woolworth fortune,  and Count Kurt Haugwitz-Reventlow, who married in 1935.

    Hutton’s marriage to the count was stormy, and they divorced in 1941; she had given the man nearly two million dollars when they first married and roughly an equal amount at their divorce.

    In her epitaph, Mrs. Williams shows that she is miffed because the reputation of her miscreant daughter splattered her with shame.  She understood that the Spoon River residents blamed Dora’s upbringing for her misdeeds in becoming a prostitute.  But this mother has observed that the women of Spoon River could avoid losing their husbands to prostitutes if they would simply dress better.

    Then again, if those women decided to dress better, they would have to visit the milliner to purchase a spiffy hat or a nice set of “buckles and feathers.”  So Mrs. Williams’ advice comes as a commercial for her own business venture.

    Mrs. Williams

    I was the milliner
    Talked about, lied about,
    Mother of Dora,
    Whose strange disappearance
    Was charged to her rearing.
    My eye quick to beauty
    Saw much beside ribbons
    And buckles and feathers
    And leghorns and felts,
    To set off sweet faces,
    And dark hair and gold.
    One thing I will tell you
    And one I will ask:
    The stealers of husbands
    Wear powder and trinkets,
    And fashionable hats.
    Wives, wear them yourselves.
    Hats may make divorces—
    They also prevent them.
    Well now, let me ask you:
    If all of the children, born here in Spoon River
    Had been reared by the County, somewhere on a farm;
    And the fathers and mothers had been given their freedom
    To live and enjoy, change mates if they wished,
    Do you think that Spoon River
    Had been any the worse?

    Commentary on “Mrs. Williams”

    Mrs. Williams is the mother of Dora Williams, one of the most despicable characters of Spoon River.  Her mother, however, has a philosophical turn of mind and has some advice for the wives of Spoon River.

    First Movement:  The Sins of the Mothers

    I was the milliner
    Talked about, lied about,
    Mother of Dora,
    Whose strange disappearance
    Was charged to her rearing.
    My eye quick to beauty
    Saw much beside ribbons
    And buckles and feathers
    And leghorns and felts,
    To set off sweet faces,
    And dark hair and gold.

    Mrs. Williams begins by stating her profession—she was a milliner.  She identifies herself as the “Mother of Dora.”   But Mrs. Williams also reports that she was “talked about” and “lied about,” and she disdains the fact that she has been blamed for Dora’s misdeeds.

    Mrs. Williams then reveals that there was more to her knowledge than having an eye “quick to beauty”; she wants to state that she knew more about human nature than it might have seemed.  

    Thus Mrs. Williams claims that she understood more about things than mere “ribbons /  And buckles and feathers /  And leghorns and felts,  /  To set off sweet faces.”  Mrs. Williams then announces that she will reveal her philosophical observations with two things:  one she “will tell you” and the other she will “ask.” 

    Second Movement:  Pearls of Wisdom

    One thing I will tell you
    And one I will ask:
    The stealers of husbands
    Wear powder and trinkets,
    And fashionable hats.
    Wives, wear them yourselves.
    Hats may make divorces—
    They also prevent them.

    Mrs. Williams announces that she will reveal on thing and then ask about another.  She then sets about spreading her pearls of wisdom; she says that the strumpets who lure husbands away from their wives, “Wear powder and trinkets / And fashionable hats.”  

    Mrs. Williams drops a bombshell, telling wives to dress the way the strumpets do.  She intimates that although “hats” may lead to divorce,” on the other hand, they may “also prevent them.”

    So if only wives would avail themselves of Mrs. Williams wares, they could save their marriages, keep their husbands from divorcing them and taking up with those women who have already availed themselves of Mrs. Williams items for sale.

    It is interesting that her observation works like a commercial for her business.  Although she thinks she is offering solid advice to the poor wives of Spoon River, she is able to look back and see how she could have been enriched if the wives had been able to follow her advice.

    Third Movement:  Let the State Raise the Brats

    Well now, let me ask you:
    If all of the children, born here in Spoon River
    Had been reared by the County, somewhere on a farm;
    And the fathers and mothers had been given their freedom
    To live and enjoy, change mates if they wished,
    Do you think that Spoon River
    Had been any the worse?

    Finally, Mrs. Williams asks a question that reveals an incredibly decadent mindset:  she wants to know if the social fabric of Spoon River would be any worse off if “the County” had raised the children “somewhere on a farm,” thus allowing the fathers and mothers “freedom to live and enjoy” life, changing partners as they wished.  

    When one considers Dora’s situation, one is inclined to give that insane suggestion some serious thought.

  • Concrete and the Jelly Fish

    Image created by ChatGPT inspired by the poem
    Image created by ChatGPT inspired by the poem

    Concrete and the Jelly Fish

    a post-modern symphony for a music lover

    Maybe his memories are locked
    Under a grin
    With rolling paper bags
    To keep them in.
    He probably pushes doll dresses
    Or stages wakes.
    You won’t see him in the thick
    Of things like shipwrecks,
    Although he might canoe downstream,
    If someone else paddles.
    He may use tools with short handles
    But no one knows where he keeps them.
    He is not a mystery, only a puzzle
    With a few missing pieces.
    He is volcanic but not violent.
    His flair for luster is sometimes bold.
    His lack of tolerance is rolled
    In mixed nerves and senses.
    He could be struggling for self-seizure
    Or maybe he is just getting off on the flowertops
    And saving the stems for later.

  • Walt Whitman’s “Patroling Barnegat”

    Image a:  Walt Whitman https://whitmanarchive.org/item/zzz.00034 - Mathew Brady - Walt Whitman Archive
    Image a:  Walt Whitman – Mathew Brady – Walt Whitman Archive

    Walt Whitman’s “Patroling Barnegat”


    Walt Whitman’s American-Innovative sonnet demonstrates the power of the verb form known as the present participle, as his speaker dramatizes the activity of a severe storm at sea.

    Introduction and Text of “Patroling Barnegat”

    Walt Whitman’s “Patroling Barnegat” is an American-Innovative sonnet, a form which makes various transformations based upon the received sonnets from the past, particularly the Shakespearean (Elizabethan or English and Petrarchan (Italian) forms. 

    Unlike the English and Italian sonnet forms, the American-Innovative sonnet almost always features a much looser form. While the English sonnet is sectioned into three quatrains and a couplet and the Italian is sectioned into octave and sestet, the American-Innovative sonnets are often subdivided into “movements,” when it appears in its purest form.

    The American-Innovative may, indeed, take the traditional form and section into quatrains and octaves, but as it does so, those stanzas are usually vastly altered from the traditional forms.  Of course, the American-Innovative form usually dispenses with rime and meter, but again if it employs those devices, it does so in new and different ways.

    These sonnet movements depend solely on the sonnet’s total environment. While some American-Innovative sonnets may move in ways similar to the English and Italian, they never feature the entire body of the early sonnet forms.

    Walt Whitman’s American-Innovative sonnet moves on present participles:  “running,” “muttering,” “pealing,” etc. The speaker is observing a wildly active situation, and in order to convey the activity, he keeps his descriptions moving through a piling on of the present participle verb forms.

    Patroling Barnegat

    Wild, wild the storm, and the sea high running,
    Steady the roar of the gale, with incessant undertone muttering,
    Shouts of demoniac laughter fitfully piercing and pealing,
    Waves, air, midnight, their savagest trinity lashing,
    Out in the shadows there milk-white combs careering,
    On beachy slush and sand spirts of snow fierce slanting,
    Where through the murk the easterly death-wind breasting,
    Through cutting swirl and spray watchful and firm advancing,
    (That in the distance! is that a wreck? is the red signal flaring?) 

    Slush and sand of the beach tireless till daylight wending,
    Steadily, slowly, through hoarse roar never remitting,
    Along the midnight edge by those milk-white combs careering,
    A group of dim, weird forms, struggling, the night confronting,
    That savage trinity warily watching.

    Commentary on “Patroling Barnegat”

    This American-Innovative sonnet “Patroling Barnegat” demonstrates the power of the verb form known as the present participle. The speaker is dramatizing the turbulence of a severe storm on the ocean.

    First Movement:  Setting the Scene

    Wild, wild the storm, and the sea high running,
    Steady the roar of the gale, with incessant undertone muttering,
    Shouts of demoniac laughter fitfully piercing and pealing,
    Waves, air, midnight, their savagest trinity lashing, 

    The first movement of Walt Whitman’s “Patroling Barnegat” includes the poem’s introductory element of depicting the subject by creating the image of the sea wildly churning its wave into a “wild” storm, as the ocean waters are “running” high.  The speaker is dramatizing the event of patroling the stormy waters of Barnegat Bay, off the coast of New Jersey. 

    The speaker emphasizes the severity of the storm by repeating the word “wild.” He shows the sea being whipped up in a frenzy which causes a “roar of the gale,” while a background noise creates an “incessant undertone” that seems to be “muttering.” 

    The noises bedevil the speaker; thus he calls them “shouts of demoniac laughter.” These sounds seem to pierce to speaker’s ears. He then invokes a “trinity” of “waves, air, midnight,” calling them the “savagest” that lash the sea vessel and the men who are manning it. 

    Second Movement: Drama of the Waves

    Out in the shadows there milk-white combs careering,
    On beachy slush and sand spirts of snow fierce slanting,
    Where through the murk the easterly death-wind breasting,
    Through cutting swirl and spray watchful and firm advancing, 

    The second movement includes the drama of the waves as they appear “out of the shadows”; he calls them “milk-white combs” as they come “careering.” He then observes that over the “beachy slush” there are “sand spirts of snow” that come in “slanting” as they move inland. 

    The storm creates a murkiness through which “the easterly death-wind” comes “breasting.” As the patrol-boat plunges through the storm and snow-filled air, it seems to be “cutting” its way through as the men remain vigilant. 

    Third Movement:  Two Questions

    (That in the distance! is that a wreck? is the red signal flaring?) 

    The third movement, which consists of a single parenthetical line, dissects the sonnet to pose two questions regarding the sighting of a possible disaster. The speaker excitedly points to something he thinks my might be seeing in the distance. He seems to be asking someone if he is actually seeing something. His question includes the possibility that a wreck may have occurred. 

    And if there is something there, he then wonders if it may, in fact, be a wreck.  Thus, he queries if there may be a “red signal” being sent out. The very purpose of this patrol in this storm is to search for people who might be in trouble on the sea as it whips up possible disasters. 

    The parenthetical questions are never answered. It seems to appear as a simple incidental thought, as the speaker continues to concentrate upon describing the storm and how it affects the water and the beach.  The sounds of the water and winds become important for his description.

    Fourth Movement:   A Drama of Tension

    Slush and sand of the beach tireless till daylight wending,
    Steadily, slowly, through hoarse roar never remitting,
    Along the midnight edge by those milk-white combs careering,
    A group of dim, weird forms, struggling, the night confronting,
    That savage trinity warily watching.

    The final movement consists of the final five lines that dramatize the tension between the beach of “slush and sand” and that savage trinity of “waves, air, and midnight.” The patrol has lasted all night and finally at the “midnight edge” still “those milk-white combs” continue “careering.” 

    The speaker concludes by invoking the image of “a group of dim, weird forms” that persists in flailing about in the night as the “savage trinity” continues to watch.

    Image b:  2 USA Walt Whitman commemorative  stamps - issued in 1940 and 2019 - https://icommerceonweb.com/walt-whitman-2-u-s-postage-stamps-issued-in-1940-2019-mint-condition/  - iCommerce on Web
    Image b:  USA Walt Whitman commemorative  stamps – issued in 1940 and 2019 – iCommerce on Web

  • Wednesday’s Irrational God

    Image created by Gemini inspired by the poem
    Image created by Gemini inspired by the poem

    Wednesday’s Irrational God

    Your Latin professor, who is seven months pregnant,
    Was extremely flushed and you felt obligated
    To walk her to her car.

    You are still very much interested in my story—
    You talked to someone the other day
    For twenty minutes about it.

    You do hope this isn’t the direction your life is taking, 
    So formal, arranging times.

    You will be free all day
    Next Wednesday not having to work
    And your afternoon class being cancelled.

    But if I will suggest a time next week 
    You are sure you will be able to drop by, you
    Probably can’t stay long but Wednesday right after
    Latin class looks the best to you right now so
    If that would work for me, let you know.

    You are sorry that your life is not convenient 
    For me, it is not too convenient for you either:
    Life is not easy in the hands of an irrational god.

  • The Letting Go

    Image created by Grok inspired by the poem
    Image created by Grok inspired by the poem

    The Letting Go

    “First – Chill – then  Stupor – then . . .”  — Emily Dickinson

    They dallied, sweaty on sheets, 
    Talking all afternoon in the August heat, 
    Hot tunes playing in the background.  
    She fancied they’d rock and roll 

    This way, many afternoons –
    The talk so delicious, 
    As honey-luscious as the kisses.
    But by the end of the week, 

    He spoke a different tongue, 
    And by the end of the month
    He did not speak at all.  
    She cannot grasp the silence.

    The letting go has slashed her heat.  
    Her tongue hangs across the poem
    Like the carcass of a deer across the hood 
    Of the hunter’s pick up.

    Original poem appearing in my collection titled  Turtle Woman & Other Poems

  • Emily’s Moth-Breath

    emily-dickinson-dream-miki-de-goodaboom.jpg
    Image: Emily Dickinson Dream / Miki De Goodaboom

    Emily’s Moth-Breath

    She whispers; have you not heard her?
    Between the lines of interpretation
    And analysis that cover her discoveries.

    From the madness of theory, her butterfly hints
    Rescue our humanness and give us back
    Our own fleet-footed lives.

    Her brain bowed wider than the sky of psycho-
    Analysis, that cloud-filled busyness that 
    Straightjackets curved minds.  

    She lives with souls who choose their own
    Society with as much precision as she did,
    With as much deliberation as she could.

    Where stars look like eyes and rivers like veins
    Where birds peck crumbs and every cell
    Is an altar to the spirit, she sings.  

    But when she meets the coils of evil,
    She warns us because she knew its sting
    And found the balm that eases it—

    Immortality!  Immortality!—
    Not just for a few but for all
    That ever felt or ever knew.