The boat with furled sail chiseled on his tombstone prompts George Gray to speculate about his stalled life.
Introduction and Text of “George Gray”
In Edgar Lee Masters’ “George Gray” from the American classic Spoon River Anthology, the speaker philosophizes about his lost opportunities to infuse some meaning into his life.
The speaker’s tombstone features a boat “with a furled sail at rest in a harbor.” This carving motivates George to dramatize his speculation that like the still boat his own life seemed to go nowhere.
George Gray
I have studied many times The marble which was chiseled for me— A boat with a furled sail at rest in a harbor. In truth it pictures not my destination But my life. For love was offered me and I shrank from its disillusionment; Sorrow knocked at my door, but I was afraid; Ambition called to me, but I dreaded the chances. Yet all the while I hungered for meaning in my life. And now I know that we must lift the sail And catch the winds of destiny Wherever they drive the boat. To put meaning in one’s life may end in madness, But life without meaning is the torture Of restlessness and vague desire— It is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid.
Commentary on “George Gray”
In Edgar Lee Masters’ “George Gray,” the speaker is musing on his life as he philosophizes about the lost opportunities that might have given meaning to his life.
First Movement: A Twisted Symbolism
I have studied many times The marble which was chiseled for me— A boat with a furled sail at rest in a harbor. In truth it pictures not my destination But my life.
A boat with a furled sail resting peacefully in a harbor symbolizes a life well lived and a soul resting comfortably in the arms of the divine after that life has accomplished its finish—an appropriate and beautiful image for a tombstone monument. However, in the case of George Gray, the symbolism takes a very different twist.
George begins by stating that he has contemplated that boat image “many times,” and he has concluded that it does not represent his life’s “destination” but the course of his life itself.
Second Movement: Fear of Taking a Chance
For love was offered me and I shrank from its disillusionment; Sorrow knocked at my door, but I was afraid; Ambition called to me, but I dreaded the chances.
George then offers the reasons that the boat image designates his course through life rather than his life’s destination. George says that he was offered “love,” but he “shrank from its disillusionment.” He would not have believed the old adage that is it better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.
George then claims that he had the opportunity to experience “sorrow,” but he would not allow himself the luxury of that experience simply because he was “afraid.” Quite likely, the “sorrow” arose as he declined the offer of love.
A part of George wanted to return the love, but his brittle nature rejected it and along with the sorrow caused by the rejection of love. George also did not allow himself to engage in “ambition” because of dreading the “chances.” He failed to play the game because he might lose—which made it a forgone conclusion that he would not win.
Third Movement: A Hunger for Meaning in Life
Yet all the while I hungered for meaning in my life. And now I know that we must lift the sail And catch the winds of destiny Wherever they drive the boat.
Even as George was allowing love, ambition, and other emotions to slip through his fingers, he felt a “hunger[ ] for meaning in [his] life.” He could not foretell that meaning resided in the unknown.
But now George understands that to achieve meaning one must take chances; one must “lift the sail,” “catch the winds of destiny,” and be willing to go “[w]herever they drive the boat.”
Fourth Movement: Torture Every Which Way
To put meaning in one’s life may end in madness, But life without meaning is the torture Of restlessness and vague desire— It is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid.
George admits that “putt[ing] meaning in one’ life may end in madness.” The loss of love, the despair brought on by sorrow, the dreaded dashing of ambitious hopes all could lead to “madness.” But on the other hand, George now believes that “a life without meaning is the torture / Of restlessness and vague desire.”
Such a life of torture, he assumes, must be worse than the madness of unrequited love and failed ambitions. George metaphorically likens such a passionless life as his own to a “boat longing for the sea yet afraid.” Thus the only emotion he actually lived with was fear and that emotion proved to be torture.
After sorrow has settled, and the breath has become a gentle wind, you will sit in the dark and count on your fingers the day’s blessings. You will not let a spider cross your eyes, nor the moon come singing far-off sea songs that tug your heart like the strings of a colorful kite.
Motherhood assumed your body, and strange children came running out. They played a mystery-game in your backyard. Feathers from scared birds stuck in the thorns of the rose-bushes, and the bloody fingers you had to wipe, and the knees bandage, until your house squeezed them out.
Age and departure have settled in your heart and play in your mind. You are not starting anything new, and now you know you never have begun a thing though you have spun like a sense clown, decked out in duds that toot. Now you will carry your load of dreams in the belly of your pregnant brain
until you can finally sit and have a quiet talk with God and tell Him all you have learned about how to love, and He suddenly understands you.
In this American-Innovative sonnet, “Herbert Marshall” is responding to the report delivered by “Louise Smith,” the speaker of the preceding epitaph.
Introduction and Text of “Herbert Marshall”
Edgar Lee Masters’ again performs his magic in an American-Innovative sonnet. While the sonnet remains without a rime scheme or a rhythm pattern, it does section itself into the Petrarchan octave and sestet; the octave features the speaker’s response to Louise’s sorrow. The sestet explains the speaker’s own sorrow along with his reason for abandoning the relationship with Louise.
The speaker in Edgar Lee Masters’ “Herbert Marshall” from Spoon River Anthology is offering his side of the complaint, revealed by Louise Smith, the previous speaker in the series.
Herbert reflects the defects in Louise’s character, or lack thereof. He then turns philosophical about life as it relates to happiness. Herbert refused to be a doormat by allowing Louise to walk all over him in life. And now in death he refuses to allow her to obfuscate the reason that he had to leave her.
Herbert Marshall
All your sorrow, Louise, and hatred of me Sprang from your delusion that it was wantonness Of spirit and contempt of your soul’s rights Which made me turn to Annabelle and forsake you. You really grew to hate me for love of me, Because I was your soul’s happiness, Formed and tempered To solve your life for you, and would not. But you were my misery. If you had been My happiness would I not have clung to you? This is life’s sorrow: That one can be happy only where two are; And that our hearts are drawn to stars Which want us not.
Commentary on “Herbert Marshall”
In this American-Innovative sonnet, “Herbert Marshall” is responding to the report delivered by “Louise Smith,” the speaker of the preceding epitaph.
Octave: First Movement: Louise’s Wrong Thinking
All your sorrow, Louise, and hatred of me Sprang from your delusion that it was wantonness Of spirit and contempt of your soul’s rights Which made me turn to Annabelle and forsake you.
As Herbert addresses Louise, he lets her know that it was only her “delusion” regarding his relationship with Annabelle that made Louise end up hating Herbert. Herbert insists that Louise was thinking wrongly. He claims that he did not turn to Annabelle merely out of lust. It was Louise’s own actions that caused Herbert to turn to another woman.
Herbert wishes to make it clear that Louise’s wrong thinking caused her to hate him. He insists that it was not evil intentions on his part that is responsible for Louise’s life destroying hatred.
Octave: Second Movement: Love Morphed into Hatred
You really grew to hate me for love of me, Because I was your soul’s happiness, Formed and tempered To solve your life for you, and would not.
Herbert remains well aware that Louise’s love for him morphed into hatred. Yet he also understands that because she expected him to provide her “soul’s happiness,” he could never live up to such an expectation. Like so many unlucky marriage partners, Louise wanted Herbert to supply her with that which he could not. He was simply not capable of “solv[ing] [her] life for [her].”
Many marriages end because the partners expect each other to supply them with that soul happiness. That deep, inner happiness can only attained by each individual through his or her own effort.
Marriage partners cannot supply each other with the deep, lasting happiness that only each unique soul can find. The behavior of one human being toward another can never afford soul happiness. Herbert was aware of this situation. He realized that Louise would squeeze the life out of him if he tried to satisfy her soul longings.
Thus, Herbert refused to allow himself to be used this way. Knowing he could never the fill void caused by Louise’s wrongheadedness, he turned away from her and to Annabelle.
Sestet:Third Movement: Blunt and Defiant
But you were my misery. If you had been My happiness would I not have clung to you?
Herbert addresses Louise with a blunt and defiant response: “you were my misery.” Herbert knew that Louise’s neediness would smother any hopes for a happy marriage for the two of them.
Louise’s delusional expectations of Herbert made it impossible for her to offer him the love he need. Her blindness to Herbert’s needs precluded any happiness that they might experience as a couple. Herbert implies through a rhetorical question to Louise that if she had, in fact, been making him happy, he would have remained with her.
And Herbert wants Louise to understand that he did not turn to another woman out of lust. It was Louise’s needy selfishness that causes him to spurn her and end their relationship. Louise’s clinging nature that grew out of pure greed was the culprit, not simple selfishness on Herbert’s part.
Sestet: Fourth Movement: Gleaning Awareness from Experience
This is life’s sorrow: That one can be happy only where two are; And that our hearts are drawn to stars Which want us not.
Finally, Herbert philosophically announces what he has gleaned from his experience about life and sorrow. Herbert concludes that a conundrum exists: it seems that in order to be happy one has to become two, that is, has to have a marriage partner.
But Herbert also sees that “our hearts are drawn to stars / Which want us not.” Even though we need a partner to be happy, we can be attracted to those who do not want us. Such thinking makes the reader wonder about how Herbert’s relationship with Annabelle turned out.
In Edgar Lee Masters’ American-Innovative sonnet, “Louise Smith” is a woman, who was jilted after an eight-year engagement.
Introduction and Text of “Louise Smith”
In Edgar Lee Masters’ “Louise Smith” from his American classic Spoon River Anthology, the speaker laments allowing her love for the man who jilted her to turn into hate. This epitaph is offered in the form of an American-Innovative sonnet.
Louise is speaking many years after the sorrowful event. She becomes very philosophical about what happened to her. Thus Louise is offering advice to others about selfish wishes and the nature of the soul.
Louise Smith
Herbert broke our engagement of eight years When Annabelle returned to the village From the Seminary, ah me! If I had let my love for him alone It might have grown into a beautiful sorrow— Who knows?—filling my life with healing fragrance. But I tortured it, I poisoned it, I blinded its eyes, and it became hatred— Deadly ivy instead of clematis. And my soul fell from its support, Its tendrils tangled in decay. Do not let the will play gardener to your soul Unless you are sure It is wiser than your soul’s nature.
Commentary on “Louise Smith”
Edgar Lee Masters’ American-Innovative sonnet, “Louise Smith,” feature the drama of a woman who was jilted after an eight-year engagement.
First Movement: An “Ah, Me!” Moment
Herbert broke our engagement of eight years When Annabelle returned to the village From the Seminary, ah me!
Louise says that after Annabelle came back to Spoon River “from the Seminary,” her fiancé Herbert broke their eight-year engagement. Louise then heaves a verbal indication of a sigh, “ah me!”
Second Movement: Waxing Philosophical
If I had let my love for him alone It might have grown into a beautiful sorrow— Who knows?—filling my life with healing fragrance.
Louise has garnered a philosophical stance regarding her unpleasant situation with Herbert. She has turned over the situation in her mind and concluded that if she had simply allowed herself to continue loving him and thus allowed herself to grieve, that love “might have grown into a beautiful sorrow.”
This “beautiful sorrow” likely would have led to a healing; she express that sentiment gently and graciously, “filling my life with healing fragrance.” The reader then realizes that Louise will possibly be announcing how she took a different route and the “healing fragrance” eluded her.
Third Movement: A Confession
But I tortured it, I poisoned it, I blinded its eyes, and it became hatred— Deadly ivy instead of clematis.
Louise then confesses that she “tortured” and “poisoned” that love. She “blinded its eyes,” and love transformed into hate. Louise allowed herself to become bitter, concentrating not on what the love had been but simply that Herbert had dumped her for Annabelle.
No doubt, Louise’s hatred was doubled as she included Annabelle in that violent emotion. Louise likens metaphorically her embattled loathing to “deadly ivy” whereas it had been “clematis.” Louise’s own hatred poisoned her mind and heart.
Fourth Movement: Poisoning Her Soul
And my soul fell from its support, Its tendrils tangled in decay.
By allowing her heart and mind to poison her soul, to turn the beauty of clematis into the lethality of ivy, Louise caused her soul to fall “from its support.” Continuing with the plant metaphor, Louise says her soul support’s “tendrils tangled in decay.” Clematis produces lovely flowers as it climbs up a wall or trellis, but deadly ivy is poison ivy that can kill. Both grow on stems that are called tendrils.
Louise’s metaphor focuses on the tangling of the deadly ivy that would cause decay because the tangled stems would choke the plant keeping out air and sunlight. She is thus showing how her negative attitude choked off her positive emotions, which caused her love to become tangled in a web of hate where it decayed.
Fifth Movement: Advice to the Love-Lorn
Do not let the will play gardener to your soul Unless you are sure It is wiser than your soul’s nature.
Louise offers advice based on her own experience. She counsels others, “[d]o not let the will play gardener to your soul / Unless you are sure / It is wiser than your soul’s nature.”
Remaining with the plant metaphor, she tells her listeners not to allow selfish wishes to tend the soul, as a gardener would tend plants—that is, unless you know that those selfish wishes are more intelligent and “wiser” than the soul. Because the soul is always wiser than selfish wishes, Louise accomplishes the goal of her advice.
“ . . . even Lenin might have been surprised at how far these useful idiots would carry their partisanship in later years . . .” —Thomas Sowell
Dictionary dot com says an “idiot” is, informally: “[A]n utterly foolish or senseless person.” In Psychology, “a person of the lowest order In a former and discarded classification Of mental retardation, having a mental age Of less than three years old.”
Yes, that describes the “useful idiots” I intend. A three-year-old-mind in the body of an adult Is an ugly, reeking critter, whereas A three-year-old mind in a three-year-old Is fresh with delight.
Why is that? Because the three-year-old lacks The years of layering on of adult rubbish That makes that adult idiot a stench-pot—a rancid, Rotting, blathering bilge-water of putrid poppycock. Therefore, Why continue to suffer the scent of idiots, Why bother talking to idiots, Why bother thinking about idiots, Or deign to explain anything to idiots?
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 “If pain for peace prepares”
Emily Dickinson’s “If pain for peace prepares” reveals the speaker’s exhilarating intuition that the temporary trials of earthly existence prepare the soul for an abundance of peace, beauty, and spiritual illumination.
Introduction and Text of “If pain for peace prepares”
In “If pain for peace prepares,” the speaker reasons from the familiar cycles of winter and night toward a more exalted spiritual possibility. Pain, darkness, and deprivation may seem severe while they are being endured, but the speaker perceives them as preparatory conditions for peace, springtime, and a blaze of celestial light.
The little drama moves from conditional questions to an ecstatic final vision. The speaker’s confidence grows as each natural image becomes a figure for the soul’s progress from limitation toward an awakened consciousness.
In my earlier essays on Dickinsonian poems, I have discussed the speaker’s reliance on intuition to discover realities that physical sight alone cannot verify. Her speakers’ reliance on spirituality informs most of Emily Dickinson’s minimalist poetry.
If pain for peace prepares
If pain for peace prepares L0, what “Augustan” years Our feet awaIt!
If springs from winter rise, Can the Anemones Be reckoned up?
If night stands first – then noon To gird us for the sun, What gaze!
When from a thousand skies On our developed eyes Noons blaze!
Commentary on “If pain for peace prepares”
The speaker transforms pain from a merely negative experience into a possible preparation for a richer awareness. Her repeated “If” does not express empty doubt; it creates a chain of intuitively perceived correspondences between sorrow and peace, winter and spring, darkness and spiritual light.
First Stanza: “‘If pain for peace prepares”
If pain for peace prepares L0, what “Augustan” years Our feet awaIt!
The speaker begins with a daring supposition: “If pain for peace prepares.” Pain is not praised for its own sake, nor does the speaker pretend that suffering is pleasant. Instead, she wonders whether pain may serve as preparation for a peace so profound that the preceding hardship becomes understandable.
The word “prepares” is especially significant. Preparation implies movement toward something not yet fully possessed. A student prepares for knowledge, a field prepares for harvest, and the human heart may prepare through trial for a more permanent tranquility. The speaker thus shifts the reader’s attention away from present discomfort toward its possible spiritual consequence.
Her exclamation, “Lo,” announces a sudden vision. If pain indeed leads toward peace, then the future contains “Augustan” years. “Augustan” suggests not merely the month of August but a season of fullness, ripeness, warmth, and dignified abundance. The speaker sees life’s ultimate destination as a long summer of fulfillment.
The phrase “Our feet await!” makes the vision bodily and immediate. Feet represent the human journey through the earthly world. They have walked through difficult terrain, yet they are poised before a more favorable country. The speaker does not claim that peace has already arrived; she feels the soul standing on the threshold of it.
Paramahansa Yogananda asserts that “Pain is a prod to remembrance.” The statement closely resembles the Dickinsonian speaker’s intuition that pain can awaken an individual from forgetfulness and direct consciousness toward a deeper peace. Pain may jar the mind away from dependence upon changing circumstances and toward the enduring source of joy.
In my earlier essays on Dickinsonian poems, I have discussed the speaker’s conviction that the visible world contains hints of a more permanent metaphysical reality. The “Augustan” years suggest just such a reality: a condition of ripened joy that temporary earthly hardship cannot finally prevent.
The speaker’s three brief lines retain an energetic optimism. She does not linger over the nature of pain; she quickly imagines the peace for which it may prepare. Her gaze remains fixed upon the soul’s future enlargement rather than upon the passing difficulty.
Second Stanza: “If springs from winter rise”
If springs from winter rise, Can the Anemones Be reckoned up?
The speaker next turns to nature for an illustration of her spiritual premise. Winter appears barren, cold, and lifeless, but it does not possess the final word. Spring rises after winter, bringing renewed color, fragrance, and growth. The natural process offers the speaker a visible example of restoration.
The verb “rise” conveys more than an ordinary seasonal change. Spring does not merely follow winter in a mechanical sequence; it rises out of it. The word implies lifting, awakening, and overcoming. The speaker finds in the annual rebirth of nature a figure for the soul’s emergence from difficulty.
She then asks, “Can the Anemones / Be reckoned up?” Anemones are delicate spring flowers, and their appearance represents the uncountable wealth of beauty that follows the wintry season. The speaker’s question requires no numerical answer. The blossoms are too numerous, too various, and too delightful to be reduced to calculation.
The image of flowers also deepens the contrast between pain and peace. Winter’s bleakness can make the return of flowers more vivid. The speaker seems to suggest that the soul, having known deprivation, may recognize and cherish beauty with a greater intensity. What had seemed an ending becomes a condition preceding renewal.
Paramahansa Yogananda teaches that lasting happiness cannot be expected from ever-changing material conditions; he identifies real peace and contentment with “the bliss of God.” The speaker’s spring is therefore more than a pleasant season. It may be contemplated as an emblem of that inner joy which outlasts the alternating conditions of life.
In my earlier essays on Dickinsonian poems, I have discussed the speaker’s close attention to natural details as vehicles for larger spiritual intuitions. Here, the small anemones become evidence that apparent barrenness can conceal a coming abundance.
The questioning tone is not skeptical. It is delighted. The speaker’s mind encounters a beauty too plentiful to inventory, and the inability to “reckon” the flowers becomes a measure of their overflowing generosity. Spring offers a quiet answer to the first stanza’s question about pain and peace.
Third Stanza: “If night stands first – then noon”
If night stands first – then noon To gird us for the sun, What gaze!
The third movement advances from winter and spring to the daily passage from night toward noon. Night “stands first,” occupying an initial position before the arrival of light. The speaker recognizes darkness as part of the sequence, but never as the ultimate condition.
The phrase “then noon” brings an abrupt reversal. Noon is the day’s fullest outward radiance, when the sun occupies its commanding height. The movement from night to noon is more dramatic than a simple transition from darkness to dawn. The speaker leaps directly toward a blaze of complete illumination.
The clause “To gird us for the sun” is complex and suggestive. “Gird” means to prepare, strengthen, or equip. Night, despite its obscurity, may strengthen the perceiver for an encounter with greater light. Just as the first stanza proposes pain as preparation for peace, this stanza proposes night as preparation for the sun.
The speaker does not assume that the unprepared eye can easily endure brilliance. Excessive light may overwhelm a person who has known only darkness. Thus the night becomes a period in which the soul gradually develops the capacity to receive a fuller revelation.
Her exclamation—“What gaze!”—records astonishment before that possibility. The word “gaze” indicates sustained looking rather than a passing glance. The speaker is imagining an inward vision equal to the light that it receives. Such vision requires more than physical sight; it requires awakened intuition.
Paramahansa Yogananda explains that the spiritual eye is “the single eye of intuition and omnipresent perception” and calls it an entryway into higher states of divine consciousness. His teaching offers a striking parallel to the speaker’s developing gaze, which is being strengthened for a light beyond ordinary sunlight.
In my earlier essays on Dickinsonian poems, I have discussed the speaker’s contemplative musing upon the powers of the mind and soul. This “gaze” demonstrates that same concern with an inner faculty capable of perceiving truths unavailable to the merely literal eye.
The speaker’s progression now becomes clear. Pain may prepare for peace; winter may prepare for flowers; night may prepare for noon. Each contrast teaches that an adverse condition can be temporary and can even contribute to the soul’s readiness for a higher condition.
Fourth Stanza: “When from a thousand skies”
When from a thousand skies On our developed eyes Noons blaze!
The final movement completes the speaker’s ascent into an overwhelming vision of light. The conditional “If” has now changed to “When.” That change is important. The earlier stanzas explore possibilities, but the concluding stanza speaks with the confidence of anticipated fulfillment.
The speaker no longer envisions one sky or one noon. She imagines “a thousand skies” from which “Noons blaze.” The plural forms enlarge the scene beyond ordinary experience. The image suggests that illumination will arrive from every direction, surrounding the soul with an inexhaustible radiance.
The word “developed” reveals that the eyes have not always been capable of this perception. They have grown through the earlier disciplines of pain, winter, and night. Development implies gradual maturation, much like the unfolding of a flower or the ripening of the “Augustan” years.
The eyes are also “our” eyes. The speaker’s spiritual hope is not confined to one isolated individual. Her vision embraces humanity, or at least all readers willing to undertake the contemplative musing required to recognize the poem’s spiritual correspondences.
“Noons blaze!” is the poem’s culminating exclamation. Noon, earlier anticipated after night, now becomes plural and immeasurable. The blazing light signifies a consciousness so illuminated that darkness no longer controls perception. The speaker arrives not at a modest consolation but at a lavish revelation.
Paramahansa Yogananda explains that seekers who develop sufficient concentration can penetrate the spiritual eye and “see God.” He also identifies the thousand-petaled lotus in the brain as the seat of cosmic consciousness. The speaker’s “thousand skies” and “developed eyes” harmonize suggestively with that teaching of expanded spiritual perception.
In my earlier essays on Dickinsonian poems, I have discussed the speaker’s mystical intuition and her interest in the relationship between the human mind and Ultimate Reality. The concluding blaze of noons portrays the mind not as imprisoned in darkness but as capable of receiving transcendent light.
The poem therefore leaves the reader with an exhilarating reversal. Pain, winter, and night are not denied, but they are placed within a larger sequence. The speaker intuits that the soul’s difficult passages leads toward peace, innumerable blossoms, strengthened vision, and a final flood of divine illumination.
