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Unit 17: Explanation of Unseen Passages in Verse

sky. The poem is thus pictorial on a miltonic scale and comparably terrific in revealing the crescent Notes
soul surrounded in every direction except the east by the blackness of darkness. A revealing gloss
may be cited in Venerable Bede’s comparison of the life of man to the sparrow that flies from the
storm of winter into one window of a warm bright hall and out of another window into the black
snow-filled night agan. The difference of course is that Dickinson’s vision is informed by terror as
well as pathos.
The first stanza of the poem presents a tightly knit unit. Its shock value derives from the extreme
disparity between the two things compared, incongruous in all respects except the startling points of
resemblance that can be discovered. The trap lies in the great precision needed to avoid confusing
them, the vital but subjective “life” and the objective but inanimate “gun”. If she had used the strict
method of metaphysical poetry, the succeeding stanzas would have been devoted to complicating
and reconciling these disparities until they coalesce violently in the end.

3. Read the following passages carefully and explain them:
At length did cross an Albatross,
Through the fog it came;
As if it had been a Christian soul,
We hailed it in God’s name.
Explanation: These lines have been taken from Coleridge’s famous poem, ‘The Rime of the Ancient
Mariner’. The poem is based on a dream story told by a friend of Coleridge. It was composed when
Coleridge accompanied Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy on a tour. Some of the lines of this poem
were suggested by Wordsworth.
The Ancient Mariner relates his voyage and the hardships he had to bear to a person who was on his
way to attend a marriage feast. The voyage starts pleasantly but a storm hit them from the rear. They
were helpless and were pushed down south till they reached the foggy and icy region of the South
Pole. Their ship was hedged by ice on all sides.
During the icy-siege, when they were engulfed by fog, mist and snow, cut-off from all the living
things of the world, they were overjoyed to see a sea-bird, an Albatross that came to the ship through
the fog. It came to them as a good-omen. The sailors considered the bird a Christian soul which
brings hope and happiness, and therefore, they greeted it as a good will message from God. They
were sure that the bird was the harbinger of joy and their troubles would soon end.
4. Read the following passages carefully and explain them:
O happy living things! no tongue
Their beauty might declare
A spring of love gushed from my heart,
And I blessed them unaware:
Sure my kind saint took pity on me,
And I blessed them unaware.
Explanation: These lines are from Coleridge’s famous Ballad ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’. In
this Ballad (based on a dream of a friend and written in the company of Wordsworth) the poet
elaborates on a Christian theme i.e. of redemption through penance and the grace of God. The theme
is presented through the story of a Mariner who kills an innocent bird. For this sin he is punished by
heat, thirst and loneliness. His companions die and he is left alone in the midst of a vast silent ocean.
He tries to pray but finds himself unable to do so. After a very long agonising period he sees colourful
water snakes. The lines given above tell us about his reactions.
While watching there beautiful creatures, love is kindled in his heart. Without being aware of it, he
blesses them. This act of showing love is a redeeming act. For immediately afterwards the Mariner is
able to pray. He experiences a sense of relief. This change he attributes to the benevolence of the saint
whom he worships. In the next stanza we are told that the dead Albatross around his neck slips off
and falls into the sea.

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