Love Calls Us to the Things of This World free essay sample

Wilbur is a poem about our reason for living. The reason we get up every morning and go about our day according to Wilbur is love. The title of this poem clearly is making that statement. The title however is not quite enough to portray exactly what it is that we are being called back from. When we are sleeping, our souls become part of a peaceful and pure realm. In contrast the waking world is full of stress and undesirable challenges, a world in which the soul has no desire of being part of. Using highly refined diction and structure, Wilbur portrays the contrast between the two worlds and our souls reason for accepting the return to reality. The structure of the poem can be separated in to two parts. The first half describes the souls perception of the surrounding world as its body first begins to wake up. We will write a custom essay sample on Love Calls Us to the Things of This World or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page This is set during the period between true consciousness and the dream world. In this moment reality becomes pure and timeless. In the third line, the author describes the soul â€Å"hanging bodiless and simple. Using this kind of diction to set the tone as a sort of mock-seriousness and creates a sense of suspension and detachment from the world. Still within the beginning of the poem, the tone seems to sway between humor and spirituality. As an example of the humor used, the author writes â€Å"The morning air is all awash with angels. † Still conveying a strong sense of spirituality, this line also serves as a pun towards the angels being described through the hanging laundry just outside of the open window. It also gives the spiritual world a likeness of heaven, full of angels. The humor is in the word choice â€Å"awash† because it serves a double meaning. The first meaning is that the air is â€Å"full† of the angels, and the other meaning is the fact that people â€Å"wash† their laundry to make it clean and fresh again. The first half of the poems diction is well used to describe this spiritual realm. Using such words as, â€Å"calm swells† and â€Å"halcyon† which is a very strong word meaning a peaceful and happy period of the past. The author focuses on giving laundry the personification of angels. Angels being one of the most distinct symbols for spirituality and purity. Throughout the first two stanzas, a strong sense of whimsical and somewhat frail tranquility is given to the reader. The laundry is also a symbol for cleanliness and softness. By the end of the first half the spiritual world is vivid and alive in the readers mind. In the third stanza, there is an abrupt transition from the spiritual world into the physical reality. All of a sudden the author describes â€Å"The terrible speed † in which the angels go back to being just laundry, as if the sleeping person is rapidly pulling out of a dream state. At the end of the stanza the author is using clever diction to describe how sudden reality sets in. The very last line of this half of the poem is very important. It marks the point in which the physical word takes over. Using only three words â€Å"The soul shrinks† the author is setting more of a disappointing tone. This line describes the â€Å"soul† and its reluctance to fade back into the physical realm, as well as a transition to the other side of Wilburs contrasting poem. In the last four stanzas Wilbur uses creative diction to convey the souls hesitation to wake up from the peaceful angelic world, and into the contradicting reality of the real world. Line seventeen in a very strong way to portray this ill-received reality. By using the lineâ€Å"The punctual rape of every blessed day † as a view of the real world, and its unpleasant formality, social pressures and everyday responsibilities. How the roles we must fill take away any sense of wonder and spirituality, leaving our souls â€Å"shrunken†. The author gives the mans soul personification in the second stanza. As the soul cries out how it wishes there to be nothing but the simple spiritual side that the sleeping realm offers. These few lines make it as though there is no reason to become part of such a world. However, as the man fully becomes lucid, â€Å"the soul descends once more in bitter love. † Though the the physical world is harsh and unclean compared to spiritual realm of sleep. No matter how â€Å"bitter† it is, love has become the souls one true purpose for returning. By the last stanza the soul seems to be brimming with compassion and love. Even though the spiritual world has been left to sleep, there are other ways to bring that sense of peace to such a contradicting reality and its inhabitants. In the last stanza, each line describes love and mercy, setting a hopeful tone. The author is combining the two worlds with love, by clothing the unworthy and letting people go â€Å"fresh and sweet†. This shows that there is still hope for the dreary souls of humanity, as long as we try our best to have love. The fact that the spiritual world was strongly associated with laundry is important because this offers a chance for the physical world to have a sense of connection with the spiritual world. To solidify the comparison of the spiritual soul and the physical world. Wilbur ends the poem with the line â€Å"Keeping their difficult balance. † Meaning that each side would not be able to exist without the other. This poems ability to bring such a descriptive comparison between spirituality and physical reality is based on the authors use of diction and structure. The journey the soul takes in this poem from one realm to the next is very moving. Making one think about what our true purpose on this earth is and how we can keep our souls from shrinking. This poem by Richard Wilbur sheds a whole different light on the simple act of waking up.