In “The Living Temple”, Holmes utilizes various scenes to demonstrate that God’s spirit creates and perpetuates the life of creation. Holmes especially shows the refreshing effects that God brings to counter the decay of life, and he also touches upon the juvenescence that God sparks within all of nature. Throughout “The Living Temple”, this reinvigorating spirit flows through nature to bring fulfillment and harmony in all occurrences, so that through his creation, God may be worshipped and revered for the love with which he created the whole universe. Holmes shows God’s enlivening spirit through the essence of lightning and the chaos of the primordial earth. He writes, “Think on the stormy world that dwells / Locked in its dim and clustering cells! / The lightning gleams of power it sheds / Along its hollow and glassy threads!” (Holmes ll. 45-8). When earth was newly created, its atmosphere was characterized by intense heat, toxic gases, erupting volcanoes amidst boiling seas, and bright flashes of lightning within the dense clouds. Using …show more content…
In exemplifying this theme, he uses a scene of water, stating, “Whose streams of brightening purple rush, / Fired with a new and livelier blush, / While all their burden of decay / The ebbing current steals away” (ll. 11-4). The flowing water depicted in this scene is slowed by the debris and sediment which accumulate along its bottom and sides. Because of this “burden of decay”, the water’s life does not fulfill its potential and starts to become stagnant. However, the sunset’s colorful reflection on the water’s surface as well as the persistent current are exemplary of God’s spirit and refreshing powers within nature. God reflects his spirit upon the water and controls the current to strengthen and continue its youthful flow despite the obstructions which deter its spirited
“The cry of a tormented man had come to the peaceful green mystery of my river, and the great presence of the river watched from the shadows and deep recesses.”
Furthermore, if the most basic climate brought about such an alarm, one could only imagine the effects of a disastrous storm, which caused, “Half a dozen people killed by lightning strikes”
The author utilizes multiple metaphors in the poem to create vivid imagery in readers’ mind about the poem. Additionally, John Brehm widely utilizes nautical metaphors to bring out its intentions. For instance, the poem is entitled “the sea of faith.” The term “Sea” is used to show how deep, broad, and everlasting the act of “faith” can be.
Onomatopoeia is also utilized when Holmes writes, “The smooth, soft air with pulse-like waves / Flows murmuring through its hidden caves” (ll. 9-10). The use of sounds enables Holmes to further personify abiotic forces on earth. In this example, Holmes gives air a “murmuring” speech, allowing the reader to not only feel the pulse-like air but to also hear it. These auditory characteristics also bolster the idea of life behind God’s forces on
I love all the metaphors he made in this poem such as the ladder to heaven (apple-picking requires a level which Robert Frost was referring it to the ladder to heaven) and the seasonal interpretation (winter is death and spring is rebirth) that connects to the natural process of decaying and
The disciples were amazed and exclaimed a historic statement about Jesus, “Who is this? He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him” (Lk. 8: 25b). The disciples see Jesus as God who has control over creation and who non-human creation obeys. Childs comments that in here God’s creative activity is depicted in Jesus’ power (Biblical Theology 392).
The poem shows a different perspective on the myth, giving it more dimension. In the first stanza, it states, “According to Brueghel when Icarus fell it was spring.” This shows that Williams was referring to Brueghel’s painting and it sets the ambience to a very comforting, graceful, and sunny day. On the third and fourth stanzas, it says, “The whole pageantry of the year was awake tingling near. The edge of the sea concerned with itself.”
As stated in “The Ponds” chapter, “A field of water betrays the spirit that is in the air. It is continually receiving new life and motion from above. It is intermediate between land and sky.” (Page Number). This conveys to the reader that the study of nature could replace and oppose our enslavement by understanding that the pond is the human soul as the connection between earth and heaven, surviving in an earthly realm but suggesting a peaceful world just above, in the sky, which reflects into the pond.
Hardwood uses childhood recollections to gain a new perspective of the passage of life through nature. In the Hardwood’s ‘At Mornington,’ water is a significant motif representing the nature of life. In the beginning of the poem, the speaker recalls a childhood memory in which she first discovers the concept of death through water as shown when she was “caught by a wave and rolled like a doll among rattling shells.” The simile highlights the imposing power and hints at the connection between the turbulence of water and life.
Throughout the entire passage he manages to utilize opposition and contradiction. “The Earth that’s nature’s mother is her tomb; What is her burying grave, that is her womb; And from her womb children of divers kind We sucking on her natural bosom find, Many
For the faithful Jew, the place to celebrate the great moments of their faith was Jerusalem. In the Jewish liturgical year, the Passover was unsurpassed; little wonder Jesus was there. Jerusalem was also the centre of power – religious and secular; events here have an altogether greater significance. The author places “The Cleansing of the Temple” at this point in his Gospel – it is a very different account from what we read in the other Gospels.
He believes that because humanity has absorbed so many materialistic ideals that the connection between nature and oneself feels absent. “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud,” instead begins with the discovery of a field of golden daffodils, “fluttering
The story evokes this particularly through water, showing there is a dark and light side to everything, exploring the hypocritical nature of the world all while fitting these messages into the story; developing characters while driving the plot forward. A simple thing such as a body of water is taken from just being an object, to serving as instrument to develop the story, characters and reader, all while becoming a character
That reconnection with nature will renew the world for us. The speaker in the next stanzas reflects how he has lost this connection, as his “afflictions bow me down to the earth” (82) and his “viper thoughts” have stolen his “shaping spirit of Imagination” (86). Coleridge speaks of the wind’s inability to raise him out of his
A prime example of is the ‘oceans roar’ (line 18) and the ‘roar of the hurricanes’ (line 75). Roaring is used for multiple reasons, including territorial proclamation, communication with other animals and an expression of anger. In the context of poem, the roar of the water could signify the great force of oppression that white people imposed on slaves. If we accept this interpretation, it is ironic that the speaker looks to the sea as a means of freedom and escape. However, this perspective is not uncommon as during the Victorian era, nature was a ‘respiratory feeling’ and Victorians ‘were all too eager to retrain’ it.