At A Window

[mono]

I recently read this poem by Carl Sandburg, a Pulitzer Prize winning poet in 1951, and wondered of how many differing analyses I can find for it.

At A Window

Give me hunger,
O you gods that sit and give
The world its orders.
Give me hunger, pain and want,
Shut me out with shame and failure
From your doors of gold and fame,
Give me your shabbiest, weariest hunger!

But leave me a little love,
A voice to speak to me in the day end,
A hand to touch me in the dark room
Breaking the long loneliness.
In the dusk of day-shapes
Blurring the sunset,
One little wandering, western star
Thrust out from the changing shores of shadow.
Let me go to the window,
Watch there the day-shapes of dusk
And wait and know the coming
Of a little love.

I have never noticed Sanburg's seemingly anti-Hedonistic and transcendental-according-to-love views until being shown this particular work. Most of it reads as relatively straight-forward and direct until my eyes meet "In the dusk of day-shapes . . ." and the proceeding lines. The appearance of a "western star," opposite the sun, to the poet, seems as natural an occurrence and the "waiting and knowing" of the presence of love - something surely to anticipate. Does love necessarily have its own nature, comparable to the sun's set and rise? Truly, its expression has its highs and lows, so to speak, but does this add or subtract from its infinite and pure intuition? And, just like witnessing the often beautiful scenery of the sun's rise and set, can one witness love in its presence just as accurately, and anticipate it, if, indeed, it has its own nature?

[SwiftSleigh7]

I recently read this poem by Carl Sandburg, a Pulitzer Prize winning poet in 1951, and wondered of how many differing analyses I can find for it.

I have never noticed Sanburg's seemingly anti-Hedonistic and transcendental-according-to-love views until being shown this particular work. Most of it reads as relatively straight-forward and direct until my eyes meet "In the dusk of day-shapes . . ." and the proceeding lines. The appearance of a "western star," opposite the sun, to the poet, seems as natural an occurrence and the "waiting and knowing" of the presence of love - something surely to anticipate. Does love necessarily have its own nature, comparable to the sun's set and rise? Truly, its expression has its highs and lows, so to speak, but does this add or subtract from its infinite and pure intuition? And, just like witnessing the often beautiful scenery of the sun's rise and set, can one witness love in its presence just as accurately, and anticipate it, if, indeed, it has its own nature?



At A Window

Give me hunger,
O you gods that sit and give
The world its orders.



The tone of the first three lines is simultaneously commanding and pleading. Also striking is the presence of what I am almost sure is an intended ambiguity in the term "orders" which connotes not only the sense of commands but also of those who receive "ordination."



Give me hunger, pain and want,
Shut me out with shame and failure
From your doors of gold and fame,
Give me your shabbiest, weariest hunger!

You are quite right to note the anti-hedonism inherent in this quatrain.


But leave me a little love,
A voice to speak to me in the day end,
A hand to touch me in the dark room
Breaking the long loneliness.

The most sonorous of lines is layed here with an alliterative appeal to the lithe and languid "l" sounds, which linger on the tongue intermitted by the dissociation of symbolic parts... "voice to speak"... "hand to touch"... both of which are punctuated by the heavy "d" sounds as in "day end" ... "dark room / Breaking the long loneliness. Notice especially how the hard consonant sounds give way again at the end to an echo of the initial alliteration: "long loneliness." The poet has carefully crafted his words to create a special effect--comparison and contrast achieved figuratively and linguistically throughout a subtle poetic design.


In the dusk of day-shapes
Blurring the sunset,
One little wandering, western star
Thrust out from the changing shores of shadow.
Let me go to the window,
Watch there the day-shapes of dusk
And wait and know the coming
Of a little love.


As far as the highs and lows of love adding or subtracting from its infinite and pure intuition goes, one could say that Sandburg is suggesting that that "One little wandering, western star / Thrust out from the changing shores of shadow" that is distinct from "the dusk of day shapes / Blurring the sunset" may even be the "voice to speak to [him] in the day end." To suggest this is of course to anthropomorphize the star at the expense of the hand. But the iteration of the "day shapes of dusk" suggests that there is perhaps more than one voice this persona is hearing, more than one "little love" for which he or she is waiting. It is also a significant position to take if one were to imagine the wait at the window as a labour, a test, or perhaps a solitary yet transient joy of love. If the "little wandering, western star" is an objective correlative for the intuition of supreme love--perhaps the love of the gods to whom the initial request for hunger was made--then it is instructive that the persona turns his attention away from it to the "day-shapes of dusk" and the "coming of a little love." There is certainly no coincidence in the congruence of "little" as an adjective used to describe both the star and the love. Understatement? Or a reflection of that still, small spiritual voice with which the gods speak to us all at our own windows?

Thank you for bringing this poem to my attention.
I would be thrilled if you were to tell me what you think of some of my poetry.

[Basil]

Swiftsleigh7,




I love you.

[Bandini]

What They Want

Vallejo writing about
loneliness while starving to
death;
Van Gogh's ear rejected by a
whore;
Rimboud running off to Africa
to look for gold and finding
an incurable case of syphilis;
Beethoven gone deaf;
Pound dragged through the streets
in a cage;
Chatterton taking rat poison;
Hemingway's brains dropping into
the orange juice;
Pascal cutting his wrists
in the bathtub;
Artaud locked up with the mad;
Dostoevsky stood up against a wall;
Crane jumping into a boat propeller;
Lorca shot in the road by Spanish
troops;
Berryman jumping off a bridge;
Burroughs shooting his wife;
Mailer knifing his.
-- that's what they want:
a God damned show
a lit billboard
in the middle of hell.
that's what they want,
that bunch of
dull
inarticulate
safe
dreary
admirers of
carnivals.

Charles Bukowski

[Bandini]

Isn't Bukowski great?

[mono]

Very interesting analysis, SwiftSleigh7; you perceived some things in "At A Window" that I had never sensed myself, so thank you for reading the poem, and sharing your ideas. Carl Sandburg I can never grow tired of reading and discussing, and only recently have I discovered his greatness (through a book on Psyche's bookshelf). :)

Yes, Bandini, I also love Charles Bukowski. A decent thread, containing some of his admirable poetry, shortysweetp began here:
http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3815