Passion By: Kathleen Raine Notes Compiled by: Shubhanshi Gaudani Full of desire I lay, the sky wounding me, Each cloud a ship without me sailing, each tree Possessing what my soul lacked, tranquillity. Waiting for the longed-for voice to speak Through the mute telephone, my body grew weak With the well-known and mortal death, heartbreak. The language I knew best, my human speech Forsook my fingers, and out of reach Were Homer s ghosts, the savage conches of the beach. Then the sky spoke to me in language clear, Familiar as the heart, than love more near. The sky said to my soul, `You have what you desire. `Know now that you are born along with these Clouds, winds, and stars, and ever-moving seas And forest dwellers. This your nature is. Lift up your heart again without fear, Sleep in the tomb, or breathe the living air, This world you with the flower and with the tiger share. Then I saw every visible substance turn Into immortal, every cell new born Burned with the holy fire of passion. This world I saw as on her judgment day When the war ends, and the sky rolls away, And all is light, love and eternity. NOTES COMPILED BY SHUBHANSHI GAUDANI 1
Line to Line Analysis Each cloud a ship without me sailing each tree Possessing what my soul lacked, tranquillity. Raine creates this visual imagery along with the trees and the stars to create a stark contrast between both the worlds; her outer world which is the nature, and her inner state. Both of them happen to be in a discord, which particularly makes her envy the elements of the outer world. The ships which are sailing without her happen to be clouds that are blissfully floating across the expanse of the sky. The trees which posses the tranquility are high spirited, with a unique content and serenity. The sky which is wounding her, promises a sense of freedom that she cannot experience. To me, this sharply contrasts the inner state of the poet, which is the opposite. Her soul is left amongst stormy seas, with a lot of turbulence. She is unable to rejoice along with the trees, as placidity is what her soul lacked. This contrast, makes me feel as if the poet envies the nature, and amplifies the magnanimity of her feelings just like any political unrest running in her heart. Waiting for the longed-for voice to speak Through the mute telephone, my body grew weak These lines, create a sense of longing that Raine develops after each and every moment of her heartbreak. The mute telephone acts like an ironical phrase, since the messenger, used to communicate, is rather mute. It makes me believe that, the this silence depicted by the word mute is responsible for the chaos that was referred to in the earlier stanza. Raine makes it quite interesting as well as ironical when silence causes the poet the pen down her feelings in terms of poetry. The silence is suppressing her, but the evidence that she accepts this silence is through her confiding writing this poem itself. It also makes me realise the positive side of the heartbreak she refers to in the next line, and the significance of distributing love, in the limited time of life. Better said as, It s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. With the well-known and mortal death, heartbreak. Raine refers to the trauma of the heartbreak, as something equivalent to death. This equivalence itself, shows the intensity of pain, and the emotional jolt she has under gone. The phrase mortal death makes it seem, as if her mortal self as a human being has already been dead, and perished. It is her soul, or the divine being inside her, that has still survived through this heartbreak. The idea is reiterated by the title passion, this refers to the holy fire of passion that burns inside the poet has given her the power and ability to find herself in a new avatar, after rebirth, into a more divine, purer and more strong soul. Which the poet refers to as in the later stanzas as into immortal NOTES COMPILED BY SHUBHANSHI GAUDANI 2
Know now what you are born along with these, clouds, winds and stars, and ever-moving seas and forest dwellers. #Relation of humanity and Nature, She associates our lives with those of the clouds, winds, and stars. In the opening stanza Raine moaned about the tranquility of the clouds, but clouds also turn black and unleash their fury on the earth. Wind strokes us and batters us, depending on its mood. Stars shine, but explode and pulse with heat. So she s basically trying to show how all aspects of nature are controlled by ups and downs; the good times and the bad times; passionate love and passionate heartbreak. The language I knew best, my human speech Forsook my fingers Due to the excruciating agony which heartbreak has caused, the person s ability to speak their mind has depleted, as explained in the third stanza. The alliteration present in the line Forsook my fingers literally means she abandons her fingers, which metaphorically represent that she is so distraught, that she is unable to articulate her feelings into neither words nor speech, perhaps resulting in being so shocked, that she is losing her grasp over language. This feeling is further reiterated by the allusion of "Homer's Ghosts" She seems to lament over, her inability to convert her emotional state into language; she is so shattered and dejected that may be her words vaporise into thin air, and disappear just like Homer's ghosts, who are described as a 'vapour gibbering and whining into the earth' To me this shows her helplessness with language. The word savage merely reiterates the brutality of the feeling of abandonment, as juxtaposed by the author with conches which are attractive abodes abandoned by snails. Then the sky spoke to me in a language clear, Familiar as the heart, than love more near. The sky said to my soul, You have what you desire. These lines strike to me as if they reveal something very precious. In the course of the poem, they turn out like an epiphany, and are particularly symbolic, since they change the Raine s way of thinking. Just at a point where she thought she lost control of language, or language had become a very poor medium of communication, an epiphany strikes, and suddenly the sky which speaks to her in a manner clear. Possibly she considers forces of nature like the sky more trustworthy and familiar as compared to her disappointing experience of following in love. The sky is personified to speak as a universal force that communicates to the speaker. This personification, not only makes me feel about sky as a living, throbbing element of nature, but also as evidence to the occurring of spiritual transcendence. Raine has overcome bonds of realities, this is marked by the word as sky speaks to her soul and not merely her mortal being. And, all of this connects back to the title of Passion, as all of this leads to a strong and barely controllable emotion. The break in the rhyme further makes it seem so from clear and NOTES COMPILED BY SHUBHANSHI GAUDANI 3
near to the word desire. The break in rhyme further makes this voice unequivocal, and clarifies that it is something supernatural, and one of its kind, makes Raine think of it as magical. Know that you are born along with these clouds, winds and stars and evermoving seas and forest dwellers. This your nature is. Lift up your heart again without fear, Sleep in the tomb, or breathe the living air, This world you with the flower and with the tiger share. She associates our lives with those of the clouds, winds, and stars. In the opening stanza Raine moaned about the tranquility of the clouds, but clouds also turn black and unleash their fury on the earth. Wind strokes us and batters us, depending on its mood. Stars shine, but explode and pulse with heat. So she s basically trying to show how all aspects of nature are controlled by ups and downs; the good times and the bad times; passionate love and passionate heartbreak. She links these ups and downs, as our perceptions which are either optimistic or pessimistic based on our take of the situation to sleep in the tomb or breathe in living air, and to flower or stay with the tiger share. It can be further connect with the Chinese Ying-Yang symbol, or theory. Furthermore, being born with all these supernatural forces, also asserts the fact,that Raine makes us realise that her broken heart, has the same beauty that a falling star might have, the same pleasantness that a sea breeze may have, and the same balminess that the clouds may provide. To me it also creates a sense of unity, that joins all of us as beings, and the stars, winds, seas, and clouds to the creator. Burned with the holy fire of passion, judgement day all is light, love and eternity implying that we are fuelled by passion and the heightened emotions that are particularly associated with love. This idea continues in the final stanza when she talks about her judgement day (the day she dies and she meets her maker) seeing the war end and the sky rolls away, leaving only light, love and eternity. She feels that at the end of our lives all the pain and hurt disappears and what we remember and take with us is the passion, love and joy we have experience, it is the positive gains that we cherish and remember. The war seems to refer to the war of the heartbreak. Her inner-self seems to reconcile, this time not with her lover, but instead with light, love and eternity itself, so that she ll never have to suffer again from the heartbreak from mortals that she first did. NOTES COMPILED BY SHUBHANSHI GAUDANI 4
NOTES COMPILED BY SHUBHANSHI GAUDANI 5