From William Nauns Ricks' "The Coming Night (From the Berkeley Hills)":
I turn, the sun more splendid,
Bathes land and sea in gold;
A thousand colored blended,
Toward the hills are rolled.
There, amethyst and violet,
Where green and brown held sway
With scarlet, form a triolet
To deck the dying day.
On a first read, it seems the obvious theme in this stanza is that the sun is setting and they
day is nearly over. Here is my line-by-line analysis:
1. as the speaker turns toward
the sun, it is even more impressive
2. the land is covered by the
light of the sun
3. all of the multiple colors of
the sunset blend along the horizon
4. mixed in with the clouds
across the mountains
5. shades of purple
6. you aren’t paying attention
to the grass and land
7. the amethyst, violet and
scarlet melt together as three colors in one
8. to conclude the closing of
the day
Hi Amanda,
ReplyDeleteI wanted to respond to you because I read this poem too. I don't see you full response but I wanted to say the at first glance this poem does seem intuitive, however upon further reading I believe that Ricks is expressing God's majesty by creating this wonderful kaleidoscope of a color pallet that represents the diversity and unity that we seem to take for granted.
Hello Amanda,
ReplyDeleteIt was cool that you used a poem to o your close reading on. I have never done that before. The poem was a little difficult for me to understand at first, but after I read how you broke it down it made more since. Its crazy how the meaning of something can come out once you break the actual text down.