samarry of the poem A Day
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Answer:
This poem presents a kind of sacramental ceremony between the speaker and another. This other, depending on the reading, is either a human lover, or Christ. The opening stanza describes the coming of a summer day, specifically, the summer solstice (“There came a Day at Summer’s full”), which is beyond normal human experience (“I thought that such were for the Saints”) and reserved for the divine, because it allows for rebirth (“Where Resurrections – be –“). In this case, however, the speaker is allowed to participate and is, in fact, the sole recipient (“Entirely for me”).
In the next stanza, the natural world continues to act as if everything were normal. The sun sets (“The Sun, as common, went abroad”), the wind blows (“The flowers, accustomed, blew”), as if this ceremony, and its association with resurrection, were not occurring (“As if no soul the solstice passed/That maketh all things new –“).
The speaker then describes a kind of sacred, ultimate silence (“The time was scarce profaned, by speech –“) that does not need superfluous words, because all is understood without them (“The symbol of a word,/Was needless”). She compares words in this situation to Christ’s clothes “at Sacrament", carrying no meaning.
The next stanza makes it clear that there is another person present, although whether it is a lover or Christ is less clear. The speaker and the other are presented here, however, as equals (“Each was to each The Sealed Church”), or at least, as equally important to each other. They are given this day to “commune,” as a kind of practice for their later meeting in, ostensibly, heaven (“Lest we too awkward show / At Supper of the Lamb”).
The time goes by quickly (“The Hours slid fast”), because the speaker and her companion don’t want it to pass at all (“As Hours will, / Clutched tight, by greedy hands –“). Knowing they must now part, as two “Bound to opposing lands,” they each crucify the other -- that is, they separate, and in so doing, they die. But this ceremony acts as a betrothal (“Sufficient troth”) for a reunion, a spiritual wedding (“To that new Marriage”), beyond the grave (“we shall rise – / Deposed – at length, the grave“).
Explanation:
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