Preludes

Darkness and light are recurring motifs. At the simplest level, they refer to times of day. In Part I, for example, as the darkness of evening falls, the streetlamps are lit. In Part II, people raise their window shades to let in the light of morning. However, the terms also have a deeper, symbolic element. In Part III, a woman lies on her back on her bed at night but she sees flickering against the ceiling “the thousand sordid images / Of which your soul is constituted” (Lines 27-28). These flickering images involve a kind of light, which is somehow conjured up by the night, although the light is set against the spiritual darkness of her soul. In the morning, natural light returns, although not in a blaze of glory; instead, it “crept up between the shutters” (Line 31), as if furtive or hesitant. At this moment, the woman has a transcendent experience, “a vision of the street / As the street hardly understands” (Lines 33-34). This vision suggests a kind of enlightenment that comes to her unexpectedly, lifting her beyond the “sordid images” (Line 27) that dominated her mind earlier. As night gives way to morning, so also the darkness in the soul gives way, at least for a moment, to a measure of light.