"In the Past" by Trumbull Stickney

Trumbull Stickney grew up with affluent parents in England before he went to school at Harvard. He was very well educated and especially dedicated himself to the study of the Greek classics. Eventually, Stickney returned to teach at Harvard. His poems are "highly emotional and technically daring," according to POL.

Key terms: alliteration, imagery, rhyme

In the Past

There lies a somnolent lake
Under a noiseless sky,
Where never the mornings break
Nor the evenings die.

Mad flakes of colour
Whirl on its even face
Iridescent and streaked with pallour;
And, warding the silent place,

The rocks rise sheer and gray
From the sedgeless brink to the sky
Dull-lit with the light of pale half-day
Thro’ a void space and dry.

And the hours lag dead in the air
With a sense of coming eternity
To the heart of the lonely boatman there:
That boatman am I,

I, in my lonely boat,
A waif on the somnolent lake,
Watching the colours creep and float
With the sinuous track of a snake.

Now I lean o’er the side
And lazy shades in the water see,
Lapped in the sweep of a sluggish tide
Crawled in from the living sea;

And next I fix mine eyes,
So long that the heart declines,
On the changeless face of the open skies
Where no star shines;

And now to the rocks I turn,
To the rocks, around
That lie like walls of a circling sun
Wherein lie bound

The waters that feel my powerless strength
And meet my homeless oar
Labouring over their ashen length
Never to find a shore.

But the gleam still skims
At times on the somnolent lake,
And a light there is that swims
With the whirl of a snake;

And tho’ dead be the hours i’ the air,
And dayless the sky,
The heart is alive of the boatman there:
That boatman am I.

This is another study in literary device: the poem is formatted traditionally, in quatrains with an abab rhyme scheme. There are notes of alliteration and assonance throughout, and of course the poem relies on heavy imagery. The narrator reflects on his positioning as a solitary boatman, as the "hours lay dead in the air / With a sense of coming eternity." He is surrounded by tranquility and wonder: "Now I lean o'er the side / And lazy shades in the water see, /  Lapped in the sweep of the sluggish tide / Crawled in from the living sea." This poem is a really neat parallel to Into the Wild, which we are finishing up in English 10. The wonder of nature and tranquility/stillness of the water, skies, forest, etc. put against the wanderlust and wondering of the narrator in this poem evoke images similar to those in the book. Does the narrator here thrive on these conditions or is he longing for intimacy? How does the title "In the Past" tie in?

http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poem/239640