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How I Spend My Sundays Essay | Essay on How I Spend My Sundays for Students and Children in English

February 7, 2024 by Prasanna

How I Spend My Sundays Essay – Given below is a Long and Short Essay on How I Spend My Sundays for aspirants of competitive exams, kids and students belonging to classes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10. The How I Spend My Sundays essay 100, 150, 200, 250, 300 words in English helps the students with their class assignments, comprehension tasks, and even for competitive examinations.

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Short Essay on How I Spend My Sundays 300 Words for Kids and Students in English

I wish every day was a Sunday. This day comes after a long wait of six days. Sunday comes as a boon especially for students. It is such a relief from hurried mornings of weekdays. I get up late on a Sunday morning and laze around. My mother also gives me a relaxation in the ‘early to bed and early to rise’ schedule. She prepares any of my favourite dish for the special Sunday breakfast.

I take a leisurely bath unlike a hurried one every other day. It is also a day when all members of my family spend quality time with each other. I get to play with my friends and we often end up playing cricket as it is the favourite game of most of us. Unlike weekdays, on Sundays the deserted playground also looks full of life with hosts of children playing different games.

Mother calls me for lunch but it is only when she herself appears at the scene that I go back home. I wish Sundays were bit longer than 24 hours.

Our teacher load us with a lot of homework. My parents check my school diary and do not allow me to go for evening stroll with my friends, till I have finished my assignments. I try to complete my homework as fast as possible. I never miss my favourite cartoons show on TV. It is the best source of entertainment. Sometimes, I invite my friends to visit my home. We discuss our plans to organise friendly matches with teams from neighbouring colonies. We also go to the swimming pool to have a relaxing time in cool water of the pool. Its fun to play water volley ball and dodge ball in the pool.

In the evening, when we sit for dinner, the thought of getting up early the next morning again grips my mind. With a heavy heart I retire to my bed. Before going to sleep, I wish a sad farewell to my dear Sunday and wish it comes again as soon as possible. A Sunday is, indeed, an excellent holiday. The end of my dear Sunday lends me into Monday blues already.

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Essay on How I Spend My Sunday

Students are often asked to write an essay on How I Spend My Sunday in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on How I Spend My Sunday

Introduction.

Sunday is my favorite day of the week. It’s a day filled with fun and relaxation, a break from the hustle and bustle of school.

Morning Routine

Afternoon activities.

After breakfast, I engage in my hobbies. Sometimes, I read a book or paint. Other times, I play a game of soccer with my friends.

Evening Relaxation

Evenings are for family time. We watch a movie or play board games. This helps us bond and relax.

250 Words Essay on How I Spend My Sunday

Sunday, a day widely recognized as a time for relaxation and recreation, is particularly cherished by me. Unlike the other days of the week, it is devoid of the regular hustle and bustle, allowing me to spend my time as I wish.

Starting the Day

My Sunday begins a little later than usual, with an unhurried wake-up call. I savor a leisurely breakfast, often experimenting with new recipes. This not only satiates my gastronomic cravings but also fuels my creative spirit.

Indulging in Hobbies

Post-breakfast, I dedicate my time to my hobbies. As a bibliophile, I spend a significant part of my morning engrossed in books. This quiet, introspective time allows me to broaden my horizons and gain insights into different perspectives.

Outdoor Activities

In the afternoon, I engage in outdoor activities. Whether it’s a game of football with friends or a solitary run in the park, physical activity revitalizes me and helps maintain a healthy balance between my mind and body.

As the evening sets in, I often find myself at a café, indulging in some light reading or conversation with friends. This social interaction helps me unwind and prepare for the upcoming week.

Preparing for the Week Ahead

In conclusion, my Sundays are a blend of relaxation, recreation, and preparation. They provide me with an opportunity to disconnect from my routine, rejuvenate, and reconnect with my interests and aspirations.

500 Words Essay on How I Spend My Sunday

Introduction: the gift of a sunday.

Sundays, universally recognized as a day of rest, are cherished by many for their potential for relaxation, rejuvenation, and personal growth. As a college student, my Sundays are a blend of leisure and productivity, providing me with the much-needed breather from the bustling weekdays.

Early Morning: Embracing Serenity

My Sunday begins at the break of dawn, with the soft sun rays gently nudging me awake. The tranquility of the early morning hours is ideal for meditation and introspection. I spend about 30 minutes practicing mindfulness, which helps me start the day with a calm and focused mind.

Breakfast: A Culinary Adventure

Morning: pursuit of knowledge.

Post breakfast, I dedicate a couple of hours to self-study. This time is usually spent on subjects that pique my interest outside my regular coursework. From learning about Artificial Intelligence to exploring the nuances of existential philosophy, this intellectual pursuit broadens my horizons and instills a sense of fulfillment.

Afternoon: The Art of Doing Nothing

Late afternoon: physical well-being.

As the sun begins to set, I engage in some form of physical activity. It could be a brisk walk in the park, a bicycle ride, or a quick workout session. Regular exercise helps me maintain physical health, boosts my mood, and enhances my concentration levels.

Evening: Social Connections

The evening is often spent catching up with friends or family. Whether it’s a casual get-together, a virtual chat, or a simple phone call, these interactions strengthen my social bonds and provide emotional support.

Night: Preparation for the Week Ahead

As the day winds down, I spend some time planning for the week ahead. This involves organizing my schedule, setting goals, and preparing a to-do list. This practice keeps me organized and ensures a smooth transition into the upcoming week.

Conclusion: The Power of a Balanced Sunday

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

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Best Poetry Essay Examples

“sunday morning” overview.

974 words | 4 page(s)

“Sunday Morning,” which was first published in 1915 in Harriet Monroe’s Poetry, is believed by many to be Wallace Stevens’ first significant poem. This poem is permeated by explicit philosophical and religious themes. It presents thoughts that are apparently attributed to a lady who sits with comfort eating her late breakfast one Sunday morning and muses on the Crucifixion. The lady is a shadowy figure of whom the reader can only know the emotions. Just as the lade “dreams a little,” the whole poem emerges as a daydream and a sort of meditation on the brink of sleep. MAIN CLAIM: In this poem, Wallace Stevens uses the form and the content to develop the theme of relations of humans to divinity and nature and attack Christianity in favor of worshipping nature.

The poem is written in eight stanzas each containing fifteen lines. It is neatly structured and resembles a sonnet but for its lack of rhyme between stanzas and an extra line in every stanza. “Sunday Morning” is in blank verse. The lines all have the same meter, yet they do not rhyme. The lines all have ten syllables, also known as “beats”. The rhyme scheme is iambic pentameter, which makes “Sunday Morning” sound close to a sonnet and close to Shakespeare’s texts. Wallace Stevens uses various figures of speech to achieve the desired effect on the reader. It seems his aim is to attack a contemporary person’s Christian beliefs and quest for eternal values. In order to convey this message, the author uses rich imagery and symbolism all related to nature, which he often personifies. The key symbol of nature and of the worth of worshipping it is the sun. The sunny chair image that readers encounter in Line 2 of the first stanza projects the symbolism of sun as a source of warmth and comfort. To illustrate this claim, Stevens writes, “Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair” (Stevens, “Sunday Morning”).

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Further in the poem, Stevens presents the sun as a source of light, warmth, and growth through a synecdoche, and as the lady in the poem compares the sun with “the thoughts of heaven” (Stevens, “Sunday Morning”). He goes as far as to present the sun as the divine power that creates things and has his own personality (here Stevens uses personification as he refers to the sun as a “naked” being in “Naked among them, as a savage source”). Close to the poem’s end, Stevens presents the sun as a symbol of chaos: “We live in an old chaos of the sun.” (Stevens, “Sunday Morning”). In this way, Stevens uses a series of images of the sun to artificially present it as a sort of new deity through associating it with warmth and light, the divine, and chaos.

The images of the sky, birds, water, fruit, evening and morning, Christianity, paganism, and blood, etc all serve to create the feeling of uneasiness resulting from calling into questions the basic philosophical, religious, and cultural tenets of a Christian’s existence. Sunday morning becomes a symbol of resistance to Christianity (because the lady does not attend a Christian Sunday service), paganism – a symbol of joy of life; the sky becomes a symbol of God as well as the symbol of a man’s isolation from the rest of the world; birds become the symbol of happiness and paradise; water becomes the symbol of freedom and eternity; fruit becomes the symbol of comfort brought by nature; Christianity becomes the symbol of sacrifice and sadness; blood becomes the symbol of Christ’s sacrifice but also human energy. In this way, the poem’s images all reflect the poet’s desire to explore how humans relate to nature and God and redefine this relationship in his own way.

Likewise, the poem’s content explores the theme of relations between humans, divinity, and nature. If to analyze each stanza in particular, in the first stanza one can see a domestic scene, where a lady spends a Sunday morning (apparently, the Easter morning) away from church appreciating the secular beauty of her setting. In stanza two, the woman realizes that the earthly world does not offer eternity and that she should find pleasure not in sensual things like coffee but in eternal spiritual things like faith in Jesus Christ and thoughts about His sacrifice and the Communion. This stanza also questions the woman’s decision to immerse herself into contemplations about Christianity offering her to muse about nature and its realities. The third stanza evokes images of paganism as the celebration of nature. In its turn, the fourth stanza expresses the poetic persona’s move away from religious realities. The fifth stanza contains the meditation about death, where death is referred to as a mother of beauty. The sixth stanza offers the view that contradicts the Christian view of the paradise. The seventh stanza conveys the author’s dream about some religion that may be created in the future and that will be pagan by nature. The eighth stanza again offers an anti-Christian view and presents the voice of the woman as coming in agreement with the outside voice.

In conclusion, the symbolism, images, and figures of speech used to create the form of the poem all work to convey the theme of a human’s relationship with divinity and nature. Likewise, the content of the poem is all structured around questioning the existing framework of relationship between humanity and God and nature. As he subtly criticizes Christianity, the author makes attempts to convince the reader that he or she should worship nature and avoid being preoccupied with the thoughts of about eternal and spiritual things.

• Bloom, Harold. Wallace Stevens. Infobase Publishing, 2003. Print.
• Stevens, Wallace. “Sunday Morning.” Literature: The Human Experience. Richard, Abcarian, Marvin Klotz, and Samuel Cohen (Eds). Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2015. Print.

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A Summary and Analysis of Wallace Stevens’ ‘Sunday Morning’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘Sunday Morning’ is one of Wallace Stevens’s most celebrated poems. It first appeared in 1915 in the magazine Poetry , although the fuller version was only published in Stevens’s landmark collection Harmonium in 1923. Yvor Winters, an influential critic of modernist poetry and a minor modernist in his own right, pronounced ‘Sunday Morning’ to be ‘the greatest American poem of the twentieth century’.

The poem, which is a meditation on not being a Christian, can be read here before proceeding to our summary and analysis.

‘Sunday Morning’ is divided into eight sections or stanzas, and focuses on a woman who stays at home, lounging around, on a Sunday morning, when virtually everyone else is at church.

In the first stanza, we find the woman lounging around in her ‘peignoir’ (a dressing gown), drinking coffee and eating oranges with her green cockatoo. Although she isn’t at church, the religious significance of Sunday morning keeps encroaching on her consciousness, with the ‘old catastrophe’ and ‘ancient sacrifice’ (i.e. the Crucifixion) in her thoughts. At the end, she half-dreams she is in Palestine, the site of Jesus’ sacrifice, and the ‘sepulchre’ (i.e. Jesus’ tomb).

The second stanza, although still spoken by Stevens (or an impersonal speaker roughly equating to the poet), channels the inner thoughts of this woman, allowing her thoughts to be relayed to use direct, in her own words (this is akin to what is called free indirect speech in fiction). Why, the woman wonders, slightly resentfully, should she give up her time to the dead, i.e. Jesus? Is religion worth anything if it can only be glimpsed through rather indirect, intangible means, like ‘shadows’ and ‘dreams’?

The rest of this second section sees the woman adopting a sort of pantheism whereby she finds divinity in the natural world around her, in her green cockatoo, and in the weather and the seasons.

The third stanza contrasts Jove, another name for the Roman king of the gods, Jupiter, with Jesus. The pagan god Jove is not honoured and revered the way Jesus is by Christians. Unlike Jesus, who assumed human form through the Virgin Mary (‘virginal’) and whose coming was heralded by a ‘star’, Jove did not assume human form and walk among mortals in the same way.

The woman wonders whether the sky is empty or whether it really does contain the ‘heavens’. Is earth the only paradise there is, or is there a paradise up there, in Heaven?

The fourth stanza actually sees the woman of ‘Sunday Morning’ speaking out loud, rather than the speaker relaying her inner (unspoken) thoughts. It shows that, whilst the wonders of the world endure (the ‘April green endures’ because every spring the trees and plants come into flower again), the revelations of divinity have not, in the modern world – not to people like the woman at the centre of ‘Sunday Morning’, anyway.

The fifth stanza sees the woman developing her line of thought from the previous stanza. Is the contentment of watching the birds taking off, of taking pleasure in the ‘paradise’ of earthly sights, really enough? Can we be ‘content’ with mere ‘contentment’?

Death, we are told in a famous quotation, is the ‘mother of beauty’: we find beauty in the knowledge that things do not last, that they are short-lived and will die.

The sixth stanza sees the speaker of the poem (almost certainly still ventriloquising the thoughts of the woman) wondering whether things die in ‘paradise’ or Heaven, if it exists. When the fruit grows ripe, does it not fall from the tree? Again, the speaker asserts that ‘Death is the mother of beauty’: anywhere that calls itself paradise must surely contain death, in order to be beautiful.

The seventh stanza returns to the alternative system of worship to Christianity – namely paganism – mentioned in the third stanza of ‘Sunday Morning’. Here, though, we’re not in the realm of Jove, but witnessing an (imagined) ‘orgy’ or ritual whereby naked men walk around in a ring, chanting their devotion to the sun, which they worship like a god.

The eighth and final stanza of ‘Sunday Morning’ returns to where it began: the woman sitting in her chair of a Sunday morning. She hears a voice talking about Palestine as the place of Jesus’ tomb, not the abode of spirits: it’s just a place where the body of a man (not a god) named Jesus was buried.

The speaker of the poem concludes that we are ‘unsponsored’ and ‘free’ – i.e. without supernatural supervision or punishment. The world of nature is all around us, and the sky doesn’t contain any heavenly deities, just flocks of pigeons flying in the evening.

Stevens writes ‘Sunday Morning’ in blank verse – also known as unrhymed iambic pentameter . This is the perfect choice for a longer, meditative poem which takes in some big themes (religion, the natural world, and the afterlife, not to mention what ‘bliss’ or happiness there is to be derived from life).

It’s often said that iambic pentameter is the closest metre to natural human speech, so it allows Stevens to strike a confidential tone as he takes in these grand ideas.

But his verse is, like the vision of the world in that final stanza, ‘free’ in that it is unrhymed. (Note: the poem is not written in free verse, since its metre follows the rhythm of iambic pentameter, whereas free verse doesn’t have a set metre. We mean it’s ‘free’ just in the sense that it doesn’t rhyme.)

In many ways, Stevens’s poem can be viewed as part of a Romantic tradition in poetry, stretching back a century earlier to John Keats (who wrote, memorably, in ‘ Ode to a Nightingale ’ that the bird ‘dwells with beauty – beauty that must die’), William Wordsworth, and others. Romanticism was often about poets finding a sort of divinity and awe in the natural world, rather than looking to the heavens and to God to provide this sense of mystical wonder. ‘Sunday Morning’, when analysed from this perspective, is a belated Romantic poem.

But Stevens is usually categorised as a modernist poet. How is ‘Sunday Morning’ modernist? How might be pinpoint and analyse its modernist features?

For one, modernist writing tends to be marked by indeterminacy and ambiguity: a modernist poem poses and inspires more questions than it answers. Some classic examples are H. D.’s ‘The Pool’ (which even begins and ends with a question) and T. S. Eliot’s ‘ The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock ’ (where the ‘overwhelming question’ itself isn’t even known).

And for all of its questioning and wondering about the nature of ‘paradise’, religion, and the natural world, ‘Sunday Morning’ is marked by Stevens’s reluctance to draw a clear line about whether the skies are empty (except for those pigeons) or whether the possibility remains open.

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Sunday Morning

This is the later and more definitive version of “Sunday Morning.”  Read the first published version of this poem, which appeared in Poetry magazine, here. In 1915, editor Harriet Monroe asked Stevens to cut several stanzas for Poetry , and Stevens would later restore these cut stanzas when he published the poem in book form in 1923.

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Writing Ideas

• Austin Allen notes that the opening lines of “Sunday Morning” have often been compared to Matisse’s paintings. Track down some images of paintings by Matisse: how does the start to Stevens’s poem seem or feel like an ekphrasis ? Choose a Matisse painting and write your own Stevens-inspired ekphrastic poem about it.
• This poem relies on a series of rhetorical questions. Find all the questions posed in the poem and make a cento (collage poem, or a poem made entirely from lines of other poems), arranging them and altering them as you wish. How does your cento extend or depart from Stevens’s original poem?

Discussion Questions

• Stevens’s poem begins with a description of a woman’s casual, secular “Sunday morning” routine. The first verbs—“mingles” and “dissipate”—occur in the fourth line. What is the effect gained by delaying verbs, and choosing these verbs, to the opening stanza?
• Stevens wrote many poetic sequences, and perhaps his most famous is “ Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird .” What is gained by numbering stanzas or sections in the way he often does? What effect does it have on “Sunday Morning”? That is, what would be different if the poem were simply stanzas after one another, or had no stanzas at all?
• Find all the adjectives and descriptive phrases connected with “our world” or the “real world” in Stevens’s poem; find all those associated with “paradise,” or worlds beyond this that the poem struggles to imagine. How do your lists compare? Is it difficult to determine when and how Stevens is descripting each place? Are there terms that cross categories? What do Stevens’s vocabulary choices—his diction —tell you about the kind of argument or question his poem is trying to answer?
• What role does the unnamed “her” play in this poem? What is the effect of using a character, or having a feminine pronoun, in a poem about religious uncertainty? 

Teaching Tips

• The linguistic textures and philosophical density of “Sunday Morning” may be challenging for students. Spend some time as a class discussing what’s difficult about this poem and why: let students air their grievances. Then, try to develop strategies for reading difficult poems together: grammatically complex statements might be understood better by translating them into prose; you could draw students’ attention to patterns of imagery, including colors, that Stevens utilizes; since the poem is in sections, groups could take a section and attempt to paraphrase it, bringing their results back to the group. You might have students do the second writing idea above, isolating the poems’ rhetorical questions and developing a collage poem that helps them understand the kinds of questions the poem uses—and why questions are important to it at all. You could ask students to think about the nameless character—the poem’s “she”—and have them track her thoughts visually, either through a comic strip or some other kind of visual representation. The goal will be to help students see that there are many ways to “get into” even a towering Modernist poem like “Sunday Morning.” At the end of class, reflect on what strategies you used to understand the poem (dividing up into smaller sections, paraphrasing, finding patterns, tracing repeated words or images, extracting repeated kinds of statements or questions, visual representation). Finally, make a “cheat-sheet” for how to read difficult poems, for when you and your students face difficult poems in the future.
• Austin Allen describes the fascinating publication history of “Sunday Morning.” Before students read his poem guide, have them do some textual analysis of their own. Distribute both versions of the poem—the one published in Poetry in 1915 and the restored version that Stevens preferred, reproduced below—to small groups and ask them to compare: what differences do they notice? What are the effects of those differences? Discuss the groups’ findings together as a class, and then read Allen’s poem guide. Did students’ come up with alternative readings for the versions’ differences? This is a good way to introduce your students to publication histories, and that sometimes poems are published in different versions throughout a poet's life, and even after.

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This poem has learning resources.

Wallace Stevens is one of America’s most respected 20th century poets. He was a master stylist, employing an extraordinary vocabulary and a rigorous precision in crafting his poems. But he was also a philosopher of aesthetics, vigorously exploring the notion of poetry as the supreme...

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Free Essay About Sunday Morning By Louis Macneice

Type of paper: Essay

Topic: Poetry , Poem , English , Sound , Contrast , Sonnet , Rhyme , Literature

Published: 03/12/2020

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1. Research the term “sonnet” and indicate which the two main forms are in the sonnet tradition. Cite your sources in doing so. MacNeice refers to the term “sonnet” in line ten. How does MacNeice’s sonnet differ from traditional sonnets? How does it resemble those other sonnets? Explain in detail. Sonnet is a poem that consists of fourteen lines with variable rhyme scheme and structure. Sonnets are considered to be of Italian origin and from Italian the term means “little sound or song”. There are two traditional sonnet forms: the Italian (or Petrarchan) Sonnet and the English (or Shakespearian) Sonnet. The Italian sonnet is traditionally divided into an octave (eight lines rhymed according to the scheme abbaabba) and a sestet (six lines where the order of two or three rhyming sounds may vary). The English sonnet consists of three quatrains (four lines that rhyme according to abab scheme) and one couplet (two rhymed lines). In tenth line of the Sunday Morning poem Louis MacNeice sums up what has been told to be “a sonnet self-contained in rhyme”. Such a determination of the poem may be fair if to take into consideration the fact that it consists of fourteen rhymed lines divided into stanzas that sound a lot like traditional sonnet. But the difference is in the structure of sonnets (the Sunday Morning contains two five-line stanzas and one quatrain) and rhyme (all fourteen lines are rhymed as couplets according to aabbc cddee ffgg scheme). 2. Note how the last four lines contain an entirely different atmosphere than the first ten lines do. How do those lines contrast with the earlier lines? How does the poet create this contrast? Discuss the use of poetic devices as well as the “sentence structure” of the final line. First ten lines of the poem Sunday Morning sound very optimistic and inspiring. They motivate one to forget about the everyday routine and live the moment. But last four lines sound rather realistic or probably even pessimistic. MacNeice with a help of personification brings the reader back to reality and reminds that “there is no music or movement” that can help us to escape. The strongest message is sent in the last line where MacNeice again uses personification and separates dependent clause from the complex sentence at the end (with a dot and starting dependent clause from the capital letter) to emphasize how routine influences us.

Works Cited

MacNeice, Louis. “Sunday Morning”. Faber Book of Modern Verse. Ed. Michael Roberts. London: Faber & Faber, 1982. Print. Miller, Nelson. “Basic Sonnet Forms.” Sonnet Central, 25 Aug. 2012. Web. 2 Nov. 2014. Sonnet. Poetry Foundation Glossary. Poetry foundation, 2014. Web. 2 Nov. 2014.

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Sunday Morning

      I Complacencies of the peignoir, and late Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair, And the green freedom of a cockatoo Upon a rug mingle to dissipate The holy hush of ancient sacrifice. She dreams a little, and she feels the dark Encroachment of that old catastrophe , As a calm darkens among water-lights. The pungent oranges and bright, green wings Seem things in some procession of the dead , Winding across wide water, without sound. The day is like wide water, without sound, Stilled for the passing of her dreaming feet Over the seas, to silent Palestine, Dominion of the blood and sepulchre. II Why should she give her bounty to the dead? What is divinity if it can come Only in silent shadows and in dreams? Shall she not find in comforts of the sun, In pungent fruit and bright, green wings, or else In any balm or beauty of the earth, Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven? Divinity must live within herself: Passions of rain , or moods in falling snow ; Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued Elations when the forest blooms; gusty Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights; All pleasures and all pains, remembering The bough of summer and the winter branch. These are the measures destined for her soul. III Jove in the clouds had his inhuman birth. No mother suckled him, no sweet land gave Large-mannered motions to his mythy mind. He moved among us, as a muttering king, Magnificent, would move among his hinds, Until our blood, commingling, virginal, With heaven, brought such requital to desire The very hinds discerned it, in a star. Shall our blood fail? Or shall it come to be The blood of paradise? And shall the earth Seem all of paradise that we shall know? The sky will be much friendlier then than now , A part of labor and a part of pain, And next in glory to enduring love, Not this dividing and indifferent blue. IV She says, “ I am content when wakened birds, Before they fly, test the reality Of misty fields, by their sweet questionings; But when the birds are gone, and their warm fields Return no more, where, then, is paradise?” There is not any haunt of prophecy, Nor any old chimera of the grave, Neither the golden underground, nor isle Melodious, where spirits gat them home, Nor visionary south, nor cloudy palm Remote on heaven’s hill, that has endured As April’s green endures; or will endure Like her remembrance of awakened birds, Or her desire for June and evening, tipped By the consummation of the swallow’s wings. V She says, “But in contentment I still feel The need of some imperishable bliss.” Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her, Alone , shall come fulfilment to our dreams And our desires. Although she strews the leaves Of sure obliteration on our paths, The path sick sorrow took, the many paths Where triumph rang its brassy phrase , or love Whispered a little out of tenderness, She makes the willow shiver in the sun For maidens who were wont to sit and gaze Upon the grass , relinquished to their feet. She causes boys to pile new plums and pears On disregarded plate. The maidens taste And stray impassioned in the littering leaves. VI Is there no change of death in paradise? Does ripe fruit never fall? Or do the boughs Hang always heavy in that perfect sky, Unchanging, yet so like our perishing earth, With rivers like our own that seek for seas They never find, the same receding shores That never touch with inarticulate pang? Why set the pear upon those river-banks Or spice the shores with odors of the plum? Alas, that they should wear our colors there, The silken weavings of our afternoons, And pick the strings of our insipid lutes! Death is the mother of beauty, mystical, Within whose burning bosom we devise Our earthly mothers waiting, sleeplessly. VII Supple and turbulent, a ring of men Shall chant in orgy on a summer morn Their boisterous devotion to the sun, Not as a god, but as a god might be, Naked among them, like a savage source. Their chant shall be a chant of paradise, Out of their blood, returning to the sky; And in their chant shall enter, voice by voice, The windy lake wherein their lord delights, The trees , like serafin, and echoing hills, That choir among themselves long afterward. They shall know well the heavenly fellowship Of men that perish and of summer morn. And whence they came and whither they shall go The dew upon their feet shall manifest.

She hears, upon that water without sound, A voice that cries, “The tomb in Palestine Is not the porch of spirits lingering. It is the grave of Jesus, where he lay.” We live in an old chaos of the sun, Or old dependency of day and night , Or island solitude, unsponsored, free, Of that wide water, inescapable. Deer walk upon our mountains, and the quail Whistle about us their spontaneous cries; Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness ; And, in the isolation of the sky, At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make Ambiguous undulations as they sink, Downward to darkness , on extended wings.

Summary of Sunday Morning

Analysis of literary devices used in sunday morning.

In “Sunday Morning,” Wallace Stevens skillfully used various literary devices to fill his verses with deeper meanings. Some of the significant literary devices are as follows.

Analysis of Poetic Devices Used in Sunday Morning

Quotes to be used.

This quote is appropriate to use when reflecting on the ephemeral nature of life and how it gives beauty and meaning to our experiences. It could be used in a eulogy or funeral speech or in a personal essay about finding beauty in unexpected places.

Death is the mother of beauty

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Sunday Morning Summary & Analysis by Wallace Stevens

• Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis
• Poetic Devices
• Vocabulary & References
• Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme
• Line-by-Line Explanations

Wallace Stevens's "Sunday Morning" offers an extended reflection on nature, religion, and the search for meaning in everyday life. Even as the poem recognizes the human desire for spiritual fulfillment, it rejects the Christian focus on a distant God and a paradisiacal afterlife and instead calls on readers to recognize the "divinity" that exists in their experiences of this earthly world. The poem also argues that the fleeting nature of these experiences is what makes them beautiful, and thus that true beauty could never exist in an everlasting, deathless heaven. Stevens first published "Sunday Morning" in a 1915 issue of Poetry magazine, before later including it in his 1923 collection Harmonium . With its twisty, allusion -laden language and skepticism of religious institutions, the poem is a prime example of literary modernism. At the same time, its use of some formal elements (such as blank verse ) and its celebration of the natural world reflect the influence of 18th-century Romanticism.

• Read the full text of “Sunday Morning”

The Full Text of “Sunday Morning”

1 Complacencies of the peignoir, and late

2 Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair,

3 And the green freedom of a cockatoo

4 Upon a rug mingle to dissipate

5 The holy hush of ancient sacrifice.

6 She dreams a little, and she feels the dark

7 Encroachment of that old catastrophe,

8 As a calm darkens among water-lights.

9 The pungent oranges and bright, green wings

10 Seem things in some procession of the dead,

11 Winding across wide water, without sound.

12 The day is like wide water, without sound,

13 Stilled for the passing of her dreaming feet

14 Over the seas, to silent Palestine,

15 Dominion of the blood and sepulchre.

16 Why should she give her bounty to the dead?

17 What is divinity if it can come

18 Only in silent shadows and in dreams?

19 Shall she not find in comforts of the sun,

20 In pungent fruit and bright, green wings, or else

21 In any balm or beauty of the earth,

22 Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven?

23 Divinity must live within herself:

24 Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow;

25 Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued

26 Elations when the forest blooms; gusty

27 Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights;

28 All pleasures and all pains, remembering

29 The bough of summer and the winter branch.

30 These are the measures destined for her soul.

31 Jove in the clouds had his inhuman birth.

32 No mother suckled him, no sweet land gave

33 Large-mannered motions to his mythy mind.

34 He moved among us, as a muttering king,

35 Magnificent, would move among his hinds,

36 Until our blood, commingling, virginal,

37 With heaven, brought such requital to desire

38 The very hinds discerned it, in a star.

39 Shall our blood fail? Or shall it come to be

40 The blood of paradise? And shall the earth

41 Seem all of paradise that we shall know?

42 The sky will be much friendlier then than now,

43 A part of labor and a part of pain,

44 And next in glory to enduring love,

45 Not this dividing and indifferent blue.

46 She says, “I am content when wakened birds,

47 Before they fly, test the reality

48 Of misty fields, by their sweet questionings;

49 But when the birds are gone, and their warm fields

50 Return no more, where, then, is paradise?”

51 There is not any haunt of prophecy,

52 Nor any old chimera of the grave,

53 Neither the golden underground, nor isle

54 Melodious, where spirits gat them home,

55 Nor visionary south, nor cloudy palm

56 Remote on heaven’s hill, that has endured

57 As April’s green endures; or will endure

58 Like her remembrance of awakened birds,

59 Or her desire for June and evening, tipped

60 By the consummation of the swallow’s wings.

61 She says, “But in contentment I still feel

62 The need of some imperishable bliss.”

63 Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her,

64 Alone, shall come fulfilment to our dreams

65 And our desires. Although she strews the leaves

66 Of sure obliteration on our paths,

67 The path sick sorrow took, the many paths

68 Where triumph rang its brassy phrase, or love

69 Whispered a little out of tenderness,

70 She makes the willow shiver in the sun

71 For maidens who were wont to sit and gaze

72 Upon the grass, relinquished to their feet.

73 She causes boys to pile new plums and pears

74 On disregarded plate. The maidens taste

75 And stray impassioned in the littering leaves.

76 Is there no change of death in paradise?

77 Does ripe fruit never fall? Or do the boughs

78 Hang always heavy in that perfect sky,

79 Unchanging, yet so like our perishing earth,

80 With rivers like our own that seek for seas

81 They never find, the same receding shores

82 That never touch with inarticulate pang?

83 Why set the pear upon those river-banks

84 Or spice the shores with odors of the plum?

85 Alas, that they should wear our colors there,

86 The silken weavings of our afternoons,

87 And pick the strings of our insipid lutes!

88 Death is the mother of beauty, mystical,

89 Within whose burning bosom we devise

90 Our earthly mothers waiting, sleeplessly.

91 Supple and turbulent, a ring of men

92 Shall chant in orgy on a summer morn

93 Their boisterous devotion to the sun,

94 Not as a god, but as a god might be,

95 Naked among them, like a savage source.

96 Their chant shall be a chant of paradise,

97 Out of their blood, returning to the sky;

98 And in their chant shall enter, voice by voice,

99 The windy lake wherein their lord delights,

100 The trees, like serafin, and echoing hills,

101 That choir among themselves long afterward.

102 They shall know well the heavenly fellowship

103 Of men that perish and of summer morn.

104 And whence they came and whither they shall go

105 The dew upon their feet shall manifest.

106 She hears, upon that water without sound,

107 A voice that cries, “The tomb in Palestine

108 Is not the porch of spirits lingering.

109 It is the grave of Jesus, where he lay.”

110 We live in an old chaos of the sun,

111 Or old dependency of day and night,

112 Or island solitude, unsponsored, free,

113 Of that wide water, inescapable.

114 Deer walk upon our mountains, and the quail

115 Whistle about us their spontaneous cries;

116 Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness;

117 And, in the isolation of the sky,

118 At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make

119 Ambiguous undulations as they sink,

120 Downward to darkness, on extended wings.

“Sunday Morning” Summary

“sunday morning” themes.

Religion and Meaning in Modern Life

• See where this theme is active in the poem.

Humanity and Nature

Beauty, Death, and Change

Line-by-line explanation & analysis of “sunday morning”.

Complacencies of the peignoir, and late Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair, And the green freedom of a cockatoo Upon a rug mingle to dissipate The holy hush of ancient sacrifice.

She dreams a little, and she feels the dark Encroachment of that old catastrophe, As a calm darkens among water-lights. The pungent oranges and bright, green wings Seem things in some procession of the dead,

Lines 11-15

Winding across wide water, without sound. The day is like wide water, without sound, Stilled for the passing of her dreaming feet Over the seas, to silent Palestine, Dominion of the blood and sepulchre.

Lines 16-22

Why should she give her bounty to the dead? What is divinity if it can come Only in silent shadows and in dreams? Shall she not find in comforts of the sun, In pungent fruit and bright, green wings, or else In any balm or beauty of the earth, Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven?

Lines 23-30

Divinity must live within herself: Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow; Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued Elations when the forest blooms; gusty Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights; All pleasures and all pains, remembering The bough of summer and the winter branch. These are the measures destined for her soul.

Lines 31-35

Jove in the clouds had his inhuman birth. No mother suckled him, no sweet land gave Large-mannered motions to his mythy mind. He moved among us, as a muttering king, Magnificent, would move among his hinds,

Lines 36-38

Until our blood, commingling, virginal, With heaven, brought such requital to desire The very hinds discerned it, in a star.

Lines 39-45

Shall our blood fail? Or shall it come to be The blood of paradise? And shall the earth Seem all of paradise that we shall know? The sky will be much friendlier then than now, A part of labor and a part of pain, And next in glory to enduring love, Not this dividing and indifferent blue.

Lines 46-50

She says, “I am content when wakened birds, Before they fly, test the reality Of misty fields, by their sweet questionings; But when the birds are gone, and their warm fields Return no more, where, then, is paradise?”

Lines 51-56

There is not any haunt of prophecy, Nor any old chimera of the grave, Neither the golden underground, nor isle Melodious, where spirits gat them home, Nor visionary south, nor cloudy palm Remote on heaven’s hill,

Lines 56-60

that has endured As April’s green endures; or will endure Like her remembrance of awakened birds, Or her desire for June and evening, tipped By the consummation of the swallow’s wings.

Lines 61-65

She says, “But in contentment I still feel The need of some imperishable bliss.” Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her, Alone, shall come fulfilment to our dreams And our desires.

Lines 65-69

Although she strews the leaves Of sure obliteration on our paths, The path sick sorrow took, the many paths Where triumph rang its brassy phrase, or love Whispered a little out of tenderness,

Lines 70-75

She makes the willow shiver in the sun For maidens who were wont to sit and gaze Upon the grass, relinquished to their feet. She causes boys to pile new plums and pears On disregarded plate. The maidens taste And stray impassioned in the littering leaves.

Lines 76-82

Is there no change of death in paradise? Does ripe fruit never fall? Or do the boughs Hang always heavy in that perfect sky, Unchanging, yet so like our perishing earth, With rivers like our own that seek for seas They never find, the same receding shores That never touch with inarticulate pang?

Lines 83-90

Why set the pear upon those river-banks Or spice the shores with odors of the plum? Alas, that they should wear our colors there, The silken weavings of our afternoons, And pick the strings of our insipid lutes! Death is the mother of beauty, mystical, Within whose burning bosom we devise Our earthly mothers waiting, sleeplessly.

Lines 91-95

Supple and turbulent, a ring of men Shall chant in orgy on a summer morn Their boisterous devotion to the sun, Not as a god, but as a god might be, Naked among them, like a savage source.

Lines 96-101

Their chant shall be a chant of paradise, Out of their blood, returning to the sky; And in their chant shall enter, voice by voice, The windy lake wherein their lord delights, The trees, like serafin, and echoing hills, That choir among themselves long afterward.

Lines 102-105

They shall know well the heavenly fellowship Of men that perish and of summer morn. And whence they came and whither they shall go The dew upon their feet shall manifest.

Lines 106-109

She hears, upon that water without sound, A voice that cries, “The tomb in Palestine Is not the porch of spirits lingering. It is the grave of Jesus, where he lay.”

Lines 110-113

We live in an old chaos of the sun, Or old dependency of day and night, Or island solitude, unsponsored, free, Of that wide water, inescapable.

Lines 114-120

Deer walk upon our mountains, and the quail Whistle about us their spontaneous cries; Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness; And, in the isolation of the sky, At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make Ambiguous undulations as they sink, Downward to darkness, on extended wings.

“Sunday Morning” Symbols

• See where this symbol appears in the poem.

The Story of the Maidens

“Sunday Morning” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

Alliteration.

• See where this poetic device appears in the poem.

Rhetorical Question

“sunday morning” vocabulary.

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

• Complacencies
• Encroachment
• Catastrophe
• Large-mannered motions
• Commingling
• Haunt of prophecy
• Chimera of the grave
• Golden underground
• Consummation
• Imperishable
• Relinquished
• Inarticulate
• Unsponsored
• Undulations
• See where this vocabulary word appears in the poem.

Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Sunday Morning”

Rhyme scheme, “sunday morning” speaker, “sunday morning” setting, literary and historical context of “sunday morning”, more “sunday morning” resources, external resources.

On Jove — Learn more about the Roman god of the sky and thunder.

Wallace Stevens's Biography — Learn more about the poet's life and work in this biography from the Poetry Foundation.

A Critic on "Sunday Morning" — Watch a video of poetry critic Helen Vendler speaking about "Sunday Morning."

The Poem Out Loud — Listen to a reading of "Sunday Morning."

LitCharts on Other Poems by Wallace Stevens

Anecdote of the Jar

Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock

The Emperor of Ice-Cream

The Idea of Order at Key West

The Snow Man

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

Ask LitCharts AI: The answer to your questions

Sunday Morning

By Wallace Stevens

‘Sunday Morning’ by Wallace Stevens discusses the existence of an afterlife and the role God and nature play in the creation of paradise.

Wallace Stevens

Nationality: American

For most of his career, he worked at an insurance company in Connecticut.

Poem Analyzed by Emma Baldwin

B.A. English (Minor: Creative Writing), B.F.A. Fine Art, B.A. Art Histories

‘Sunday Morning’ by Wallace Stevens is an eight- stanza poem that is separated into sets of fifteen lines. Unlike the majority of Stevens’ poems , this piece is fairly well organized and written in blank verse . This means that the lines do not have a rhyme scheme but maintain the pattern of iambic pentameter . Each line contains five sets of two beats, the first of these is unstressed and the second stressed. It is unusual for a poem of this length to stick to a rhythmic pattern so strictly, rarely would Stevens venture into this territory again.  

Explore Sunday Morning

• 2 Symbols and Images
• 4 Analysis of Sunday Morning 

The poem begins with the speaker describing a woman spending her Sunday morning sitting outside rather than going to church. She falls into a dream that makes her feel guilty about the death of Christ. The dream includes a journey to Palestine and Christ’s tomb. Although she feels something, she is still skeptical about religion. She isn’t ready to give up her life and all its pleasures to the Christian god.

In the next stanza, the speaker compares Christ to the Greek and Roman god Jove. Jove is different because he only represents the sun, rather than actually being it. The speaker wonders over the desire of humans to create religion and whether or not paradise can exist.

The next section returns to the perspective of the woman who is described as finding peace in the sight of birds waking, walking around, and taking off for a day of the flight. She believes that beauty is something to be loved and Death to be feared. The speaker pushes back against this opinion stating that beauty cannot exist without Death.

In an effort to illustrate his point he describes the actions of pagan men who worship the sun because of its influence on the land rather than what powers it might wield as a god. The men are not burdened by the expectations of the Christian god, or any all-seeing, commanding power. They simply exist in the world, similar to how nature will exist in the final stanza.

The last stanza contains another portion of the woman’s dream of Christ’s tomb. This time the vision is speaking to her and describing the tomb as nothing more than a burial place. It is not home to spirits. In conclusion, the speaker goes over everything he previously stated and ends with a wish to know nature without looking through a human lens.

Symbols and Images

The most important images of this piece are self-evident and the most prevalent of these is the sun. It is included as part of the narrative from the beginning. It shines on the woman on her Sunday morning and represents comfort and peace. The sun is later used as a symbol for beauty and for the Christian god. Towards the end of the poem, a contrast is presented between Christianity and paganism with a preference is given towards the sun acting like a god rather than being one. Finally, the sun appears again as a symbol of the chaos that makes up nature.

A reader should also take note of the prevalence of birds in ‘Sunday Morning .’ A cockatoo appears in the first stanza and is part of the reason the dreaming woman’s thoughts go in the direction they do. Birds stand in for freedom, then later come to represent beauty, happiness, peace, and paradise. They also feature in the final lines of the poem, perhaps flying onward to their deaths.  

Throughout ‘ Sunday Morning’ the speaker discusses the interactions between nature and humanity. To humankind, nature symbolizes both paradise and death. The speaker brings up images of nature associated with religion and finally, nature’s independence and disregard for human affairs.  

Additionally, there is the overwhelming theme of happiness. The poem begins with the woman thinking over her own happiness on Sunday morning and considering whether or not she should feel guilty. It is a state of being she does not want to end and the reason the speaker delves into discussions of paradise and its similarities and differences to life on earth.  

Analysis of Sunday Morning  

Complacencies of the peignoir, and late Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair, And the green freedom of a cockatoo Upon a rug mingle to dissipate The holy hush of ancient sacrifice.

In the first stanza of this piece, the speaker begins by describing the emotions of a woman who is sitting outside on a Sunday morning. She is wearing a “peignoir,” or a lace nightgown, and eating a late breakfast. Down at her feet, there is a cockatoo. It is described as being green and free. She looks down on the animal and feels at peace. She is tasting a little bit of the freedom the bird knows so well.  

Because she is so deeply involved in the peace of the moment she is able to forget about the “ancient sacrifice. “ This is a clear reference, when taken into consideration along with the title, to the death of Christ. Her guilt at doing nothing on this Sunday but enjoying the world is lightened.  

She dreams a little, and she feels the dark Encroachment of that old catastrophe, As a calm darkens among water-lights. The pungent oranges and bright, green wings Seem things in some procession of the dead, Winding across wide water, without sound. The day is like wide water, without sound, Stilled for the passing of her dreaming feet Over the seas, to silent Palestine, Dominion of the blood and sepulchre.

The woman seems to doze off for a moment. At first, she is simply dreaming but things take a dark turn. An undefined, yet familiar darkness is coming closer. This is again another reference to Christ and his crucifixion. Her calm attitude toward life is slipping away and she is reverting to religious tendencies. Here, Stevens introduces the image of water, something that appears throughout his works.  

Stevens describes the woman as looking out towards the water and seeing a “procession of the dead.” They appear as colors, resembling the bright greens and oranges of the first few lines. This time they’re different though. They are foreboding as they move across “wide water, without sound.”  

Zooming back from the close look on this woman’s life, the speaker compares the entire day to the same “wide water, without sound.” The woman is dreaming that she is passing over the now still water towards Palestine where Christ was crucified. It is home to the “sepulchre” or tomb where Christ was placed.  

Why should she give her bounty to the dead? What is divinity if it can come Only in silent shadows and in dreams? Shall she not find in comforts of the sun, In pungent fruit and bright, green wings, or else In any balm or beauty of the earth, Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven? Divinity must live within herself: Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow; Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued Elations when the forest blooms; gusty Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights; All pleasures and all pains, remembering The bough of summer and the winter branch. These are the measures destined for her soul.

In contrast to the absolute silence of the scene at the end of the first stanza, the second picks up with a bit of renitence on the woman’s part. She is not going to passively “give her bounty to the dead.” Her “bounty” likely refers to her life on earth and therefore her faith. She is not completely convinced of her Christianity.  

The next lines contain her concern about giving up the pleasures of the sun and “pungent fruit.” She wants to keep her possessions around her rather than give them up to the Church. Her doubt is furthered by the fact that Christ only comes to her in her dreams and is gone before she can get any answers.  

Rather than seeking divinity with faith, she states that she needs to find it within herself. It is seen through her own passions and moods . Her grief and elation, as well as pleasures and pains, form it. In these lines, she is relating her internal divinity to nature. Her passion is like the rain and her moods, “falling snow.” She feels elation “when the forests bloom” and great emotions on “autumn nights.” These are the experiences around which she needs to “measure…her soul.” Her life will be judged by what she feels and does.  

Stanza Three

Jove in the clouds had his inhuman birth. No mother suckled him, no sweet land gave Large-mannered motions to his mythy mind. He moved among us, as a muttering king, Magnificent, would move among his hinds,

The third stanza begins with a reference to Jove, the Roman equivalent to Zeus. This new religious ideology is introduced in order to make a comparison with Christianity. In the poem, he is described as being “inhuman,” unlike Christ. He had no mother to take care of him nor a “sweet land” to call home. Jove’s mind is “mythy” or filled with myths . This likely is a reference to all myths emerging from Jove, the central figurehead.  

The next lines are more obscure and confusing. Stevens is speaking about Jove as a god who moved through his “hinds,” or among the common people. He would grow frustrated by the fact that no one say his magnificence and recognized him for who he was. In this example, Jove represents humanity’s ability to form myth . The “hinds” took their inspiration from “a star.” Suddenly that star was recognized as Jupiter, or Jove, as if it had been him all along. Humanity gave birth to the myth of Jove, they gave their life and “blood to it.” This image will appear again in the seventh stanza.

Until our blood, commingling, virginal, With heaven, brought such requital to desire The very hinds discerned it, in a star. Shall our blood fail? Or shall it come to be The blood of paradise? And shall the earth Seem all of paradise that we shall know? The sky will be much friendlier then than now, A part of labor and a part of pain, And next in glory to enduring love, Not this dividing and indifferent blue.

The speaker goes on to ask if the “blood” they used to create, what should be, a comforting myth, will fail. Or more simply, will the myth stand the test of time. Alternatively, the speaker asks if instead, the “earth” will be all the paradise “we shall know.” The speaker is concerned this might not be enough for humanity.

In the future when the world becomes a paradise, the only paradise, the sky will be “much friendlier.” It will be closer to nature than a divine being. Rather than worry more about a god’s expectations when looking at the sky, humanity will feel connected to nature.  

Stanza Four

She says, “I am content when wakened birds, Before they fly, test the reality Of misty fields, by their sweet questionings; But when the birds are gone, and their warm fields Return no more, where, then, is paradise?”

In the fourth stanza, the speaker returns to the narrative within the woman’s mind. There is a change in the narrative perspective, meaning that the reader gets a first-person account of how she feels. She says first that she feels “content” to look at the birds when they have first woken up. The speaker thinks about their rest, their preparations to fly and the journeys they will undertake that day. She describes their “questionings.” This is a reference to the way birds move along the ground before they take off as if searching for something.  

At some point, the birds take off and the “warm fields” they came from are never the same. It is important to remember that all of these images are coming from the emotions associated with Sunday morning. She is looking at her carpet, and at the cockatoo, and letting her imagination run wild. This was customary within Stevens’ works . He maintains a reputation for exploring the edges of what the imagination could do.  

There is not any haunt of prophecy, Nor any old chimera of the grave, Neither the golden underground, nor isle Melodious, where spirits gat them home, Nor visionary south, nor cloudy palm Remote on heaven’s hill, that has endured As April’s green endures; or will endure Like her remembrance of awakened birds, Or her desire for June and evening, tipped By the consummation of the swallow’s wings.

The quotation marks end at this point and the poem revert back to the third person speaker. These lines are quite complex and outline the speaker’s understanding that the woman hopes for similar peace again in the future. He explores a number of versions of the future, the afterlife, and ideal paradises. These include the “golden underground” and the “visionary south,” a place no one has explored.  

At the end of this action, the speaker returns to the real world and notes that these fantasies may or may not exist, but nature is real. This includes “April’s green” and the woman’s own memory of the birds.  

Stanza Five

She says, “But in contentment I still feel The need of some imperishable bliss.” Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her, Alone, shall come fulfilment to our dreams And our desires. Although she strews the leaves Of sure obliteration on our paths, The path sick sorrow took, the many paths Where triumph rang its brassy phrase, or love Whispered a little out of tenderness, She makes the willow shiver in the sun For maidens who were wont to sit and gaze Upon the grass, relinquished to their feet. She causes boys to pile new plums and pears On disregarded plate. The maidens taste And stray impassioned in the littering leaves.

The fifth stanza returns to the female speaker’s thoughts. She is responding to the previous stanza in which the other speaker, perhaps Stevens himself, presents his thoughts on the future. Although she accepts the speaker’s argument that there are always going to be beautiful things in nature, she wants something more. She needs “bliss” to be truly happy and the need for it will not go away.  

The other speaker responds immediately. He asks the woman how beauty is supposed to exist without death. It is the “mother” of everything wonderful. It causes the end of things that one loves, and leads one to lose as it “strews the leaves / Of sure obliteration.” Death forces one to change paths, and find a new one that is easier to see. In contrast to the loss caused by Death, there is still beauty. It instigates change and often changes is what brings about the parts of nature most loved.  

Stevens’ speaker describes boys who use an old plate, that was perhaps once valuable, for a new purpose. They pile on “plums and pears. “ All the while the “maidens” wander through the scene, taking in the pure joy of a world changed.  

Is there no change of death in paradise? Does ripe fruit never fall? Or do the boughs Hang always heavy in that perfect sky, Unchanging, yet so like our perishing earth, With rivers like our own that seek for seas They never find, the same receding shores That never touch with inarticulate pang? Why set the pear upon those river-banks Or spice the shores with odors of the plum? Alas, that they should wear our colors there, The silken weavings of our afternoons, And pick the strings of our insipid lutes! Death is the mother of beauty, mystical, Within whose burning bosom we devise Our earthly mothers waiting, sleeplessly.

The speaker continues on to question a paradise that does not include death. If this existed there would never be any ripe fruit or rivers that reached the ocean. It is more than death the speaker is interested in, it is the idea and application of change and transformation. Eventually, the speaker gets to the main point of these assertions which is that Heaven is not necessarily better than earth.  

The next lines return to the description of the plums and pears from the previous stanza. This time the speaker is placing them in Heaven and noting how the “maidens” do not come. The act of setting out the fruit is pointless.  

He continues on to say that in heaven “they” are not going to be wearing “our colors.” Or more simply, paradise will not be recognizable to any human being. Humanity does not have the ability to accurately envision it before entering. This speaks to a restriction of one’s imagination. What the speaker does know is that in a “perfect” world where nothing changes, pleasures would soon turn to boredom.  

In the final lines of the sixth stanza, he reiterates the same message about death. That it is only due to its presence that the world holds any appeal at all. Within the human mind beauty and death should be one in the same, they are both mothers to humanity.  

Stanza Seven

Supple and turbulent, a ring of men Shall chant in orgy on a summer morn Their boisterous devotion to the sun, Not as a god, but as a god might be, Naked among them, like a savage source.

The speaker presents a contrast to Christian heaven in the seventh stanza. He turns to discuss paganism and an orgy. At this particular celebration, the men are worshipping the sun, and likely drinking and dancing. The pagans were devoted to the sun, not as a symbol for the Christian God, but as their benefactor. It is from the sun that all life stems. Rather than being a god, it is only “like” a god. It is clear the speaker sees this kind of worship and understands it. He too wants to see nature as the true God.  

It is important to note here the reference back to the third stanza which spoke about Jove and the importance of imagination in religion. Even though paganism might make more sense to the speaker, it is still driven by humanity’s imagination. Without human thought and worship, the sun would be nothing but a star.  

Their chant shall be a chant of paradise, Out of their blood, returning to the sky; And in their chant shall enter, voice by voice, The windy lake wherein their lord delights, The trees, like serafin, and echoing hills, That choir among themselves long afterward. They shall know well the heavenly fellowship Of men that perish and of summer morn. And whence they came and whither they shall go The dew upon their feet shall manifest.

While the pagan men chant, other elements enter into the conversation , “ voice by voice.” There is the “Windy lake,” as well as the trees (which are like “serafin” or angels) and the “echoing hills” which add their sounds to the celebration.  

Through their orgy, the pagans are able to grow closer to the natural world. They know a “heavenly fellowship” with the rest of the world. So much so that the dew which covers their feet seems to hold their future. Nature holds the essence of humanity, from birth, to beauty, to death. It does not matter to the men in this moment where they are going or what their lives will consist of.  

Stanza Eight

She hears, upon that water without sound, A voice that cries, “The tomb in Palestine Is not the porch of spirits lingering. It is the grave of Jesus, where he lay.” We live in an old chaos of the sun, Or old dependency of day and night, Or island solitude, unsponsored, free, Of that wide water, inescapable. Deer walk upon our mountains, and the quail Whistle about us their spontaneous cries; Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness; And, in the isolation of the sky, At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make Ambiguous undulations as they sink, Downward to darkness, on extended wings.

In the last stanza of the poem returns to the first stanzas in which the woman dreams of Palestine. The water she was originally seeing comes back. This time it is speaking to her. It states that there is not a “porch” or area in Palestine in which “spirits” are “lingering.” The “grave of Jesus” is nothing more but a place “where he lay.”  

The final lines are told from the perspective of the original speaker as he goes back over everything he spoke about previously. He begins by saying that from one perspective, the pagan one, the world is just “day and night.” There is chaos and the way chaos acts on and within nature, and that’s it. Thinking of the world this way makes humanity “unsponsored” and “free.” No one is tied down to the demands of a selfish god.  

The speaker concludes the poem by taking away all his previous philosophizing about nature. The opinions of the dreaming woman are disregarded and nature is seen on its own terms. It is made up of the progress of life. There are “Deer” in the mountains and “berries” growing, ripening, and dying in the “wilderness” where no one will ever see them. He also describes the “pigeons” in isolation in the sky, again, with no companions (especially not human) to comment on their progress. In the last lines, the image of the pigeons recedes into darkness, a final allusion to the power and importance of death.  

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Baldwin, Emma. "Sunday Morning by Wallace Stevens". Poem Analysis , https://poemanalysis.com/wallace-stevens/sunday-morning/ . Accessed 11 June 2024.

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