Help! What does this mean?

"Morning" -Henry David Thoreau

Thou unconverted saint
Early Christian without taint-
Heathen without reproach
Who dost upon the evil day encroach,
Who ever since thy birth
Hast trod the outskirts of the earth.
Strict anchorite who dost simply feast
On freashest dews- I'll thy guest,
And daily bend my steps to east
While the late risen world goes west.

I confess I'm not much of a HDT fan and skated by on as little as I could in school. One of my cousins sent this out to the family and his mom, a fundie, insists it is about Jesus. I'm not seeing it, particularly given HDT's religious leanings. Does anyone have a better familiarity with Thoreau and the transcendentalists?

:crazy:

One think I learned in a creative writing class is that, if you write vaguely, people will read into your writing what they want to read. People of a religious/spiritual bent will read their beliefs into the craziest of places. Once I realized one of my teachers was such a person I started getting A's on everything I wrote. All I had to do was mention light or rebirth, etc... and she thought my writing was tapping greater things.

:eyes:

Honestly, what's wrong with a poem just being about sunrise, the joy of waking early, being inspired by that morning show of color, getting charged up for a new day?

Interpretation not my strong suit, but as soon as someone points it out to me I feel like an idiot for not seeing the obvious. I agree. I think it's simply about the sunrise.

Stone him

Sounds to me as if HDT is saying he goes toward the early morning, rather than people who get up later and head west.

What does the fundie think the reference to heathen without reproach means? They hate heathens. It's probably not worth your time to ask, though.

when you talk about Jesus and considering HDT wasn't into christainty that much, except maybe to critize it, lets not worry too much about it

Morning Sunrise.

My fundie relatives trip up on the words "heathen" and "saint" apparently.

For instance a phrase like:

Who ever since thy birth
Hast trod the outskirts of the earth.

Is a flowery description of the sun being on the horizon.

and he is not describing Jesus. He is talking about sunrise, and associating it with a kind of spiritual purity that is not "tainted" by ideology, dogma, or the worldly concerns of day. The metaphor compares dawn to a hermitic saint - either christian or pagan, it's all the same to Thoreau.

at least as written above!

Early Christian without taint-
Heathen without reproach

and

Who ever since thy birth
Hast trod the outskirts of the earth.

but the point of poetry is to make you think/feel - and this seems to have a few folks thinking at DU

congrats !!!

:toast:

:-)

HDT is describing the sunrise in religious terms. I think his use of the terms "saint," "Christian," and "anchorite" (a type of Christian hermit) is meant to be ironic, since he also describes it as a "heathen." He is emphasizing the pristine, original nature of the sunrise. Finding unspoiled nature to be a valid source for religious experience, outside of the influence of the Church and society, is a common theme for HDT and other American Transcendentalists.

The idea is that by "bend steps to east", i.e. facing the direction of the sunrise, the mysterious and numinous, the poet finds in the unspoiled beauty of nature an experience that is more spiritually satisfying than the busy, man-made world of organized religion, the city, etc. ("the late risen world").

Note also the distinction between east and west alludes to the western movement of American settlement, which was commonly assumed to represent "the march of civilization." By charting a retrograde, eastern course, HDT questions the meaningfulness of this unchecked advance of Western civilization.

I only note we have to say that some words are "ironic" to make it work.

but I like it because it fits the "nature" theme of HDR

Typical fundie pap. Take a perfectly adquate poem and CHANGE it to suit your needs.

Here's how Thoreau said it, from beginning to end:



“An Early Unconverted Saint...”
by Henry D. Thoreau

An early unconverted Saint,
Free from noontide or evening taint,
Heathen without reproach,
That did upon the civil day encroach,
And ever since its birth
Had trod the outskirts of the earth.

http://www.walden.org/institute/thoreau/writings/poetry/Early%20Unconverted%20Saint.htm



It seems to be an extended metaphor for the sun's rise and passage through the sky. Its Christian tones aren't surprising, and lend a nice duplicity to its meaning.

What your cousin is sending out is NOT Thoreau -- it's posthumous gibberish that somebody thought would look pretty.

As he got it the poem was entitled "Morning." To my knowledge, neither my cousin nor his professor are fundamentalist Christians. His mom on the other hand...oy!

Perhaps he needs to look into the credentials of his English department. Yikes!

:-)

The term "unconverted saint" is sort of a paradox. Thoreau is taking the term "saint" and redefining it outside of traditional Christian usage.

I think the title is a tip-off as well, but "upon the evil day encroach", as in evil = dark, brings light..."feast on freshest dews", as in dries them up. "daily bend my steps to east..." as in, he likes the sunrise, while the "late risen" miss it.

that a life based on nature was best. I think he's talking here about humans who lived before civilization. That humans lived more nobly before civilization took away their natural spirituality.

.

Do you have another reading? Not trying to bait you, just curious.

To me, much poetry is about communicating the feelings of a single moment. Flowery language, invocative prose, etc... aren't necessarily meant to bring in broader issues. They might just be meant to expand a simple feeling.

You can read this poem (including the original posted above as a correction) as an expression of his dissatisfaction with modern civilization and it's religion(s).

Or you can read it as an attempt to communicate the glowingly happy emotions he felt when viewing a sunrise one morning, and nothing more.

I prefer the latter, some prefer the former, some insist on both, and some impose the stamp of their own fixations. I guess that's part of why poetry is so discussed?