situation: a person waking up and, being acutely
aware at that moment of the division between the
spiritual and physical realities, sees the laundry on
the clothes line outside of the window animated
by wind, moving as if inhabited by otherworldly
powers. In the first two lines, the waking person is
‘‘spirited from sleep’’ by the ‘‘cry of pulleys,’’
which are used in a high-rise building to feed
clothesline out between two buildings. The wet
clothes on the line hang limp for a short time,
‘‘bodiless and simple / As false dawn.’’
In lines 4 and 5, the laundry comes alive with
motion, lifted by the breeze. The spectral motion
of the linens makes them look like angels, flap-
ping as angels do with their wings. The poem
retains the image of hanging laundry while talk-
ing about angels by using the word ‘‘awash’’ to
describe the way the sky is filled with angels.
Stanza 2
The poem goes on to describe the visual effect of
the laundry items that are hanging on the clo-
thesline. Wilbur lists ‘‘bed-sheets’’ and various
items of clothes that move with the wind, rising
and falling, as if they are alive. The motion that
they make is described as being calm, first with
the word ‘‘calm’’ itself to describe a wave-like
movement and then with the word ‘‘halcyon,’’ a
synonym for ‘‘calm.’’
In the second stanza, the idea that the laun-
dry is inhabited by angels is continued. In lines 7
and 10, the poem refers to the angels with the
pronoun ‘‘they,’’ granting them human identi-
ties. In line 10, they are given even more human
personality with mentions of emotion, their
‘‘joy,’’ and even a reference to the physical act
of basic respiration as the angels that inhabit the
clothes are said to be ‘‘breathing.’’Stanza 3
The third stanza is the last one focused on the
motion of the laundry on the line. Wilbur indi-
cates a change in the look of the things hanging
there with the first word of line 11 (‘‘now’’), indi-
cating that what he is describing is a new situa-
tion. While the previous stanza presented the
laundry as swaying calmly in the breeze, this one
opens with it swirling rapidly, with motions that
make it look like it is ‘‘flying.’’ Continuing the
conceit that the laundry is moving due to the
presence of angels, Wilbur attributes the speed
with which it is whirling around to the angels’
‘‘omnipresence,’’ their supernatural ability to be
in all places at the same time.
In the middle of stanza 3, the tone of the
poem slows down. This begins with the image of
the laundry as water, which is said to be ‘‘moving’’
at the end of line 12 and then ‘‘staying’’ in line 13.
After that, the clothes and bed sheets quiet down,
lose their kinetic energy, and droop. After attrib-
uting their motion to the angels that inhabit them,
the poet expresses surprise at this sudden immo-
bility, stating, as if it is impossible to believe, that
‘‘nobody seems to be there.’’
At the same time that the laundry on the line
quiets down, the poem’s mood also becomes
more quiet and reflective. Line 15 announces
that ‘‘the soul shrinks,’’ a foreshadow of the tone
that is to pervade in the second half of the poem.Stanza 4
The second half of ‘‘Love Calls Us to the Things
of This World’’ is marked by a somber mood
that contrasts markedly from the thrill and won-
derment that dominated the first half. In stanza
4, the speaker of the poem outlines the ways that
humans use to avoid awareness of the physical
world that surrounds them. The statement that
ended stanza 3 continues, so that the word
‘‘shrinks,’’ which on its own would denote a
shriveling or loss of size, is linked with ‘‘from’’
to mean that it turns from or retreats from things
that it finds upsetting. In line 17, waking, the new
encounter with the physical world each morning,MEDIA
ADAPTATIONS ‘‘Love Calls Us To The Things of This
World’’ is read by the author onThe Caed-
mon Poetry Collection, a three-disc collec-
tion released by Caedmon in 2000.
Wilbur also can be heard reading ‘‘Love
Calls Us To The Things of This World’’ on
Poetry on Record: 98 Poets Read Their
Work, 1888–2006, a four-disc collection
edited by Rebekah Presson Mosby and
released by the Shout! Factory in 2006.Love Calls Us to the Things of This World