poem marks a transition point: the soul shrinks
back from the actual world and desires to remain
in its spiritual world of cleanliness and lightness,
though the soul will ‘‘descend once more...to
accept the waking body.’’ This shrinking from
the actual and desire for the spiritual is expressed
in lines 21 to 23 where the soul wishes for ‘‘noth-
ing on earth but laundry,...rosy hands in the
rising steam / And clear dances done in the sight
of heaven.’’ It should be noted, however, that
even the content of these lines indicates a move-
ment toward the actual. Instead of the strict
personification of laundry as angels, the soul
cries for laundry itself and the cleanliness it rep-
resents as it is being washed. The rosy hands and
rising steam are, though desirable and pleasant
to the soul, yet part of the actions of this world,
not of the wholly spiritual world of angels.
The contrast is deepened in lines 29 to 34 at
which point the soul finally accepts the actual
world with its conflicts and paradoxes. This sub-
division of the second part of the poem com-
pletes the movement from the soul’s perception
of a spiritual world, through its desiring that that
world can remain ‘‘unraped’’ by the descent into
the actual, to its final rueful acceptance of the
world where, paradoxically, ‘‘angels’’ perform
the functions of clothes which in turn are pre-
sented in terms of paradox.
The poem’s two part structure clearly indi-
cates the overall contrast intended between the
desire for the spiritual and the necessity for the
acceptance of the actual, but the use of intri-
cately chosen diction gives concrete form and
definition to the contrast. The diction is, in
fact, so refined and precise that the reader per-
ceives the texture of the two worlds of the poem.
The first part of the poem is dominated, as
would be expected, by the use of words which
convey a spiritual texture, but part of the poem’s
complexity is in its natural but intricate selection
of words which remind the reader of lightness or
airiness, cleanliness especially as related to
water, and to laundry itself. In the first stanza,
for example, as the ‘‘eyes open to a cry of
pullies,’’ the soul is ‘‘spirited’’ from sleep and
‘‘hangs’’ ‘‘bodiless.’’ In describing the movement
of the angels in the morning air, a number of
verbal forms are used which further portray the
airiness and lightness of the world of the spirit.
The angels are seen as ‘‘rising,’’ ‘‘filling,’’ ‘‘breath-
ing,’’ ‘‘flying,’’ and ‘‘moving and staying’’; all of
these word choices denote and connote either
free movement or the action of the wind in rela-
tion to movement. The laundry is thus ‘‘inspired’’
in the root meaning of that term, that is filled
with the breath of spirit. Finally, ‘‘swoon’’ and
‘‘nobody’’ enhance the airy-light texture, denot-
ing respectively a gentle faint and the absence of
body.
A second pattern of diction associates the
angels with the cleanliness of laundry. In the first
part of the poem, the morning air is ‘‘awash with
angels’’; the angels rise together in ‘‘calm swells of
halcyon feeling,’’ the latter phrasing containing an
allusion to the legendary birdwho calms wind and
waves; the angels move and stay ‘‘like white
water.’’ In the second part of the poem as the
soul longs to remain in its spirit world, the ‘‘rosy
hands’’ and the ‘‘rising steam’’ associated with the
washing of laundry further establish the cleanli-
ness of the spiritual state. Even more intricate is
Wilbur’s use of key terms from the common lan-
guage of laundry to establish the identification of
the clothes on the line with the angels the soul sees
in the light of false dawn. The air is ‘‘awash’’ with
angels which are ‘‘in’’ the literal bed sheets,
blouses, and smocks, but ‘‘the soul shrinks...
from the punctual rape of every blessed day.’’
The key term ‘‘shrink,’’ denoting as it does the
literal shrinking up of washed clothes as well as
figuratively a movement away from something
unpleasant, thus concretely emphasizing the
theme of the soul’s desire for a spirit world, the
‘‘blessed day,’’ but with this is its realization that
the actual will punctually, even violently, intrude
on that spirit world.
The diction in the second part of the poem,
from line 17 on, though containing several word
choices which are akin to the pattern ofTHE POEM’S TWO PART STRUCTURE CLEARLYINDICATES THE OVERALL CONTRAST INTENDED
BETWEEN THE DESIRE FOR THE SPIRITUAL AND THE
NECESSITY FOR THE ACCEPTANCE OF THE ACTUAL, BUT
THE USE OF INTRICATELY CHOSEN DICTION GIVES
CONCRETE FORM AND DEFINITION TO THE CONTRAST.’’
Love Calls Us to the Things of This World