How we cite our quotes: (stanza.line)
Quote #1
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. (lines 9-15)
When the woman starts to daydream, she imagines that her oranges and cockatoo become sacrificial gifts as part of a procession of spirits to visit Christ’s tomb. Christian themes in the poem are associated with silence, like the inside of a big, empty cathedral. She feels as though the day is inviting her to make a mental journey over the ocean to get to Palestine, where Jesus was buried. Overall, it’s a pretty intimidating vision.
Quote #2
Divinity must live within herself:
This is her rebellion against Christian ideas of the supernatural and a God, or "divinity" which exists apart from humankind. No, she says, my own feelings and emotions are the only evidence for the divine. Do you think there is a valid point here, or is she just egotistical and focusing on herself?
Quote #3
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. (lines 31-38)
Paganism is Christianity’s rival in the poem. It is the religion of Greek and Roman gods and goddesses, who represent different things and events in nature. Jove is the god of the sky, the sun, and thunder and lightning. The poet thinks that ancient people came up with the gods to fill a need or "desire" that they had to explain nature.