Meditation 1
The poem ‘’Meditation 1’’ has as its main subject love. This feeling is overflowing in Heaven and then spilling down onto the Earth and the people below. Love enters the veins of people and it ‘’quenches’’ the flames of Hell.
The love coming from Heaven is described as being eternal and warming up a person from the inside. A person may feel satisfied with this type of love but the narrator warns the reader about another type of love, one that survives only for a little bit and leaves the person feeling cold and unsatisfied.
The second type of love comes from the earth and it may refer to romantic love. While it is similar with the spiritual one, it does not have the same effect on a person. Many people chose this type of love because it is easy to find but the narrator warns the reader that he will remain unsatisfied with it.
I Am the Living Bread
The poem ‘’I am the Living Bread’’ is a religious poem told from a first person subjective perspective. A man presents himself as looking at a path of light from his door to the Throne. He is surprised however when he doesn’t see the ‘’bread of life’’ at his door, as he expected it to be.
The bread of life becomes here the central image but what it symbolizes remains unknown. The path of light that starts from the Throne and ends at the narrator’s doorstep may symbolize the path to redemption the narrator wants to take. The throne represents here the favorable ending in Heaven the narrator wants for himself. Yet, the lack of bread may mean he will not end in the way he wants.
The second stanza presents the story about how humanity felt into sin but it is different from the way it appears in the Bible. In the stanza, the narrator talks about a bird which ate from the forbidden fruit. As a result, the rest of the world was no longer allowed to eat and felt into ‘’Celestiall Famine’’ or the long period of time when humanity was denied the privileged the primordial couple had. The food mentioned here is the one the soul needs and so humanity felt into sin.
The lack of bread is solved in the third stanza when ‘’bread’’ falls from Heavens, carried by Angels. The bread mentioned here is Jesus Christ who came down to Earth to give up his life as a sacrifice for all humanity. Because of his sacrifice, the rest of the pure souls on this Earth had enough food to eat and were offered to promise of salvation.
This bread is deemed too good for the Angels but every person is called to eat from it. The bread was prepared by God himself and every person who eats this bread has the promise of eternal life. The bread does not refer her to an actual food a person must eat, but rather to the sacrifices someone must be willing to make to survive and be accepted by God. However, these sacrifices are all deemed worth it because a person can then hope to live forever in the Heavens.
I Go to Prepare a Place For You
The title of this poem transmits the idea that the subject discussed will be a religious one, since it makes reference to Jesus Christ’s words when addressing his disciples. The first stanza starts with two questions, the narrator wanting to know how a person can climb up the social ladder and reach the highest step. The answer is given in the same stanza, with the narrator claiming that a person can climb the social ladder by being a good person and advancing the world as much as they can. This is the way of ‘’Wisdome’’ and this is the way a person must follow if they want to be looked up to.
In the second stanza the narrator talks about the ‘’Highest Office’’ and the person who holds the highest place in it. According to the narrator, the Highest Office deals with the matters considered as being the ‘’lowest’’ interest in the world. This transmits the idea that we, as humans, give value to things and elements which in reality have no value at all while at the same time looking down on those things that really have a value. Wisdom is presented once more as having the highest value and yet it is looked down by many people who refuse to see its purpose.
In the third stanza, the narrator urges his soul to look at the ‘’King of Kings’’ coming from the Heavens. The King is described as being ‘’bright’’ and shining light over everyone on the rest of the earth. The people are compared with ants, spiders and mites, worthless insects, nothing when compared with the power of God.
In the next stanza, the narrator warns the sinners they will have to pay for their transgressions. They will be punished in the most awful way, their head being chopped up on the block by an axe. This way of punishing is considered as being extremely shameful, being reserved only to traitors and murderers. Sin is described as being a loop from which no one can escape without the help of God.
The sinners will continue to be punished after their death as well, put to clean ‘’Death’s Cave’’ with their bare hands. They will have to clean the corpses punished there, the flesh and bones left behind. From Hell, the souls will have to plead their case, to try and gain forgiveness from their Father. The sinners can do nothing more than sit at the doors of Hell and pray the doors will be open.
Those who are accepted into Heavens are taken by the hand and taken from the ‘’rooms’’ in Hell and brought to light. Those souls are given eternal joy and they spend the rest of eternity praising God. The last stanza of the poem is a plea, the narrator wanting to have the opportunity to praise God for eternity. The narrator wants to be granted the opportunity to become a ‘’trumpet’’ wanting to praise God forever.
The last of the poem presents the idea of Purgatory, the place where all souls must go. Some souls will be offered the possibility to leave it, while others will become flesh and bones on the floor of Hell forever. The narrator prays he will be granted the possibility of praising God, becoming thus an instrument to praise God.
