Marine imagery (motif)
This poem, characteristically for Lowell, includes several mentions of marine imagery. For instance, the millionaire's "nine-knot yawl" is mentioned literally, while parts of ships—hulls and spires—are mentioned metaphorically. These images reflect Lowell's upbringing in an upper-class, east coast family. The use of this imagery also further isolates the protagonist; there seem to be oceans between him and the people around him.
The skunks/the mother skunk (symbol)
The skunks are brave and determined, willing to face their fears to get what they want. The speaker may envy this trait. When he is unable to scare off the mother skunk, the moment leaves him enraptured. He describes how the skunks pour into the city streets at night with grandeur that could describe a Godly army. The skunks offer the speaker an escape from his self-hatred.
Illness
Early in the poem the speaker says, "The season's ill." Later, he refers to his own "ill-spirit" and says "My mind's not right." The readers observe his illness: unjustifiable self-hatred (and manic depression). This poem embodies the spirit of Life Studies, which set the stage for the Confessional movement in poetry in the middle of the 20th century. The speaker confronts his illness, calls it what it is, and puts it down on the page. By doing so, he wrestles some power back. Poems that made their writer so vulnerable were not the convention when this poem was published.
The Trinitarian Church
The speaker describes this church's exterior as "chalk-dry and spar." The Church looks dry and meaningless, especially compared to the skunks that march before it. The speaker describes their eyes as "moonstruck" and blazing with "red fire," giving them vitality that the Church is missing. He also focuses on the soles of their feet, emphasizing their earthliness in contrast with the church's height. The emptiness of the Church calls to mind the lines, "I myself am hell;/nobody's here," a moment where the speaker is overwhelmed by his excruciating spiritual loneliness; he does not believe that God is with him.
