Poetry · Chapter
September explained
The speaker reflects on the duality of human moods—the low mood of self-reliance and the grand mood of divine dependence.
What happens
The speaker reflects on the duality of human moods—the low mood of self-reliance and the grand mood of divine dependence. He explores the struggle between faith and doubt, the necessity of suffering for purification, and the ultimate reliance on God's love. The chapter concludes with a vision of a child searching in a gutter, unaware of his father in a nearby palace, symbolizing humanity's ignorance of God's presence.
Themes in this chapter
Spiritual Struggle and Doubt
The speaker oscillates between low moods of doubt and grand moods of faith, grappling with fear, shame, and the sense of divine absence.
Suffering and Purification
Pain and hardship are portrayed as necessary for hunting false faith from the heart, with the shepherd using dogs (fear, shame) to drive the straying sheep back.
Love as Ultimate Strength
Love is presented as the highest life and the means to overcome weakness, with the speaker seeking to love aright through divine love.
Childhood and Innocence
The image of the child searching in the stream symbolizes innocent but misguided striving, unaware of the father's presence and love.
Characters to notice
- God
Addressed as the source of all being and love, the one who calls names before sin.
- Jesus Christ
Invoked as the Master and Shepherd who saves the straying sheep.
- Unknown
The speaker throughout the chapter, expressing personal struggles and faith.
- Death
Described as haunting the soul with dissolution and unrest.
- The Child-Mother
The little child searching in the stream, unaware of his father in the palace.
Key passages
“We are a shadow and a shining, we! One moment nothing seems but what we see, Nor aught to rule but common circumstance— Nought is to seek but praise, to shun but chance; A moment more, and God is all in all, And not a sparrow from its nest can fall But from the ground its chirp goes up into his hall.”
Human existence fluctuates between seeing only the material world and recognizing God's omnipresence, where even a sparrow's fall is heard by Him.
Opens the chapter with the theme of shifting perception between secular and divine awareness.
“Things go not wrong when sudden I fall prone, But when I snatch my upheld hand from thine, And, proud or careless, think to walk alone.”
Misfortune comes not from falling, but from withdrawing from God's hand in pride or carelessness.
Highlights the danger of self-reliance versus dependence on God.
“I see a little child whose eager hands Search the thick stream that drains the crowded street For possible things hid in its current slow. Near by, behind him, a great palace stands, Where kings might welcome nobles to their feet. Soft sounds, sweet scents, fair sights there only go— There the child’s father lives, but the child does not know.”
A child searches for treasures in a gutter, unaware that his father lives in a nearby palace full of beauty and comfort.
Metaphor for humanity's ignorance of God's abundant love and presence.