# Sudden Calm explained — Poetry

> Chapter companion for Poetry by George MacDonald.

## What happens

The speaker describes an internal struggle with a formless, violent force, yet resolves to ascend toward the divine threshold. The poem shifts to a dreamlike state of sailing on a melodious wave toward eternity, suggesting a sudden calm after turmoil.

## Themes in this chapter

### Spiritual Struggle and Doubt

The speaker's internal bellowing and sense of being weighed down by worlds reflects a spiritual struggle.

### Longing for Immortality

The dream of sailing on a wave 'on, on for ever to eternity' expresses a longing for eternal peace.

## Character check-ins

### Unknown

The speaker who experiences the internal bellowing and then the calm dream of sailing toward eternity.

### God

Implied as the one whose gate the speaker approaches, representing the divine threshold.

## Key lines

> There is a bellowing in me, as of might Unfleshed and visionless, mangling the air With horrible convulse, as if it bare The cruel weight of worlds, but could not fight With the thick-dropping clods, and could but bite A vapour-cloud!

I feel a formless, blind power roaring inside me, violently twisting the air as if carrying the crushing weight of entire worlds, yet it cannot struggle against the heavy falling earth and can only snap at a cloud of vapor.

_Describes the internal turmoil and sense of impotent struggle against overwhelming forces._

> Now I am sailing swiftly, as we seem To do in sleep! and I can hear the gush Of a melodious wave that carries me On, on for ever to eternity!

Now I glide quickly, as if in a dream, and I hear the rush of a musical wave that bears me endlessly toward eternity.

_Contrasts the earlier chaos with a serene, dreamlike journey toward the infinite._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/poetry_8_se/chapters/sudden-calm
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/poetry_8_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/poetry_8_se/chapters