Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

In William Stanley Merwin's "Lemuel's Blessing," the speaker's intimate address to the Spirit evokes themes of humility, servitude, and the quest for essential truths. Drawing from Christopher Smart's "Jubilate Agno," which opens the poem, Merwin launches into an elaborate benediction to the Spirit, articulated through canine metaphors. The speaker elevates the wolf, "a dog without a master," to exemplify the divine connection and guidance sought from the Spirit.

The speaker's yearning for communion is evident in lines like "You that know the way, / Spirit," and "Let me approach." The wolf's ears are blessed for being "like cypruses on a mountain / With their roots in wisdom," establishing an interconnection between the divine and the natural world. The "paws and their twenty nails" symbolize a form of divine prayer, illustrating how even the mundane aspects of life can possess spiritual depth.

The poem's primary tension lies in the speaker's struggle with being "a dog lost and hungry," burdened by vices and faults. He begs the Spirit to guide him past the "fork of hesitation" and the "ruth of the lair," symbolizing moral dilemmas and innate vices. The term "ruth," an old word for compassion or pity, paradoxically represents various traps that mislead or entrap the speaker. Whether it's "the ruth of kindness" or "the ruth of known paths," each presents a false sense of comfort or righteousness that the speaker wishes to avoid.

The poem's structure is free-form but broken into what can be considered three parts, each concluding with a tilde (~), which might serve as an emotional or thematic pause. These pauses offer a moment for reflection and emphasize the spiritual journey's nonlinear nature. This fragmented structure mirrors the complexities of the moral and spiritual journey the speaker navigates.

Towards the end, the poem takes a contemplative turn. It shifts from the immediate needs for guidance and avoidance of peril to a more profound wish: that of legacy and spiritual sustenance. The speaker wishes that his "ignorance and my failings" be left behind, but his "cry stretched out behind me like a road / On which I have followed you." This poetic image suggests a desire for his life to signify something larger, a form of divine pursuit.

The concluding lines of the poem circle back to the idea of essential sustenance: "And sustain me for my time in the desert / On what is essential to me." Here, the desert symbolizes both a spiritual and existential void. The speaker is not asking for superficial relief but for nourishment for his soul, which can only come through an enduring relationship with the Spirit.

"Lemuel's Blessing" serves as a profound prayer for the complexities of the human condition, a call to be guided beyond immediate circumstances and into the realm of lasting spiritual connection. It's a search for the essential truths that sustain us, mirroring the wolf's howls that "the Lord hears" and attends to in the wilderness of life.

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