Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

PROMISES, PROMISES, by             Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography

Paul Muldoon's poem "Promises, Promises" is a richly layered meditation on place, memory, and the often elusive nature of fulfillment. Through its intricate weaving of personal reflection and historical imagination, the poem explores the tension between longing and reality, and the ways in which the past continues to inform the present.

The poem opens with a scene of the speaker lying "stretched out under the lean-to / Of an old tobacco-shed / On a farm in North Carolina." This image evokes a sense of rustic solitude, a moment of stillness in a landscape deeply rooted in American agricultural history. The presence of the cardinal, singing "for the love of marijuana," introduces a note of irony and dissonance. The cardinal's song, typically associated with vibrancy and life, "goes over my head," suggesting that the speaker is disconnected from the immediate beauty of the natural world around him. The phrase "splendour in the grass" recalls the famous line from Wordsworth, further emphasizing the contrast between the speaker’s external surroundings and his internal state. Despite the idyllic setting, the speaker feels "utterly bereft"—a stark emotional distance from the "low hills" and "open-ended sky" that should bring comfort or contentment.

This sense of dislocation is deepened as the speaker reflects on the passage of time and the feeling that "whatever is passing is passing me by." The pastoral beauty of the landscape, with its "wave upon wave of pasture," is undercut by the realization that these waves "fall short of my bare feet," symbolizing a deeper failure to connect with the world around him. The imagery here is one of both presence and absence, of something tantalizingly close yet ultimately out of reach.

The poem then shifts dramatically in its second stanza, moving from the personal to the historical. The speaker imagines himself "with Raleigh, near the Atlantic," referencing Sir Walter Raleigh and his ill-fated Roanoke Colony. The image of building a stockade "around our little colony" invokes the historical attempt to establish a foothold in the New World, an endeavor marked by both hope and fear. The invocation of Raleigh’s "scallop-shell of quiet," "staff of faith," and "scrip of joy" suggests a kind of spiritual preparation, a readiness for both the journey and the uncertainties that lie ahead. Yet, this preparation is tinged with the knowledge of inevitable failure—the "eighty souls" are those who will ultimately disappear, leaving behind only traces of their existence.

The poignant imagery of the vanished colony, "disappeared" but glimpsed "here and there / As one fair strand in her braid, / The blue in an Indian girl's dead eye," captures the tragic and mysterious fate of the Roanoke settlers. This historical reflection parallels the speaker’s own feelings of disconnection and loss, as both he and the lost colonists are haunted by unfulfilled promises and the passage of time.

In the final stanza, the poem returns to the personal, but now the speaker’s reflections are imbued with a deeper sense of yearning. The image of "someone or other, warm, naked, / Stirs within my own skeleton" suggests an awakening of desire or memory, a longing that propels the speaker to look "over the horizon, / Through the zones, across the Ocean." The cardinal’s song now shifts, this time "for the love of one slender and shy," tying the bird’s song to a more personal, intimate memory. The flight of stairs to a room in Bayswater and the "damson freckle on her throat" evoke a specific past love, a moment of tenderness now imbued with the pain of parting.

The poem’s title, "Promises, Promises," reflects the recurring theme of unfulfilled expectations. Whether it is the promise of connection with the natural world, the historical promise of a new life in the New World, or the personal promise of love, each is met with a sense of loss or incompleteness. The cardinal’s song, initially dismissed, comes to symbolize the persistent, though often unheeded, call of these promises.

Through its complex structure and rich imagery, "Promises, Promises" explores the tension between the ideal and the real, the past and the present. Muldoon’s layering of personal memory with historical allusion creates a powerful meditation on the nature of desire and the human condition, where the promises we make to ourselves and others are often left unfulfilled, lingering like the song of a bird that goes unheard.


Copyright (c) 2024 PoetryExplorer





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...



Home: PoetryExplorer.net