The notes like little fishes vanish with a wink of tails,
Man's heart expands to tinker with his car
For this is Sunday morning, Fate's great bazaar;
Regard these means as ends, concentrate on this Now,
And you may grow music or drive beyond Hindhead anyhow,
Take corners on two wheels until you go so fast
That you can clutch a fringe or two of the windy past,
That you can abstract this day and make it to the week of time
A small eternity, a sonnet self-contained in rhyme.
But listen, up the road, something gulps, the church spire
Open its eight bells out, skulls' mouths, which will not tire
Escape from the weekday time. Which deadens and endures.
3. The language MacNeice uses in lines one and two is quite appealing. How are the lines linked? How does line two create an effective impression? How are stanzas one and two linked in their subject matter?
The poem begins with the poet telling the reader what he’s hearing; it’s an attractive way to begin a text. MacNeice here is a viewer; he does not judge. He’s just telling us what he observes is going on in the neighborhood.
Lines 1 and 2 are linked together because in the first line we read “someone is practicing scales” which is a musical instrument, and in line 2 the poet talks about “the notes” i.e. the notes of the music which is playing.
The notes like little fishes vanish with a wink of tails,
The music disappears as is being played. The poet is probably referring to the fact that Sunday morning is not a suitable time for listening to music, from a religious point of view.
The first stanza talks about music and movement. Simply put, the poet in the first stanza says someone is playing music and someone’s dying to get under his car to fix it. Music and movement become ends, not means.
In stanza 2, the reader is told that you can listen to music and drive your car as fast as you can on a Sunday morning, thus turn this day into an eternity.
4. Note how the last four lines contain an entirely different atmosphere than the first ten lines do. How do those lines contrast with the earlier lines? How does the poet create this contrast? Discuss the use of poetic devices as well as the “sentence structure” of the final line.
In the first two stanzas we have a positive atmosphere. The poet is mostly observing what is going on in his environment; the third stanza starts with the word “but” which means the poet is going to tell something which is in contrast with what he has said so far. The poet uses negative words to describe the church, and things related to it. The phrase “skulls’ mouths” depicts a horrifying image. Which means the poet does not have a positive attitude towards the church. The poet believes that the sound of the church bells is there to warn people “there is no music or movement”.
Works Cited
"Critical Evaluation" Critical Survey of Literature, Revised EditionEd. Frank Northen Magill. eNotes.com, Inc. 1976 eNotes.com 11 Nov, 2014 <http://www.enotes.com/topics/poetry-macneice#critical-essays-critical-evaluation>
Louis MacNeice’s Biography. Poetryfoundation.org 11 Nov, 2014 <http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/louis-macneice#about>
