keeping watch
wondering
rolling
on
shining
and pondering
before
finally halting
at
some last point sanctifies it
These lines indicate a sort-of break in the rhythm that I
noticed in the peace. I’m not sure
whether or not I was influenced by the piece’s nautical theme, but I understood
the poem to have a certain “ebb and flow” like that of an ocean. Here it appears that Mallarme cuts the
poem’s momentum short, as if to create an abrupt resolution. The line “before
finally halting” quite literally halts the motion of the words across the
page. Where they were falling
downwards, echoing the movement that their action-word-laden content, the fifth
line puts an abrupt halt to this motion.
Keeping, wondering, rolling, shining and pondering. These words work in line with
one-another, each one building off of the last. The fifth and sixth line resolve the motion in these words, “sanctifying”
the meaning the poem.
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