Snow by Louis MacNeice
My NJ sources have told me that it’s been snowing up there. I can laugh for the present (while I’m still in relatively warm Texas), but next week I’ll be in the frigid north. Also, I feel compelled to continue on my MacSpaunday theme, if for no other reason than that I’m wildly amused by the term. Also, I really liked the selections from MacNeice in The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry.
Snow
By Louis MacNeice
The room was suddenly rich and the great bay-window was
Spawning snow and pink rose against it
Soundlessly collateral and incompatible:
World is suddener than we fancy it.
World is crazier and more of it than we think,
Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portion
A tangerine and spit the pips and feel
The drunkenness of things being various.
And the fire flames with a bubbling sound for world
Is more spiteful and gay than one supposes—
On the tongue on the eyes on the ears in the palms of one’s hands—
There is more than glass between the snow and the huge roses.
Its a great poem. I have been reading it regularly now for 30 years and still find new elements in it. Such as the way MacNeice ties each verse together and into the concluding line. The poem evokes all the senses: sight in verse 1, taste and touch in verse 2 and hearing in verse 3. The poem is tightly woven, hot and cold, ’spiteful and gay’ ‘incorrigibly plural’ throughout.
There are other links between the verses, such as ’spit the pips’ in verse 2, presumably into ‘the palms of one’s hands’ in verse 3. Verse 3 brings the senses together again in the penultimate line.The poem is deeper than its simple form and subject matter would suggest.
The poem conjures up a vivid image for me. It was written in January 1935 and I see MacNeice sat in comfortable armchair in a living room of a large house with a snow bound garden outside. Its very cold and he is sat close to the open fire.The large windows flood the room with snow reflected daylight. There are out of season pink roses on the window cill. He is peeling a tangerine, which evokes English winters where tangerines are still a favourite seasonal fruit, often put in children’s Christmas stockings. But the ‘palms of one’s hands’ evokes Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. The poem’s central message is the mystery of life, triggered by sudden cold snow, out of season roses, a roaring fire and sharp fruit. In the midst of comfortable banality is the experience of mystery. Whatever the answer is, its more complicated than we can understand in material things such as roses, glass and snow.
Thanks so much for your wonderful comments! I will admit that I didn’t get nearly as much out of it as you (though I’ve only just read it, and not yet been able to revisit it, though I’m looking forward to it). I love your description of MacNeice’s living room.