Light and Shadow

The juxtaposition of light and shadow is threaded throughout the poem, using different motifs to allude to an existence of brightness and darkness side by side. In the second stanza, the speaker describes trying to loosen “silt from your throat” (Line 9), alluding to a dark and narrow cavern clogged with debris. As the speaker moves from the statue’s throat to its crown, the scene becomes one of light — a clear sky stretches above the white mounds of the statue’s eyes. Later, the speaker sits in darkness to eat and then hides themself away in the darkness of the statue’s ear. Yet here, too, there are motifs of light: a “lightning-stroke” (Line 22), red and purple stars, and the rising sun are contrasted against the “hours are married to shadow” (Line 28) of the speaker’s life.

The Statue’s Mouth

While the poem...