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The second stanza reproduces the first in structure and substitutes its own variables (indicated by italics):

   Be sure like the dauntless noon
You can and shall unmistakably be
   Man the lover supreme.


Within the pattern of expectation he has set up, the poet must satisfy four different areas of simultaneous progression. Not only must he close the dawn, noon sequence but he must also resolve the implied spiritual ascent of the aspirant who, in perfect conformity with the course of the sun, has risen to become the "lover supreme." In an interesting move, the poet chooses to preserve the structural parallelism of the poem in the third stanza while at the same time introducing elements which are new to the progression of ideas:

Be true like the dutiful earth
       And
   The dutiful sun.
You can and shall eventually be
    Man the saviour supreme.


Here the poet sweeps his dawn/noon progression into an overall vision of the earth and the sun acting out their respective roles in the cosmic play Each is faithful to what seems a preordained duty. By extension, the seeker, should he accept his own timeless duty-bound role, will at last become "Man the saviour supreme."

The poet reveals in this poem that in pursuing his expressive needs, he is not enslaved by a mere mechanical disposition of formulaic techniques. In this particular instance, the scale of spiritual perfection that he wished to present could not be adequately contained by the dawn/noon/evening pattern of other poems It necessitated the opening out of the poem into the broader context of "the dutiful earth/And/The dutiful sun." As a direct result of this widening of the poem's frame of reference, the poet is able to select a word such as "saviour," with its specific associations of Christ, in order to enhance the reader's appreciation and understanding of the heights to which the seeker may aspire. On the one hand, the claim is rhetorically inflated, but on the other hand, the reference is justified by the natural grandeur of the sun and the earth seen in this engaging and universal perspective. The forcefulness of the poem as a whole springs from this very aptness of simile, our ultimate feeling as readers that our spiritual evolution is based on the same kind of inner law as that which prescribes the sun's diurnal course.

 

 

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