Commentary on Hurrahing in Harvest
Looking up
The octave is divided into two quatrains. The first is more concerned with the skyscape than the landscape, echoing the fascination with sky in The Sea and the Skylark and The Windhover. This is picked up in the second quatrain: ‘I lift up, I lift up heart, eyes...', echoing Psalm 121:
‘I will lift my eyes up unto the hills, from whence cometh my help' (
Psalms 121:1).
In the sestet, however, he is looking up ‘to glean our Saviour', using a harvest image (‘glean'=gather the left-over grain after the harvesters have finished). A vision of God is what is left after the first glory, the beauty gathered by the eyes, is over.
Blindness
However, according to the sestet, not every one will necessarily see it: ‘but the beholder / Wanting' (i.e. these things were here, and only (but) the beholder was lacking).
Spectators can not necessarily be ‘beholders'. Yet wherever there is someone there who is able to perceive a revelation or insight of God in this scene, then that person's heart will be lifted even higher in some sort of mystical experience.
Investigating Hurrahing in Harvest
- What do you think ‘eyes' and ‘heart' symbolise in the sonnet?
- ll.7,8 are difficult.
- Is the poem a quietly contemplative one?
- If not, which words convey a sense of energy and action?
- What other poem uses the word ‘hurl'?
- English Standard Version
- King James Version
1I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? 2My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. 3He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. 4Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. 5The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade on your right hand. 6The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. 7The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. 8The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.
1I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. 2My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth. 3He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber. 4Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. 5The LORD is thy keeper: the LORD is thy shade upon thy right hand. 6The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night. 7The LORD shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul. 8The LORD shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.
A quatrain is a 4-line stanza, usually rhyming.
One who saves in particular, Christ as the saviour of the world.
1. The supernatural showing of some hidden truth or person; a moment of insight where new meaning is established in the belief system of a person
2. In the Bible, the name given to the last book of the New Testament, which uncovers the future.
Used for the seeking of direct spiritual encounter with God, usually through a life of self-denial and contemplation.
To represent a thing or idea by something else through an association of ideas.
