Silent Noon

I was asked to write a piece on analyzing a text for symbolism, and I immediately knew what piece I would write my essay on. Recently, I have begun participation in the WSMA Solo and Ensemble program. In this, we ares asked to choose a vocal solo to perform in front of a judge, and you can choose your solo out of one of three categories. I chose a class "A" solo, and "A" is the most difficult class type solo, and is considered "College" leveled. I fell in love with the song, and the meaningful lyrics, and did a little digging, and found that the lyrics were based off of a 19th century poem. I chose this poem for it's flowing, descriptive language, and for the fact of the timeless love two people share within it.  

Silent Noon By Ralph Vaughan Williams  

                        Silent Noon 

Your hands lie open in the long fresh grass, -- 
The finger-points look through like rosy blooms: 
Your eyes smile peace. The pasture gleams and glooms 
'Neath billowing skies that scatter and amass. 
All round our nest, far as the eye can pass, 
Are golden kingcup-fields with silver edge 
Where the cow-parsley skirts the hawthorn-hedge. 
'Tis visible silence, still as the hour-glass.

Deep in the sun-searched growths the dragon-fly 
Hangs like a blue thread loosened from the sky: -- 
So this wing'd hour is dropt to us from above. 
Oh! clasp we to our hearts, for deathless dower, 
This close-companioned inarticulate hour 
When twofold silence was the song of love. 

“Your hands lie open in the long fresh grass, --/The finger points look through like rosy blooms:/Your eyes smile peace” are the opening lines from Rossetti’s unforgettable poem “Silent Noon.” Written from his perspective, the poem follows him on a sunny afternoon he spends with his lover lying in a field in embrace. Though the time is fleeting, and he knows that it cannot last, the love the two have is great, as expressed through the symbolism and figurative speech throughout the poem as analyzed in this essay. Though the piece itself has the feeling of omniscience, for the author knows the day and love shall eventually pass, the poem begins and ends on the same serene, peaceful, and what is more loving mood, showing that the two lovers spent a timeless day together he hopes they shall never forget.

From the first two lines alone, figurative speech is prominent in describing his lover. The author begins the piece with focusing on his companion’s open arms as if to give him an embrace, and in the second line alone uses a simile to compare his/her fingertips to roses, as if to show they are soft and gentile. With putting both of these two lines together, and analyzing the symbolism within the piece, we can assume the lines “Your hands lie open in the long fresh grass, --The finger-points look through like rosy blooms:” means that his lover’s soft fingertips look pinkish and almost rose like as she lays in fields of grass with her arms open. However, the symbolism in the opening lines is a little harder to find. He describes her/his arms being open in grass while she/he lays there, but that cannot really symbolize much; in the second line, he describes her fingertips as “rosy blooms” or “rosy flowers” and the rose is often used as a symbol for love and romance. So, through context analysis, we can assume he is using symbolism through the form of describing her/his fingers as “rosy blooms” to symbolize that she/he has loving fingers and hands.

After the second line of symbolism describing his companion’s loving hands soft and pink like roses, the third lines begins “Your eyes smile peace” and then proceeds to say “the pasture gleams and glooms.” There is a massive difference between “peace” and “glooms.” When one says something “glooms” it is to give an atmosphere of despair and darkness, which changes the tone of the poem from the serene and dream-like opening, to one of despair in just that one line. This is Rossetti’s way of saying that though his lover’s “eyes smile peace,” meaning that she/he has kind eyes, or that their eyes are beautiful, the knowledge of passing time haunts him; with the passing time, the love will pass as well. The fear of time passing is the overall theme of the poem, but he still knows he should live in, and enjoy the moment. This issue of passing love is also described in line four as he states “’Neath billowing skies, that skater and amass” ,not only meaning the grasses in the field were green and full of life until the clouds filled the skies, but also meaning the clouds coming together, only to pass by on their way, symbolize love and time pass and never stay as well. 

Continuing from line four, stating that the love cannot stay, the poem flows into line five where he states “All round our nest, far as the eye can pass.” This means that he is very comfortable laying there in the field with his companion and is in a perfect setting; one does not simply describe anyplace as a “nest” in such a way, because nest is another term for home. This means he feels at home there with his lover. In lines six and seven, he describes their environment as a pasture with “golden king-cup fields with silver edge./Where the cow parsley skirts the hawthorn hedge.” This paints a beautiful picture of the countryside. A peaceful meadow with flowers, that spread out as far as you can see, stretching to the hedges. Connecting in to the eighth line, the author states “’Tis visible silence” which is the perfect example of an oxymoron, because silence is not able to be seen, however the silence is so prominent, that it is “visible” or felt. Rossetti then uses the simile to state that the prominent silence stated in “’Tis visible silence” is “still as the hourglass.” This is a paradox, because an hourglass will only “stand still” when the time within it runs out, and the last grains of sand fall to the bottom chamber. However, the time will never run out and the “Noon” will simply continue into another hour. The author is saying here that he is so relaxed with his lover, that he feels as though time itself has stopped in forward progression, and has brought with it a visible “silence.” This ends the first of the two stanza’s that compose the poem, and he finishes with the description of the “visible silence” ending the stanza with the peaceful dream-like tone it began with.

As the first stanza closes, the second one opens with the continuation of the same serene and peaceful tone. Rossetti states “Deep in the sun searched growths the dragon-fly/hangs like a blue thread loosened from the sky.” Again, he is describing his environment with the line “Deep in the sun searched growths” meaning “deep in the sunny fields.” Rossetti then uses the simile “the dragon-fly/hangs like a blue thread loosened from the sky.” This tells us the dragon-fly is floating in midair around them, not moving. It is also extremely important that he describes the dragonfly as blue, for the reason that blue and purple are the two colors in physiology most often used to represent peace and relaxation; hence he used this color do describe the dragon-fly to symbolize the feeling of calm and serenity as evident throughout the majority of the piece. Continuing from “like a blue thread loosened from the sky” the second stanza flows into line eleven. Rossetti states “So this wing’d hour is dropt to us from above” as if to say the silent noon he is spending with his lover in embrace laying there in the field is a gift from heaven itself. He then says “Oh! clasp we to our hearts.” This is a particularly important form of symbolism because the heart is one of the most often used symbols for love, and he is saying we must clasp to each other’s hearts. This means that their hearts are each other’s, or that their love is true and they love only each other, and no one else.

As was stated in line twelve “Oh! clasp we to our hearts” showing their love is real and passionate, the line continues to state “for deathless dower.” A dower is a type of inheritance, similar to a stipend, that is given to a person in the event of the death of another. The fact that Rossetti is describing the feeling as a “deathless dower” hints that he feels he has done nothing to earn this timeless peace and feeling of joy, with the woman/man he loves, and feels he does not deserve it. He describes their time together in line thirteen as “This close companioned in-articulate hour.” The “close companions” in the line are obviously meant to be him and his lover, and the “in-articulate hour” means they spent the hour together, but did not say a word together to each other.

Line thirteen then smoothly flows into the last line of the piece “When twofold silence was the song of love” which sets the tone for the serene and romantic ending. The first and the last lines in a poem are always the most important in the piece. The first line sets the overall mood of the piece, while the closing line is the last thing the reader will remember, and will be most likely the line that leaves the greatest impression on the reader. The opening line of this piece “Your hands lie open in the long fresh grass, --” is the setting for the piece, which gives it the loving, caring mood upheld throughout. Through the closing line, “When twofold silence was the song of love” ,Rossetti is showing that, though the two said not one word to another, they were able to understand one another perfectly through their love and emotional connection. This ends Rossetti’s “Silent Noon” on the same peaceful, what is more loving mood, showing that the two lovers spent a timeless day together he hopes they shall never forget.