As the Starved Maelstrom Laps the Navies
poem 872
As the Starved Maelstrom Laps the Navies - meaning Summary
Predatory Hunger and Selfhood
Dickinson frames personal longing as a form of hunger by likening human desire to predatory appetites. Images of a maelstrom, vulture, and tiger show how powerful drives reduce other needs to mere sustenance. The speaker calls her own yearning a "finer Famine," implying a refined but acute lack: ordinary food or comfort is inadequate. She longs instead for a specific, exotic morsel and a torrid eye, suggesting craving for an intense, almost sensual attention that briefly satisfies and then intensifies the appetite again. The poem explores hunger as both physical and emotional compulsion.
Read Complete AnalysesAs the Starved Maelstrom laps the Navies As the Vulture teased Forces the Broods in lonely Valleys As the Tiger eased By but a Crumb of Blood, fasts Scarlet Till he meet a Man Dainty adorned with Veins and Tissues And partakes his Tongue Cooled by the Morsel for a moment Grows a fiercer thing Till he esteem his Dates and Cocoa A Nutrition mean I, of a finer Famine Deem my Supper dry For but a Berry of Domingo And a Torrid Eye.
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