Metho Drinker

death time blank verse dark

Metho Drinker - meaning Summary

Oblivion Sought Through Self-destruction

Judith Wright's 'Metho Drinker' portrays a man who seeks oblivion through alcohol and embraces Nothing as refuge. He lies under winter leaves, longing to escape time, pain, and human pity. A burning woman of fire embodies the consuming force that melts flesh and severs ties to life. She promises death but leaves him waking alone and uneasy. The poem presents self-destruction as sought solace that fails to deliver final release.

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Under the death of winter's leaves he lies who cried to Nothing and the terrible night to be his home and bread. "O take from me the weight and waterfall ceaseless Time that batters down my weakness; the knives of light whose thrust I cannot turn; the cruelty of human eyes that dare not touch nor pity." Under the worn leaves of the winter city safe in the house of Nothing now he lies. His white and burning girl, his woman of fire, creeps to his heart and sets a candle there to melt away the flesh that hides from bone, to eat the nerve that tethers him in time. He will lie warm until the bone is bare and on a dead dark moon he wakes alone. It was for Death he took her; death is but this; and yet he is uneasy under her kiss and winces from that acid of her desire.