The Hermit at Outermost House
The Hermit at Outermost House - meaning Summary
Resistance Amid Hard Gods
The poem depicts a solitary hermit at the sea’s edge confronting impersonal, rocklike gods and the flattening vastness of sky and water. Rather than yield, he silently creates a private, living meaning—a "green" interior—through a small, stubborn act of thumb-work. The tension between hard external forces and the hermit’s resilient inward life transforms bleak surroundings into a quietly vital scene where gulls and green light suggest hope.
Read Complete AnalysesSky and sea, horizon-hinged Tablets of blank blue, couldn't, Clapped shut, flatten this man out. The great gods, Stone-Head, Claw-Foot Winded by much rock-bumping And claw-threat, realized that. For what, then, had they endured Dourly the long hots and colds, Those old despots, if he sat Laugh-shaken on his doorsill, Backbone unbendable as Timbers of his upright hut? Hard gods were there, nothing else. Still he thumbed out something else. Thumbed no stony, horny pot, But a certain meaning green. He withstood them, that hermit. Rock-face, crab-claw verged on green. Gulls mulled in the greenest light.
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