Spleen
Spleen - meaning Summary
Ritual and Spiritual Emptiness
The poem presents a Sunday of social rituals—bonnets, hats, tea—that crowd out inward life and create a quiet spiritual malaise. Everyday domestic scenes and polite manners are described as repetitive and displacing, leaving dejection and little resistance. The closing image personifies Life as well-dressed but pallid and waiting at the threshold of something absolute, suggesting ritual civility cannot fill a deeper existential absence or longing.
Read Complete AnalysesSunday: this satisfied procession Of definite Sunday faces; Bonnets, silk hats, and conscious graces In repetition that displaces Your mental self-possession By this unwarranted digression. Evening, lights, and tea! Children and cats in the alley; Dejection unable to rally Against this dull conspiracy. And Life, a little bald and gray, Languid, fastidious, and bland, Waits, hat and gloves in hand, Punctilious of tie and suit (Somewhat impatient of delay) On the doorstep of the Absolute.
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