The Approaching Hour - Analysis

Introductory impression

This poem strikes as urgent and prophetic, its tone alternates between admonitory and inclusive, moving from indictment to summons. The repeated calls of "Get ready! Get ready!" give it a pulsing, apocalyptic energy while the address to diverse groups creates a broadly communal focus. A shift occurs from confrontation in the opening lines to a more universal appeal at the close.

Relevant background

William Carlos Williams was an American modernist poet attentive to contemporary social fragments and everyday speech. Though no specific date is given here, the poem's listing of national, political, and religious categories reflects the fragmented, contentious public life of the early twentieth century and Williams's interest in speaking directly to varied audiences.

Main themes: Judgment, unity, and revelation

The poem develops three interrelated themes. First, judgment appears in images of stars melting and falling "in tears," suggesting consequence for collective behavior. Second, unity across division is implied by addressing every faction—political, national, moral—so that judgment is universal rather than selective. Third, revelation or awakening is explicit in the closing line, which transforms impending catastrophe into a call for spiritual or social awakening: "Get ready for the awakening."

Symbolic imagery: stars, moon, and bread

The poem's strongest images are cosmic and domestic at once. The stars that "melt and fall on you in tears" combine celestial grandeur with human sorrow, implying that cosmic events mirror moral fallout. The moon as bread — "The moon will be bread / and drop presently into your baskets" — turns a heavenly body into sustenance, a symbol that could signify provision, judgment made edible, or the provision of truth. This double register—catastrophe and nourishment—creates an ambiguous promise: destruction and transformation coexist.

Language and address

Williams uses a cataloguing technique—naming groups (Communists, Republicans, Germans, Frenchmen, Papists, Protestants, etc.)—to flatten differences and place all parties within a single reckoning. The list rhythm and repetition intensify the poem's voice of alarm, while interjections like "Friends and those who despise / and detest us!" collapse insider/outsider distinctions, reinforcing the theme of collective fate.

Concluding insight

The poem reads as a concise prophetic warning that blends political and spiritual registers: by naming every imaginable faction and deploying images that fuse cosmic catastrophe with human sustenance, Williams suggests that an impending transformation will spare no one and may function as both judgment and renewal. The final injunction, "Get ready for the awakening," leaves readers with an ethical summons rather than a resolved outcome.