Rhapsody On A Windy Night

Stanza 1: Lines 1-12

The speaker is unusually affected by the moon. This is no traditional romantic moon shedding a beneficent light. This moon dissolves the normal thinking process in “a lunar synthesis” (Line 3). Synthesis means a bringing together of disparate elements to constitute a whole. The words “lunacy” and “lunatic” are derived from the word “luna” (the Latin word for the moon). There is a long-standing belief that different phases of the moon, especially a full moon, can create a temporary state of insanity. This lunar synthesis is therefore likely to be of a rather unusual nature.

Eliot examines External and Internal Time. He sets up a contrast between mechanistic clock time and the inner processes of memory and its associations. The “lunar incantations” (Line 4) constitute a kind of spell: They “[d]issolve the floors of memory / And all its clear relations, / Its divisions and precisions” (Lines 5-7). Metaphorically, this means there is nothing left to stand on, no firm footing from which a person can understand life—all the usual boundaries have melted away, along with the linear flow of events.

There is something predetermined about this process. The speaker cannot consciously will or control it. The flow of memories “[b]eats like a fatalistic drum” (Line 9). The memories that bubble up evoke A Surreal and Nightmarish Mood and do not make much sense. This is clear from the lines “[m]idnight shakes the memory / Like a madman shakes a dead geranium” (Lines 10-12), which recall “lunar incantations” (Line 4) and the implied link between moon and “madness.” The image suggests the meaningless, dead world that is about to occupy the speaker’s mind and memory.

Stanza 2: Lines 13-22

Eliot personifies the streetlamps with human, sentient qualities. They have the ability to point out the woman, who is likely a prostitute. She hesitates in her approach, perhaps waiting for some sign of interest from the speaker, which she will not receive. She cuts a dispiriting figure, like the other surreal and ominous elements of the landscape. Her grin of welcome is displaced, appearing only in the door, “[w]hich opens on her like a grin” (Line 18). Her torn, stained dress suggests either poverty, slovenliness, or both. The twist in the corner of her eye “like a crooked pin” (Line 22) may suggest a life of hardship or a general sense of brokenness. As a whole, the woman evokes a sense of the sordidness of the nightlife on this particular street.

Stanza 3: Lines 23-32

The speaker’s memories are visual and image-based. They are disjointed but have a thread of connection running through them; namely, they are images of dead or broken things that have lost their usefulness.

The twist in the corner of the woman’s eye triggers these memories, with the word “twisted” linking them. The first image, of “a twisted branch upon the beach / Eaten smooth” (Lines 25-26), evokes the passage of time. “Stiff and white” (Line 29), it resembles a bone picked clean, as if it is part of the “skeleton” (Line 28) of the world.

The speaker remembers another image of something that no longer fulfills the purpose for which it was designed, a rusty “broken spring in a factory yard” (Line 30). The spring has lost its former resilience; it still has the appearance of a spring, but pressing and pulling it will no longer have any effect. It just lies there, discarded and useless.

Stanza 4: Lines 33-45

The cat gobbling up a scrap of spoiled butter also evokes A Surreal and Nightmarish Mood. The link between the cat and the speaker’s memory of the child lies in the word “slips.” The cat “[s]lips out his tongue” (Line 36), and the child’s hand “slipped out” (Line 39) to pick up the toy. He or she does it automatically, without thinking (Line 38). The child does not examine the toy or play with it but puts it straightaway into a pocket; their actions are instinctive like the cat’s.

The next line is key: The speaker “could see nothing behind that child’s eye” (Line 40). In other words, there is a vacancy or blankness. The child has none of the delight and curiosity that one might expect from a child who finds a toy at the quayside. This adds to the poem’s ominous tone.

The memory stimulates another thought about eyes—that of eyes in the street that “peer through lighted shutters” (Line 42). This is a fragmented image; the eyes are disembodied—silently observing but communicating nothing. This evokes Alienation in the City; while there is life present, people are apathetic and stripped of their humanity. Even among others, one is alone.

The crab who grips a stick—like the cat and child—also behaves automatically and by instinct. It is much lower down in the evolutionary scale, but the child doesn’t have much more humanity.

Stanza 5: Lines 46-68

In this stanza, the streetlamp describes a personified moon, who also has sentient, human qualities. The moon is presented as a woman with a face, hands, and a brain. “La lune ne garde aucune rancune” (Line 51) is a French phrase that means “the moon bears no grudge.” Eliot adapted it from the work of French Symbolist poet Jules LaForgue (1860-1887). LaForgue’s poem “Complainte de cette bonne Lune” features the lines “Là, voyons, mam’zell’ la Lune / Ne gardons pas ainsi rancune” (“Come now, Miss Moon, don’t cherish a grudge like that.”) (LaForgue, Jules. “Complainte de cette bonne Lune.” laforgue.org).

The moon is not a malevolent presence. However, she is weak and likely old and sick. Like the other elements in the poem, whatever function she once performed has been lost. She has a “feeble eye” (Line 52) and uselessly “smiles into corners” (Line 53); “a washed out smallpox cracks her face” (Line 56). The smallpox scars evoke the craters of the moon. This moon is not moving smoothly through its many phases as part of a vast, connected, orderly cosmos. Indeed, she has forgotten who she is: “The moon has lost her memory” (Line 55); “she is alone” (Line 59). Thus, the moon is personified as a rather pathetic, distorted, almost tragic figure. Under her influence, the speaker’s memory has dissolved as a coherent whole and surfaces only in fragments and images.

Eliot took the image of the “paper rose” (Line 57) that the moon twists in her hand from his readings of French Symbolist poets such as LaForgue and Remy de Gourmont (1858-1915). Like earlier images, it suggests something that is functionally useless. A paper rose may be prettier than a twisted old tree branch or an old spring, but it is also lifeless, a facsimile of the real thing.

Eliot uses smells to evoke foreboding. The personified moon emphasizes “old nocturnal smells” (Line 60) that stimulate the speaker’s memories. The “sunless dry geraniums” (Line 63) recall the earlier image of the “madman” who “shakes a dead geranium” (Line 12). “Dust in crevices” (Line 64) evokes staleness, while “cocktail smells” (Line 68) suggest a social conviviality that is not otherwise hinted at in this poem.

Stanza 6: Lines 69-77, and Line 78

The lamp says “Memory!” (Line 72) as if commanding the speaker to come back to their day-to-day life. The prospect of the day ahead, far from being an encouragement to the speaker, fills them with horror, as the final, stand-alone line shows. It just promises more pain and discomfort for this alienated individual.