You, Archibald MacLeish
Chris O'Brien

            In his poem "You, Andrew Marvell," Archibald MacLeish espouses his view of time, eternity, death, and God. The first and second stanzas set up his viewpoint, while the next six give examples to back it up. The last two stanzas are a kind of conclusion. So just what is his view of time, etc.? An analysis of each stanza in conjunction with an analysis of the poem’s structure can give us the answer to this question.

And here face down beneath the sun

There are (at least) three likely circumstances under which one would be "face down beneath the sun." The first is that you are bowing your head so that the sun will not hurt your eyes. Another possibility is that you are dead, your body wasting away out in the desert. The third possibility is that you are praying. But within all of these possibilities is a submission to "the powers that be," be it the sun, death, or God. The sun can be a symbol for the universe: infinite space and time—eternity. Death is often a symbol for entering into eternity. Finally, God is a sphere with its center everywhere but its circumference is nowhere. He/She/It has omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience. So God, too, is a symbol for eternity. So the first line illustrates submission, willing or unwilling, to death and eternity and the measure of eternity, time.

And here upon earth’s noonward height

This verse takes us back to the idea of "face down beneath the sun" implying praying, A number of times a day, Muslims must fall to their knees and pray in the direction of Mecca. One of these times is noon. Noon also refers to the middle of the day, so noon implies that we are in the middle of something. This idea of middle could strip away the notion that "face down…" is referring to death.

To feel the always coming on
The always rising of the night

What is the "always?" that MacLeish is referring to? Eternity, time, and death. To feel the always coming on is to feel life slipping away one minute at a time. This is a direct reference to the lines in Andrew Marvell’s— to whom the title of this poem refers —poem "To His Coy Mistress": "But at my back I always hear / Time’s winged chariot hurrying near." Marvell uses "hear" while MacLeish uses "feel," but it is the same sentiment. To feel the always coming on is to feel death and eternity approaching. The "night" from the next line is death and eternity, so to feel the "always rising of the night’ is to feel time passing and death approaching.

To feel creep up the curving east
The earthly chill of dusk and slow
Upon those under lands the vast
And ever climbing shadow grow

The night is approaching from the east, that is, the sun is setting in the west. Night/time/eternity is the "ever-climbing shadow." The shadow here implies approaching death. The fact that it is "ever climbing" denotes the stable passage of time and existence of eternity, Furthermore, the rotation of the earth, which brings the shadow, implies the mobile nature of eternity—it is the "always" that is "always rising." Finally, this stanza sets up the westwardly movement that is to be present throughout the remainder of the poem.

And strange at Ecbatan the trees
Take leaf by leaf the evening strange
The flooding dark about their knees
The mountains over Persia change

Once the ancient capital of Media, Ecbatan is now part of Iran. The word "strange" in the first line is probably being used in the archaic sense to mean distant. This is not just spatial distance, but temporal distance as well. Trees are often symbols of age and time. The word "strange" in the second line implies the change in color of the leaves as the night approaches. This verse, with the image of a tree being slowly, leaf by leaf, covered in darkness chillingly carries on the earth- rotating/time-passing theme.

Moreover, the mountains changing refers to them darkening as well as being altered by wind and rain over the centuries. Lastly, if we take this verse in conjunction with the previous two, we can see a person in Iran facing west towards Mecca as he prays, facedown beneath the fading sun. So we now have what appears to be a reference to Islam in a poem about time, death, night, and eternity. What does this mean?

And now at Kermanshah the gate
Dark empty and the withered grass
And through the twilight now the late
Few travelers in the westward pass

Kermanshah is a district and city in Iran. Here the poem further traces the path of the spreading darkness. In addition, it mentions the "withered grass" referring to the nature of living organisms to die, as it always has been. "…through the twilight now the late / few travelers in the westward pass" refers to aging and death. If one were in the twilight of his or her life, s/he is near the end of his or her life. The sun sets in the west, thus the west has often been seen as a symbol of death. Death is a constant, thus furthering the idea of eternity and time. In addition, to carry on the praying possibility brought up in the first stanza, death is the step that must be taken to get to ultimate reality and eternal reward or punishment.

And Baghdad darken and the bridge
Across the silent river gone
And through Arabia the edge
Of evening widen and steal on

Still further, the poet traces the path of the rising shadow across Arabia. If you take the stanza to say that the river is gone, then it repeats the same sentiment as stanza three where the poet mentioned the mountains changing. The river has dried up over time. If it is not the river but the bridge that is gone, then it can be taken to illustrate how human artifacts, as well as civilizations, crumble over time. The words "widen" and "steal" also carry a certain amount of significance. "Widen" reminds us of infinite space and time (i.e. eternity). Further, death has been compared with a thief in the night, an image that is conjured by the poet by using "steal."

And deepen on Palmyra’s street
The wheel rut in the ruined stone
And Lebanon fade out and Crete
High through the clouds and overblown

In ancient times, the Syrian city of Palymyra was great center of power and culture. Today however, after the passage of time, the city is just a poor village. The poet uses this example for two reasons. The first is to show how the life of a person follows a similar pattern. We are born, grow to be strong adults, then fade to old age, then die. Palmyra isn’t dead yet, but no one pays attention to it anymore, much in the same way as many people treat the elderly. As the shadow makes the wheel rut appear to be deeper until night finally makes it invisible, age wrinkles a person and makes him or her disappear.

The second reason the poet mentions Palmyra is in conjunction with Lebanon and Crete. They were all once powerful civilizations, but now they have all faded, much like the Median and Persian civilizations mentioned earlier. Night fell on those civilizations and they were no more. With the passage of time, all civilizations will disappear, as too, perhaps will humans.

And over Sicily the air
Still flashing with the landward gulls
And loom and slowly disappear
The sails above the shadowy hulls

As the night approaches further, the gulls are heading back to their nests on land, just as when death approaches humans prepare themselves to pass to eternity. Furthermore, there is an analogy of a person’s life to the sky. The early morning sky is full throughout daylight hours, but empties as night comes on. When a person reaches old age, his or her "sky" is "still flashing" with gulls, but eventually death comes on and all the birds (the soul) are gone. Also, there is a possible analogy of life being the sea and a person or even a civilization being a ship that travels on the sea. Just as night slowly but evenly swallows the ships, death swallows the person or civilization.

And Spain go under and the shore
Of Africa the gilded sand
And evening vanish and no more
The low pale light across the land

In this stanza, night has fallen. Just as empires fell, so to will humanity and even the earth disappear in the fullness of time. Death and eternity will eventually overtake everything. As a final note about Islam, the poem roughly traces its path westward just as the evening travels westward. It started in Arabia—the poem starts maybe too far to the east in Persia—travels westward across North Africa, Crete, Sicily and stops at Spain. Today there are Islamic countries, but the mighty civilization that swept across parts of Asia, Africa, and Europe is no more. In the same way, there are memories left of the Medians, the Persian empire, Palmyra’s erstwhile glory, and Crete’s ancient greatness, but those civilizations have fallen into oblivion, as will the current cultures pass away and become a collection of facts in a text book.

Nor now the long light on the sea

Until now, MacLeish has maintained a perfect 8 syllables per line, four line per stanza structure. Perhaps his breaking from form is symbolic of the earth’s and humanity’s eventual breaking from the patterns of life. After the sun has expanded and incinerated the planet billions of years from now or sooner if we destroy ourselves with cataclysmic wars such as the one the poet’s brother died in, the form will break a little. However, as the next stanza suggests, the pattern of eternity will re-assert itself and pick-up where it left off. In the same way, after the Second Coming or Armageddon or whichever rapturous end comes to humanity, God will continue on as She/He/It did before He created us.

And here face downward in the sun
To feel how swift how secretly
The shadow of the night comes on

This final stanza acts as a summation of the notion that was repeatedly expressed in the previous stanzas. The time between the beginning of the universe and now is long, but the life of a single human passes swiftly. Of course, it takes an individual’s perception to notice time passing or make subjective judgements about its speed. "Swift" and "secretly" death and eternity approach a single person just as they will all humanity. When the shadow of the night comes on, we will all be "face downward in the sun" (i.e. dead).

In the way of structure, each line consists of eight syllables. When turned on its side, the number eight becomes the symbol for infinity. Additionally, the poem is ten stanzas long—though one of the stanzas is actually just one line long. Since the number ten is our standard of order in numbering, this reasserts the idea of the evenly-paced, orderly procession of time. In addition, almost every stanza is four lines long. Four is a historical "religious" number, for instance there are four gospels in the bible. Thus we can draw from the poem that God created the infinite, ordered, universe. The absence of this structure at the end suggests man’s damaging influence on the world, maybe in the form of eating a forbidden apple or great wars. Thus, the universe is perfectly ordered by God until humans interfere, but the order starts to reassert itself, saying that man’s influence on the universe is very limited. Taken as a whole, the poem delivers a somewhat fatalistic view of time, eternity, and death. Time passes evenly and continually, eternity always was and always will be, death overtakes everyone and all things fall apart, and when humanity dies out, God and eternity will still be here, unaffected.