A World Without Objects Is a Sensible Emptiness by Richard Wilbur
"A World Without Objects Is a Sensible Emptiness" by Richard Wilbur explores the tension between spiritual aspiration and the tangible world through the metaphor of a camel caravan journeying from an oasis into the desert. The poem employs a traditional stanza structure reminiscent of the 17th century, echoing the work of mystic poet Thomas Traherne, whose quote serves as the title. Wilbur contrasts the desert, often seen as a place of both spiritual challenge and temptation, with the oasis, symbolizing comfort and refreshment. The central journey represents a quest for spiritual perfection, yet the poem suggests that this pursuit may lead to disillusionment, likening the camels to "connoisseurs of thirst" seeking an unattainable mirage. As the poem unfolds, it critiques the notion of striving for a void, instead advocating for a deeper appreciation of the physical world, illuminated by spiritual insight. Ultimately, it posits that true fulfillment lies not in the abandonment of objects but in recognizing the divine presence within them. Through rich imagery and nuanced metaphor, Wilbur invites readers to reconsider the relationship between the spiritual and the material.
A World Without Objects Is a Sensible Emptiness by Richard Wilbur
Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition
First published: 1950 (collected in Ceremony, and Other Poems, 1950)
Type of work: Poem
The Work
The poem’s title is a quote from Thomas Traherne, a seventeenth century mystic and poet. The poem is written in a stanza form which would certainly be commonplace in the seventeenth century, with four-line stanzas rhyming abab, though some of the rhymes are slant rhymes. Line 1 is trimeter; line 2, pentameter; line 3, hexameter; and line 4, trimeter.
The central metaphor or conceit of the poem is that the search for Traherne’s “sensible emptiness” is a camel caravan, leaving the security of the oasis for a “desert experience.” It “move[s] with a stilted stride/ to the land of sheer horizon.” The camels search for a place where there is nothing but sand and sky. This central metaphor uses the ambiguous connotations of desert and oasis to structure the poem into a statement on the search for spiritual perfection. The desert is traditionally both a place where the ascetic goes to find God and the very image of hell, the dry place without rejuvenating water. Similarly, the oasis is the place of refreshment, the goal of the desert traveler, while at the same time it is the desert saint’s place of temptation, a return to the “Fleshpots of Egypt.” In fact, the archetype here is the exodus, the stately camels leaving the oasis to find God in the desert.
The speaker plays on the ambiguity of the imagery, however; the camels, the “Beasts of my soul,” are “slow and proud” and “move with a stilted pride.” He suggests that the camels are not ascetics but aesthetes, calling them “connoisseurs of thirst,” but what they thirst for is “pure mirage.” The goal of their quest seems to be an illusion.
The poet in stanza 4 refuses this goal of mirage and nothingness. He insists that “all shinings need to be shaped,” and he appeals to “painted saints” and “merry-go-round rings.” He exhorts these camels to turn away from the sand and the desert to (in stanza 6) “trees arrayed/ in bursts of glare,” and then names other green and substantial things—country creeks and hilltops illuminated by the sun. Stanza 7 advises the searcher/camels to watch “the supernova burgeoning over the barn” and then pronounces the true goal “the spirit’s right oasis, light incarnate.”
The poem, then, interprets the ambiguous associations in its own way. It takes the title’s quote as a mere description, which the “camels of the spirit” have mistaken for a spiritual goal. It rejects the desert as an ascetic goal, because to conquer it as the camels seek to do is not a humane act but an example of pride, an attempt to overrun the limits of human nature; a human cannot pursue a goal where there are no objects. The last line hints at the incarnational theology that honors both body and spirit. Each object to be sought at the end of the poem is bathed in the “spiritual” light of the sun.
Bibliography
Bixler, Frances. Richard Wilbur: A Reference Guide. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1991.
Edgecombe, Rodney Stenning. A Reader’s Guide to the Poetry of Richard Wilbur. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1995.
Hougen, John B. Ecstasy Within Discipline: The Poetry of Richard Wilbur. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1994.
Michelson, Bruce. Wilbur’s Poetry: Music in a Scattering Time. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1991.
Reibetang, John. “What Love Sees: Poetry and Vision in Richard Wilbur.” Modern Poetry Studies 11 (1982): 60-85.
Salinger, Wendy, ed. Richard Wilbur’s Creation. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1983.
Stitt, Peter. The World’s Hieroglyphic Beauty: Five American Poets. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1985.