FOUR ZOAS I / 18:11-21:7


Analysis of the images
 that emerge as Man
 sinks down from the
 Saviour's arms

















The dissolving differ-
 ences between the
 Saviour and Man


















Revising the "Rock of
 Ages"


viduality," and "The Rock of Ages." All of these images, however, serve as
transformations of prior or immediate contexts and, despite their appear-
ance of mutual isolation, emerge as aspects of one another. The first half of
18:11, "Now Man was come," implies that what follows is an account of
the destination Man has been approaching (albeit in discontinuous leaps)
thus far in Night I. The second half of the line, "to the Palm tree & to the
Oak of Weeping," seems to specify new and precisely named parameters
for Man's journey. In fact, however, the naming of these trees obscures the
fact that the place at which Man now arrives is a consolidation and rein-
terpretation of the state he has occupied throughout this Night. That is,
because "the image of Eternal Death" is, in one of its manifestations, "an
Exudation from [Man's] sickning limbs" (18:10), the image of the
humanized trees plays off the dual meaning of "limbs"--as appendages of
a human body and as branches of a tree.
 This physical location is simultaneously a state of being, for these trees
which "stand upon the Edge of Beulah," are a precondition for the Man to
"s[i]nk down / From the Supporting arms of the Eternal Saviour." At this
moment in the text, what otherwise might seem to be a clear-cut distinc-
tion between the Man and the Saviour begins to disintegrate: "From the
Supporting arms of the Eternal Saviour; who disposd / The pale limbs of
his Eternal Individuality / Upon The Rock of Ages" (18:13-15). The
Saviour's "arms" are undeniably "limbs," a fact that renders indeterminate
the referent of"his" (18:14). Are the "pale limbs" disposed on the Rock of
Ages the Saviour's arms which could not support the Man, or are they the
Man's "sickning limbs"? Also, is "Eternal Individuality" an attribute of
the Man or of the Saviour? Or is it possible that the Man constitutes the
Eternal Individuality of the Saviour? "The Rock of Ages," which also
appears here for the first time in the poem, functions as a condensed image
of enduring separateness (Eternal Individuality) and of the desolate land-
scape ("Rock & Sand") generated by the Nuptial Song. The period follow-
ing "Rock of Ages" closes that image off from the phrase that follows-
"Watching over him with Love & Care" (18:15)--not only making it
impossible to determine who is "Watching over" whom but retroactively
modifying the meaning of "Rock" itself. Most straightforwardly, the
Saviour watches over the sunken Man; it is possible, however, that the
Man watches over the collapsed outstretched Saviour; it is even possible
that the "Rock of Ages," acting as an inscribed tombstone or surrogate,
watches over the pale limbs of either the Man or the Saviour. In this latter
reading, the "Rock" begins to be divested of its fixedness as it takes on the
characteristics of both a gentle (almost maternal) act of cradling and rock-
ing an infant and the rhythmic motion of indefinitely extended time. Such
a reading of "Rock of Ages" suggests why this act of "Watching over him
with Love & Care" so nearly inverts the action of the Daughters ofBeulah
in "brood[ing] over it [Ulro, the space of "Eternal Death"] in care & love"
(5:37); in this context it is no longer surprising that these images cluster
"upon the Edge of Beulah" (18:12).