“To Find the Western path
Right thro’ the Gates of Wrath”- William Blake (Quotation on title page): Poems from the Rossetti Manuscript
Line 2: “Up Times Square” –
"Manhattan - Broadway-7th Avenue," (1930). Courtesy of NYPL.
Line 2: “to Columbus Circle” –
Courtesy of NYPL
Line 8: “You’ll find the garden in the third act dead” – A reference to the Garden of Eden.
Line 19: “A walk is better underneath the L” –
Courtesy of NYPL
Line 21: “Preparing penguin flexions of the arms” – Flexion simply means to bend or flex. Penguin, in this context could mean different things. Some critics have argued that the poet is simply going through a subway turnstile, but penguin is also used as a derogatory term the indicate a pompous, uptight man in a black and white suit (OED).
Line 22: “As usual you will meet the scuttle yawn” – See line 17 of proem “Out of some subway scuttle…” Scuttle is defined as: A square or rectangular hole or opening in a ship’s deck smaller than a hatchway, furnished with a movable cover or lid, used as a means of communication between deck and deck; also a similar hole in the deck or side of a ship for purposes of lighting, ventilation, etc. (OED)
Line 25: “Out of the Square, the Circle burning bright—-“- Here, Crane uses the images of Time Square and Columbus Circle with a William Blake reference. Most notable is the usage of the square and the circle and the last line of the “The Tyger.”
Lines 36-38: “the monotone of motion is the sound of other faces, also underground–“- This section is supposed to mirror a descent into hell, reminiscent of Dante’s Inferno in a way. If you picture a subway tunnel, the idea of a hellish atmosphere begins to make sense. R.W.B Lewis notes that “It is a hell featured, as it has been elsewhere in literature, by endless bleak repetition, by a sterile circling of incident, expression, and sound.”
Courtesy of NYPL