Edwin_Muir

Edwin Muir’s poem The Horses describes an apocalyptic disaster of worldwide proportions taking almost every life there is but with a hopeful ending. From the beginning Muir has biblical reference opening his poem with ‘barely a twelvemonth after’ which can be seen as referring to Jesus and the twelve apostles who transformed the world. Jesus according to the bible has been sent by God to better the world while God himself created the world within seven days, the second line of Muir’s poem ‘the seven day war that put the world to sleep’ referring that the entire world has been destroyed in the same time frame it was built. The only difference is that mankind brought upon the destruction on itself without any godlike doing. The destruction happened worldwide with very few survivors putting the entire world to sleep blanketing their entire world into silence. Silence the survivors were not used to as mentioned by Muir ‘it was so still we listened to our breathing and were afraid’. The first few days were still experienced with noise coming out of radios that suddenly fell still, knobs were turned but no answer indicating that the connection to the outer world to other countries has failed. In Muir’s view the connection to the ’old bad world that swallowed its children quick’ has been lost. Restoration of this connection first is suggested ‘if on a sudden they should speak again’ but then completely destroyed not to enter the old bad world again. Disaster has struck the world to a point where the survivors turn away from the machines to connect to their Fathers world being more connected to nature again signifying hope to better the world from the current situation. Muir describes this vividly ‘ the tractors lie about our fields.......we leave them where they are and let them rust’. Hope comes in the form of the Horses that one summer evening coming from ‘their own Eden’. Muir’s horses appear in a very dramatic and signifying way ‘a deepening drumming; it stopped, went on...........to hollow thunder’. The past catches up with the present revealing that mankind had sold their soul’s to the machines ‘we had sold our horses in our father’s time to buy new tractors. The Horses still greeted with enormous respect ‘we did not dare go near them’ but then finally seen ‘as that the long-lost archaic companionship’ had been restored showing the reader that the connection between mankind and nature needs to be rediscovered but still is and will be always intact . Then the Horses are being to be discovered ‘to be owned and used’ giving free servitude pulling ‘our plows and borne our loads’. The life of the survivors has been changed by the forthcoming of the Horses appearing from their own Eden. Their coming is a beginning to a better world where hopefully the connection between nature and mankind will still be strong. Muir also completes a strong reference with the bible at the end of his poem saying ‘yet new as if they had come from their own Eden’; Garden Eden representing a better, peaceful world – the survivors aim. Edwin Muir promotes with his poem The Horses hope- hope for a better beginning even within the most dramatic circumstances. Destruction becomes the fertile ground for a new, better life reassuring the strong bond between nature and mankind.