Uphill
Christina Rossetti
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“Uphill” is about death, heaven, doubt, and uses a question and answer
structure. The structure and sense of being unworthy reminds me of George
Herbert’s Love (III).
Line by line:
“Does the road wind up-hill all the way?”
There are four ways of seeing this line.
1. Is this spoken after death?
The soul is facing a mountain, and cannot believe the struggle in front of them, a
kind of pugatory testing process?
2. Or is it spoken during life?
That life is so exhausting, such a struggle, and we long for rest that will never
come until death.
3. Is this the voice, instead, of the believer?
The person who is happy to marching onwards, as long as she has hope there is
something at the end, that the road keeps going up - the worst possible answer is
that the road does not go uphill.
Or,
4, could this be the voice of the poet, the artist, doubting her own potential?
The answer stands for all of them.
“Will the day’s journey take the whole long day?”
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This begins the theme of day and night in the poem.
Day is our life, our struggle, our journey, and at the end, our strength gives
out.
The first speaker seems afraid of the challenge, but the second speaker softly
affirms her worst hope - yes, it will take the whole long day.
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Note the word “morn” which could indicate a play on that word. “Morn” as it
is spelt could and does mean morning but it could also be interpreted as
“mourn” as in death.
How to keep going?
“But is there for the night a resting place?”
Will there be somewhere I can finally rest? Yes, there will be somewhere to
protect you when the “slow dark hours begin”, in other words, when death begins.
Do “slow, dark hours” remind anyone else of Emily Dickinson’s “Feels shorter than
the Day“?
Because I could not stop for Death (712)
by Emily Dickinson
Because I could not stop for Death –
He kindly stopped for me –
The Carriage held but just Ourselves –
And Immortality.
We slowly drove – He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility –
We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess – in the Ring –
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain –
We passed the Setting Sun –
Or rather – He passed us –
The Dews drew quivering and chill –
For only Gossamer, my Gown –
My Tippet – only Tulle –
We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground –
The Roof was scarcely visible –
The Cornice – in the Ground –
Since then – 'tis Centuries – and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses' Heads
Were toward Eternity –
“May not the darkness hide it from my face?
You cannot miss that inn
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Here the reader from a Christian culture realises what the poem is talking
about: I visualised an inn on a dusty mountain road glowing in the night. This
is Heaven. The comfort is that the right way and the right resting place are
both clear. When you get there you’ll know it.
“Shall I meet other wayfarers at night?”
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Wayfarers mean travellers.
All the first speaker’s questions are doubting, nervous; there is a feeling of
apprehension that the first speaker may miss the end of the very long journey
and that it will go on longer than expected.
The second speaker’s answers are perfectly calm and reassuring attempting to
allay the first speaker’s fears.
When read aloud, I find myself stressing “that” in “You cannot miss that inn”
“standing at that door”, as if the second speaker is gently chiding the
traveller’s worries (otherwise it feels strange to be repeating “that inn”, “that
door” without a change in emphasis).
“Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?”
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There is the feeling here that the long journey will not be without its trials and
that the first speaker will suffer on that journey. If the poem is to be
interpreted as life’s journey to death and ultimately to paradise then Rossetti’s
journey is not going to be an easy’
“Of labour you shall find the sum”.
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Is this line suggesting that many hands have been at work in building Heaven?
That all of human work has headed here?
Or that countless hands will be ready to comfort the weary new arrival?
“Yea, beds for all who come”.
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This is powerful - everyone who seeks peace shall find it.
It silences the first speaker - she has no more doubts.
She must simply keep struggling, and the resting place awaits.
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The line is particularly powerful for the Protestant reader, who has been told
of an exclusive heaven that only admits the elect few.
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This rather refutes Protestant doctrine - no, not just a few pre-ordained souls
will rise to heaven, but everyone who wants it.
Or you could see it as a very clear statement of the doctrine: the just shall live
by faith, and to have faith is to seek heaven. You may not be personally
worthy of heaven, but no one is, so you must only wish ardently for it, and live
as best you can.
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On the rhythm and prosody of the poem.
English is a language that relies on stressed and unstressed syllables for rhythm. A
line like
“From morn to night, my friend”
has six syllables, but three sound stronger than others — heavier:
From MORN to NIGHT, my FRIEND
This is different from ancient Greek poetry, where the length of the vowels
determines rhythm (dip versus deep).
If you organise stressed syllables in lines in recurring ways, readers will quickly hear
it. Many of the classics of English poetry are written in iambic pentameter: five
stresses per line. This is TS Eliot, writing iambic pentameter in the Waste Land:
‘My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with me.
‘Speak to me. Why do you never speak? Speak.
‘What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?
‘I never know what you are thinking. Think.’
I NEVer KNOW what YOU are THINKing. THINK.
The ideal pentameter line goes:
weak-strong weak-strong weak-strong weak-strong weak-strong
but only bad poets keep that without variation. This is Wallace Stevens, Sunday
Morning:
Why should she give her bounty to the dead?
What is divinity if it can come
Only in silent shadows and in dreams?
Shall she not find in comforts of the sun,
In pungent fruit and bright green wings, or else
In any balm or beauty of the earth,
Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven?
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So, what meter is Christina Rossetti using?
Underneath “Uphill” runs an adapted ballad rhythm, which traditionally goes
four stress, three stress, four stress, three stress,
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but Rossetti seems to have changed to
five three, five three,
and of course she is mixing things up, bringing back the standard rhythm just
frequently enough to keep it in our ears, but always then moving away from it.
Structure
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It is made up of four stanzas each one a quatrain.
Each stanza deals with a worry or concern of the first speaker and there is
a feeling that the speaker is moving closer to her destination with every
question.
The poem finishes with a feeling of inclusiveness as everyone who makes
it to paradise will be offered respite.
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