In Robert Penn Warren’s ‘Evening Hawk,’ an evening hawk sighting forces the speaker to contend with humanity’s powerlessness.
Warren uses the hawk to symbolize the relentless march of time, which continues regardless of human errors or triumphs. The speaker’s spiritual experience ends melancholy as he imagines the slow and painful progress of human history.
Summary
In ‘Evening Hawk,‘ the speaker narrates a hawk sighting at sunset. Although the speaker is initially struck with wonder at the hawk’s approach, he soon becomes overwhelmed with the cosmic magnitude it represents.
The speaker imagines the hawk as a Grim Reaper figure who has come to pass judgment on the errors of human history. He compares its motion to that of a scythe, cutting down days like wheat. As the sun sets and the hawk departs, the speaker reflects on humanity’s impotence in the face of time.
Structure and Form
‘Evening Hawk‘ is a free verse poem consisting of 23 lines and six stanzas of an inconsistent length. There are no rhymes, but Warren frequently uses lyrical repetition and symbolic imagery to structure the poem.
Literary Devices
Warren uses the following literary devices:
- Repetition: Warren frequently uses repetition to give additional emphasis to his lines. Examples include “hear” in lines 9 and 21 and “Look! Look!” in line 12. He also uses it to give lines an internal rhythm, as in line 1.
- Symbolism: The hawk is a powerful symbol in the poem, representing the awesome and frightening power of the universe.
- Enjambment: Warren often uses enjambment to give the poem greater momentum. Examples include lines 1, 3, 4, and 8.
- Allusion: Warren alludes to the philosopher Plato in the fifth stanza, as well as the archetypical Grim Reaper in stanza 2.
Detailed Analysis
Stanza 1
From plane of light to plane, wings dipping through
(…)
The last tumultuous avalanche of
Light above pines and the guttural gorge,
The hawk comes.
In the first stanza, the speaker describes a hawk sighting at sunset, though he does not name the hawk until the final line. Instead, he allows an ominous tension to build. He first mentions the wings, honing in on the hawk’s most powerful feature. By juxtaposing the hawk with an expansive natural world, including a sunset, peak, and gorge, Warren characterizes the speaker’s experience as awesome.
His use of mathematical language such as “plane,” “geometries,” and “angularity” suggests the imposition of human logic onto nature. However, as the hawk rides a “tumultuous avalanche” of light over a “guttural gorge,” its arrival begins to feel unstoppable, almost terrifying. An “avalanche” is a cataclysmic event out of human control, while a gorge is extremely dangerous.
The word “guttural” suggests a harsh primality, very different from the delicate “Geometries and orchids” the speaker initially imagines. At last, “The hawk comes” and confronts the speaker with a series of revelations.
Stanzas 2-3
His wing
Scythes down another day, his motion
(…)
The crashless fall of stalks of Time.
The head of each stalk is heavy with the gold of our error.
Again, Warren focuses on the hawk’s “wing,” and its ability to “Scyth[e] down another day” makes it seem immense. The word “Scythes” echoes the Grim Reaper’s scythe, which he uses to harvest the souls of the dead. The motion of the “honed steel-edge” further suggests that the hawk is a ruthless figure of death and destruction. That the edge is “honed” implies that the action has been repeated, perhaps since the beginning of time.
The speaker claims that “we hear/The crashless fall of stalks of Time.” The use of “we” draws in the reader, while the “crashless fall” characterizes the event as quiet but devastating. The image of “stalks of Time” again recalls the Grim Reaper and almost personifies “Time” itself. Warren then isolates the next line as its own stanza, stating that the “head” of each stalk is “heavy with the gold of our error,” implying that the hawk’s course is that of human history. The “head[s]” has a double meaning, imagining the stalks as people whose heads are falling with the progression of Time.
Stanza 4
Look! Look! he is climbing the last light
(…)
Whose eye, unforgiving, the world, unforgiven, swings
Into shadow.
Warren continues to pull the reader into the speaker’s experience with “Look! Look!,” as if the reader were present to see the hawk. The hawk “climb[s]” the sunset, disappearing as the world plunges into night and leaves the speaker in shadow.
His initial wonder has become melancholy as he imagines an “unforgiving” sun and an “unforgiven” world. Faced with nature’s majesty, the speaker is reminded of humanity’s folly and, implicitly, his own.
Stanza 5
Long now,
The last thrush is still, the last bat
…
Is ancient, too, and immense. The star
Is steady, like Plato, over the mountain.
The speaker goes on to describe nighttime. The “last thrush,” a diurnal bird whose song peaks around dusk, has been replaced by the “last bat,” who “cruises” serenely. This third repetition of “last” emphasizes the epic, disastrous quality of the speaker’s experience, which contrasts with the calm nature of the wise bat and the “steady” star. Warren references “Plato” and “hieroglyphics,” bringing human history and culture back into his descriptions.
Since Plato’s philosophy often dealt with immortal souls and eternal ideals, this reference emphasizes how much more vast and ancient the world is compared to human history and human error.
Stanza 6
If there were no wind we might, we think, hear
(…)
Drip in darkness like a leaking pipe in the cellar.
Warren refocuses on sound and uses “we” again, pushing the readers to imagine the sounds and images he describes. The speaker first “hears/The earth grind on its axis.” The motion of “grind[ing]” suggests old machinery; the earth feels ancient, possibly damaged. He then hears “history/Drip in darkness like a leaking pipe in the cellar.” The cellar is a dark, underground place hidden beneath one’s home, just as the speaker’s fears about his place in the world were buried before the hawk sighting.
A “pipe” is a human invention, so its “leaking” ultimately affirms humanity’s imperfections and our relative unimportance in relation to the vast scale of the universe.
FAQs
The poem’s expansive symbolism draws upon imagery of death and human history, which serve to highlight humanity’s inability to halt the progress of time.
The tone of ‘Evening Hawk’ is initially ecstatic and becomes increasingly melancholy. The speaker calls out to the reader in wonder and agitation in the fourth stanza, but the sounds and images of the final stanza are quiet and somber.
The core themes of ‘Evening Hawk‘ include time, which Warren views as a more powerful force than any human invention, and human perception, which always shapes, or warps, how people see the world.
Similar Poetry
- ‘Bearded Oaks’ by Robert Penn Warren — contains similar themes about eternity and the relationship between nature and humanity.
- ‘Jerusalem’ by William Blake — also uses expressive, mystical imagery of human history and reflects on our perception of time.
- ‘Time, Real and Imaginary’ by Samuel Taylor Coleridge — also centers on humanity’s complex and difficult relationship to time.
