Prepare, Prepare, Poet Seer Comments

I can see at least two possible interpretations of this beautiful, sad. and dignified poem. One is the Poet-Seer is being encouraged to prepare for death, which is pictured as a ship voyage. Other poets have used the Sea Voyage as symbolic of the last journey. Walt Whitman in A PASSAGE TO INDIA, which I encourage you to read if you have not yet encountered it. It is one the most essential poems to my mind. Just read it, or re-read it. I do, every year. D. H. Lawrence's SHIP OF DEATH is wonderful, perhaps you already know it. And Baudelaire's THE VOYAGE, which is both exhilarating and chilling. Whitman's PASSAGE is warm and friendly; Baudelaire's THE VOYAGE is cold and impersonal. On the other hand, the Poet-Seer might be withdrawing from Poetry, since his nerves are frayed and he has nothing left to give - except his life. And he chooses to withdraw from composing rather than risking that terrible fate.