High Windows

Question 1

Speculative, vague language in beginning - When I see …

Answer 1

When I see a couple of kids
And guess he’s fucking her

Detached, bitter tone

Question 2

Taking pills

Answer 2

Taking pills or wearing a diaphragm,
I know this is paradise

Ironic - critiques youthful idealisation of freedom

Question 3

Bonds and gestures

Answer 3

Bonds and gestures pushed to one side
Like an outdated combine harvester

Emotional and romantic gestures are appreciated no more - bitter

Question 4

And everyone young

Answer 4

And everyone young going down the long slide

To happiness, endlessly

sarcastic metaphor - freedom looks easy, but may be an illusion

Question 5

Volta after ‘To happiness, endlessly’

Answer 5

Moves into reflective tone

Question 6

Caesuras/pausing in 3rd stanza after volta

Answer 6

thoughtful tone - were there the same old men during his youth who felt so jealous?

Question 7

No God any more

Answer 7

No God any more, or sweating in the dark

About hell and that,

Dismissive of religion - cynical. vagueness and lack of interest ‘and that’.

Question 8

Rather than words

Answer 8

Rather than words comes the thought of high windows

unobtainability
stepping away and seeing the world from a higher vantage point

Question 9

The sun-comprehending

Answer 9

The sun-comprehending glass,
And beyond it, the deep blue air, that shows
Nothing, and is nothing, and is endless.

Tricolon
transcendent/sublime imagery
Freedom is false and an illusion

Question 10

Precis

Answer 10

Composed with 5 quatrains, High Windows explores the shifts in freedoms between generations, whether it be sexual or religious, and confronts the void of meaning and transcendence.