Storm Ending

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1923

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Themes

Nature’s Awe-Inspiring Power

The central theme of “Storm Ending” is the awe-inspiring power of nature. According to Bernard W. Bell in “Portrait of the Artist as High Priest of Soul: Jean Toomer’s Cane,” Toomer “captures the insensitivity of man to the awesome beauty of Nature” (article excerpted in the 1988 Norton Critical Edition of Cane). Nature appears in several elemental forms throughout “Storm Ending,” including thunder, sunlight, and the earth.

The thunder’s placement, in relation to the speaker, indicates its position in the natural hierarchy: Thunder is “above” (Line 1) humans. The prepositional phrase is both literal (thunder originates in the sky) and metaphorical. Humans are only represented by parts of their anatomy (metonymically) in the phrases “our heads” (Line 1) and “our ears” (Line 4). This emphasizes the lack of significance, or even completeness, of humans in comparison to the power of nature. The poem focuses on the natural, not even including a complete individual.

Far above humans in the natural hierarchy, the sun sits above the thunderclouds. This is, again, literal in terms of the cosmos and atmosphere, as well as metaphorical. The thunderclouds are “[b]itten by the sun” (Line 6)—and bitten violently enough to bleed, as described in the following line. This passage both describes how rays of sunshine can penetrate clouds and demonstrates how far above humans the sun sits—the sun is powerful enough to make the clouds bleed. These clouds, in turn, are far “above” (Line 1) the humans on “earth” (Line 9).

The earth is, presumably, under the feet of the humans. The feet, like most of the human bodies that constitute the plural first person of the poem, are not described. However, the earth is positioned in relation to the thunder: The speaker describes the earth as “flying from the thunder” (Line 9), creating the image of thunder being delivered to the earth through the medium of “rain” (Lines 7, 8). The prepositional phrase of the last line echoing the prepositional phrase in the first line—“from the thunder” (Line 9) and “above our heads” (Line 1)—aligns the earth with its people. Both are subject to celestial and atmospheric powers.

Transience and Change as Natural

Celestial and atmospheric powers in the poem are cyclical, or changing, powers. The poem focuses on a moment of transition, when one power replaces another. The title “Storm Ending” indicates this state of change immediately. The speaker is not describing the height of the storm, when the sun could not penetrate the clouds, but the moment when the clouds are overcome, or “bitten by” (Line 6) the sun. The rain, also, is not at its most powerful; the raindrops are compared to “honey” (Line 8)—slow, fat drops rather than an intense downpour. Rather than a heavy wind creating sideways needles of rain, the wind simply exists in the poem as a place for the thunderclouds to “[r]umbl[e]” (Line 3). The poem documents the death of the storm, not its most lively moments.

Transience, as a theme, appears in the phased changes in punctuation at the end of lines. The first three lines end in commas that separate the short phrases, echoing the periodical thunder. An ellipsis, a symbolic trailing-off, at the end of the fourth line separates the first comma-separated section with another three-line section with no punctuation at the end of lines. This lack of punctuation, and the phase change of the ellipses, demonstrates the continuous nature of the rain. The last two lines break this pattern, using two kinds of full stop: an em-dash and a period. These lines create a third, incomplete phase (as it lacks the full three-line measure), implying a further transition to come.

The Sensuous Beauty of the Earth

In its totality, “Storm Ending” privileges aesthetic experience over the intellectual. The poem’s every word is physically descriptive and devoid of abstraction; even such seemingly conceptual words as prepositions denote physical reality, whether that of spatial relation (“above our heads” [Line 1]) or visual similarity (“like golden honey” [Line 8]). In a literary historical context, the poem’s pure physicality reflects the philosophy of the Imagist movement. However, the aesthetic significance far extends the trappings of this context; the poem is, on one essential level, about aesthetic experience.

Moreover, from the opening line, this aesthetic experience concerns sensuous beauty. The word “gorgeously” (Line 1) immediately establishes a laudatory, luxuriating tone. The particularity of the poem’s detail creates an observational intimacy and, in concert with the celebratory tenor and attention to cosmic wonders, a sense of meditative rapture. The metaphorical language, too, accords with the focus on beauty, as flowers “blossom[ing]” (Line 1) are an image of living fulfillment; an opening flower is existing in its fullest capacity, living to completion. The metaphor quickly extends to bells—through the flowers’ “bell-like” (Line 2) shape and the striking sound of the thunder. While bells may indirectly connote weddings or churches, their most significant action is to further characterize the thunder as melodious—or aurally beautiful—rather than cacophonous. This quality accentuates the thunder’s description in the first line, “blossoms gorgeously” (Line 1). Beauty is sovereign in the poem, as even the most negative images are quickly transfigured once more into splendor; the clouds’ figurative blood becomes “golden honey” (Line 8) that drips to a “sweet earth” (Line 9).