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“Love Calls Us to the Things of This World” Introduction
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"Love Calls Us to the Things of This World" is one of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Richard Wilbur's best-known poems. First published in the 1956 collection Things of This World, the poem celebrates the beauty of the ordinary and explores the relationship between the ideal and the real. The speaker describes a man who is half-awoken by the sound of laundry being hung outside his window. The man suddenly sees the bedsheets and blouses as a flock of angels, a vision that transforms even a mundane washing day into something transcendent. At first reluctant to leave this sight, the man finally understands he has no choice but to wake up and go about his usual business—and that this business might be just as sacred as his angelic vision. The poem suggests that everyday life, with all its mess and trouble, is still shot through with holiness.
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“Love Calls Us to the Things of This World” Summary
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The speaker describes a man waking up to the sound of clothesline pulleys. The man's soul, startled awake, hovers above him, not quite back in his body yet. Outside his window, the sky seems to be full of angels.
The angels are dressed in bedsheets, blouses, and smocks: they're really there. They rise up as if they're all feeling a gentle, heavenly nostalgia together; their clothes swell with shared joy as the wind makes them breathe.
Now the angels seem to be flying, their speed suggesting their awe-inspiring power. They move like the rapids of a river. And now, they stop, falling still so suddenly that they don't seem to be angels at all.
The man's soul flinches as it realizes that the man will soon wake up; the everyday world will violate his dreams, just as it does every day. His soul shouts, "I wish that the only thing that existed was laundry: clean, warm hands in the steam, and spotless, heavenly dancing."
But, as the sun shines smilingly on the world's lumpy terrain and its bright colors, the man's soul begrudgingly embraces his body again. As the man wakes up, his soul says, in a new voice: "Bring those angels down from the red-lit clotheslines where they swing. Prepare fresh garments for criminals; let lovers go to their sad fates wearing sweet, fresh clothes; let the clumsiest of nuns seem to float in clean, dark robes, somehow keeping their balance."
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“Love Calls Us to the Things of This World” Themes
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The Beauty in Everyday Life
"Love Calls Us to the Things of this World" describes a man mesmerized by the laundry hanging outside his window in the morning light. To the drowsy man, this ordinary sight seems downright magical: the clothes on the clothesline transform into "angels" and seem to communicate directly with his "soul." For just a moment, then, mundane laundry becomes something transcendent, even spiritual. Through this scene, the poem suggests that the everyday world sometimes reveals fleeting flashes of intense beauty and meaning.
Half awake, the speaker looks out his window to see that "the morning air is all awash with angels." Though these angels soon turn out to be "bed-sheets," "blouses," and "smocks," he nevertheless insists that "truly there they are"—and, in a sense, he's not wrong. In seeing something angelic in this ordinary laundry, he's observing that there's something deeply moving and sacred about even the most ordinary things. Everyday life is beautiful and holy, the poem suggests, if one pauses to notice.
As the man begins to wake, he has to accept the fact that these laundry-angels are going to turn back into ordinary laundry and that he'll get sucked right back into boring, depressing routine. Yet his feelings remain intense, suggesting that even temporary glimpses of the world's spiritual beauty have a lasting impact. Though his "soul shrinks" from the dull reality he'll soon have to face, he's still moved by what he's seen, to the point that he wishes that all the world's people might be both symbolically "clothed" in the "clean linen" of such a vision and literally clothed in fresh, clean garments—the small pleasures of everyday life.
Even once the transcendent joy provoked by the laundry has passed, then, the man sees its ordinary qualities in a poetic light. Moments of sublime beauty are short-lived, the poem suggests, but they can translate into a lasting appreciation for daily life—and a deeper compassion for the other ordinary people around us.
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Lines 1-34
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The Ideal World vs. the Real World
In "Love Calls Us to the Things of This World," a half-dreaming man catches a glimpse of another, better world when the laundry outside his window seems to transform into a crowd of "angels." He would love to stay in this dream world forever. However, he eventually accepts that he must wake up and face reality, in all its mundane beauty and pain. This struggle is universal, the poem implies: each morning, everyone must summon the strength to leave behind comforting dreams and face the imperfect world. Finding this strength requires a "bitter," complex kind of love for a complex world.
As the man wakes up, he slowly recalls that the world isn't as idyllic as it seemed in his dream state. The laundry outside his window, which he previously saw as a flock of angels, reverts to what it is in reality: simple clothing for imperfect, suffering humans (the world's "thieves," "lovers," and "nuns"). This realization jars the man, whose "soul shrinks' from the thought of waking and views the daily return of reality as a "punctual rape." Each morning, this line suggests, all of humanity must abandon their dreams of a perfect world and face the brutality of the real one.
Ultimately, it's a "bitter love" for everything the world has to offer—both good and bad—that propels the man to wake up. Even when he can clearly see life's flaws, the man chooses to focus on its beauty, in a mundane but impressive feat of strength that everyone must perform each morning. This, then, is the meaning of the poem's title: it's "Love" that "Calls Us to the Things of This World," convincing the "soul" to "accept the waking body" and the struggles of real life. Perhaps some of that love, however, comes from the ability to imagine the ideal: the speaker's glimpse of those "angels" in the laundry might give him the grace to hope that everyone can keep "their difficult balance" in an imperfect world.
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Lines 1-34
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Love Calls Us to the Things of This World”
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Lines 1-6
The eyes open ...
... awash with angels.As “Love Calls Us to the Things of this World” begins, a man awakes to the creak of pulleys outside his window. Readers will soon discover that this sound comes from a clothesline that someone outside is loading with clean laundry. To the half-awake speaker, though, the pulley might as well be a divine trumpet: it heralds the arrival of a sky "all awash with angels." The laundry appears to him as a heavenly host.
This vision arrives in the suspended moment when the speaker isn't quite awake or quite asleep: a "false dawn," not a complete waking. It's the man's "astounded soul" who witnesses this sight, not the man himself; his soul is "bodiless" at first, suggesting his consciousness hasn't completed the journey back to his body from the land of dreams. Rather than using possessive pronouns, the speaker refers to "the eyes" and "the [...] soul," showing that the soul is separate from the man's body. This distinction suggests that man’s experience is a profound and strictly spiritual one, one concerned only with his "soul."
The soft sibilance of words like "spirited," "sleep," "soul," and "simple" evokes the hushed holiness of the speaker's angelic vision.
While the poem doesn't directly say that the angels the speaker witnesses are misinterpreted laundry, there's a clue in a pun: "The morning air is all awash with angels." The word paints a picture of a sky that seems to swim with winged messengers, but also hints that those messengers are the washing. This points readers to an idea that will be important later: these laundry-angels are spotless, clean as the speaker's disembodied soul.
Richard Wilbur will tell the story of this transcendent vision in flexible free verse, without rhyme or a regular meter. Notice the way that the dropped line in lines 4-5 ("As false dawn. / Outside the open window")—that is, what looks like one line divided in two—creates drama, introducing those laundry-angels with a little clean, quiet space of their own.
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Lines 7-11
Some are ...
... their impersonal breathing;
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Lines 12-16
Now they ...
... to be there. -
Lines 17-23
The soul shrinks ...
... sight of heaven." -
Lines 24-27
Yet, as ...
... the waking body, -
Lines 27-34
saying now ...
... their difficult balance."
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“Love Calls Us to the Things of This World” Symbols
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Laundry
The poem's central symbol is the clean laundry hanging to dry outside the man's window. When the man sees the flapping sheets and blouses as a host of angels, they embody both the beauty of the everyday—they're just laundry, after all—and a kind of spiritual cleanness, a heavenly vision of a spotless world.
Eventually, the man is forced to wake, and the laundry is just laundry once more. However, even then, the man is able to appreciate the simple beauty of having something clean to wear. Even when life’s simple pleasures aren't quite transcendent, the laundry symbolically suggests, they can still bring joy.
Where this symbol appears in the poem:- Line 1
- Lines 5-6
- Lines 7-8
- Lines 9-16
- Lines 21-23
- Lines 29-34
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“Love Calls Us to the Things of This World” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Personification
"Love Calls Us to the Things of This World" depicts a man who, just on the border between sleep and waking, sees the laundry hanging outside his window as a flock of angels. The personification of the laundry suggests that there is beauty to be found in everyday objects and everyday life, even in a chore as mundane as hanging clothes out to dry.
When the laundry-angels first appear, they're a vision of "calm" and "deep joy," figures that speak of a better world. The fact that these angels appear in the form of clean clothes and spotless sheets might suggest that part of what's so angelic about them is their cleanliness: these immaculately happy beings reflect a world without mess or evil. Though the speaker feels that world is out of his reach after he wakes up, the fact that the angels appear in the ordinary laundry hints that the everyday world might be shot through with this immaculate beauty, even if it's not always obvious.
The speaker also personifies the sun at the end of the poem. As it rises, it "acknowledges with a warm look the world's hunks and colors": that is, it smiles down on the lumpy, brightly-colored landscape, not just the spotlessly white laundry. In these lines, the sun mirrors the man’s sentiments as he begrudgingly accepts that, just as the sun must rise each morning, he must continue to embrace the imperfect everyday world.
Where personification appears in the poem:- Lines 5-6: “Outside the open window / The morning air is all awash with angels.”
- Lines 7-16: “ Some are in bed-sheets, some are in blouses, / Some are in smocks: but truly there they are. / Now they are rising together in calm swells / Of halcyon feeling, filling whatever they wear / With the deep joy of their impersonal breathing; / Now they are flying in place, conveying / The terrible speed of their omnipresence, moving / And staying like white water; and now of a sudden / They swoon down into so rapt a quiet / That nobody seems to be there.”
- Lines 24-25: “Yet, as the sun acknowledges / With a warm look the world's hunks and colors,”
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Pun
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Alliteration
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Imagery
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“Love Calls Us to the Things of This World” Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Spirited
- Awash
- Smocks
- Halcyon
- Impersonal breathing
- Omnipresence
- Rapt
- Swoon
- Punctual
- Hunks and colors
- Ruddy gallows
- Dark habits
Spirited-
(Location in poem: Line 2: “spirited from sleep”)
Whisked away, stolen away.
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Love Calls Us to the Things of This World”
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Form
“Love Calls Us to the Things of This World” is written in five irregular stanzas of free verse, ranging from five to eleven lines long. Wilbur often shapes his stanzas with dropped lines—lines that seem to break off in the middle and pick up again on a new line, as in lines 4-5 ("As false dawn. / Outside the open window"). Take a look at the original text of the poem to understand how Wilbur formats these lines to make them look as if they're one piece split in two.
All those dropped lines make it feel as if the poem is built from broken or colliding cinquains (or five-line stanzas), a regular shape tweaked into something messier. That choice fits right in with the poem's themes. The speaker can't stay in his transcendent vision of spotless angels forever. Instead, he has to embrace the mess of the everyday world, learning to see the sacred in the mundane. The poem's broken form mirrors his acceptance of a broken world.
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Meter
"Love Calls Us to the Things of This World" is written in free verse, meaning it doesn't stick to any regular meter. This is a fitting choice for a poem about accepting all the mess and imperfection of everyday life.
However, the poem does use an occasional flicker of iambic pentameter—that is, a line of five iambs, metrical feet with a da-DUM rhythm. Listen to what happens in line 6 when the laundry-angels first appear, for instance:
The morn- | ing air | is all | awash | with angels.
This line could have come out of Shakespeare or Milton. (The extra unstressed syllable at the end doesn't change that—it's known as a feminine ending, and it's as traditional as the rest.) Fittingly, this elegant rhythm appears just as a heavenly vision does: a little glimpse of meter matches the speaker's glimpse of an immaculate, heavenly world.
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Rhyme Scheme
Written in free verse, "Love Calls Us to the Things of This World" does not use rhyme. Wilbur's poetry often used rhyme, so his choice not to use a formal rhyme scheme here feels especially significant. Perhaps orderly rhyme might have felt too neat and tidy to suit this poem's exploration of everyday life in all its imperfect beauty.
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“Love Calls Us to the Things of This World” Speaker
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The poem's speaker is an anonymous third-person narrator. While this speaker has no clear identity, readers might imagine that it's actually a voice for the "man" whose dreamy morning the poem follows. The speaker shares this man's perspective as he watches the laundry outside his window dancing like a flock of angels and regrets that he has to get up and go about his ordinary business.
Sometimes, the man's soul speaks for itself, taking on a different perspective from his "waking body." In turns lamenting the imperfection of the world and boldly resolving to embrace it, the man's soul expresses the paradoxical belief that the everyday world is both deeply disappointing and sacred.
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“Love Calls Us to the Things of This World” Setting
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"Love Calls Us to the Things of This World" is set in the early morning. The poem's speaker narrates as a man half-wakes to see laundry being hung up to dry outside his window. In his dreamy, half-asleep state, the "bed-sheets," "blouses," and "smocks" appear to be angels; for a moment, the everyday sight of laundry on a line gives him a glimpse of heaven.
Toward the end of the poem, the sun rises fully and illuminates all of "the world's hunks and colors"—that is, its lumpy, ordinary brightness, unlike the spotless whiteness of the laundry. This change in the environment marks the speaker's return to the (often disappointing) everyday world, but also strengthens his resolve to find beauty in the ordinary.
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Literary and Historical Context of “Love Calls Us to the Things of This World”
Literary Context
"Love Calls Us to the Things of This World" was first published in Richard Wilbur's 1957 collection Things of This World, which won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.
Wilbur's poetry often focuses on everyday life, following in the footsteps of poets like Robert Frost and W. H. Auden. "Love Calls Us to the Things of This World" is a prime example, examining an experience that's at once transcendent and mundane.
In addition to being a poet, Wilbur was a talented and well-known translator who worked on the plays and poetry of Molière, Voltaire, and Racine. These writers influenced Wilbur in turn; like Voltaire's, Wilbur's work is known for its wit and its belief in the power of the individual.
Later in life, Wilbur would be named Poet Laureate of the United States. Bestowing this honor, the Librarian of Congress described Wilbur as "a poet's poet, at home in the long tradition and traveled ways of the great poets of our language."
Historical Context
Richard Wilbur, born in New York City in 1921, lived through an era of European history marked by the rise of fascist governments, from Benito Mussolini's Italy to Francisco Franco's Spain to Adolf Hitler's Germany. A political philosophy defined by dictatorial power, political violence, the suppression of free speech, and intense nationalism, fascism would lead to the Holocaust and World War II. This global conflict ultimately killed 40 to 60 million people.
Wilbur himself served in World War II as a young man. He was deployed to Italy, where he witnessed firsthand the atrocities of Benito Mussolini's fascist regime. "Love Calls Us to the Things of This World" was written a little more than 10 years after he returned from his time in the military; sadder and more ambivalent than much of Wilbur's earlier work, the poem suggests that Wilbur was deeply affected by what he saw during the war. "Love Calls Us to the Things of This World" expresses both a wistful yearning for a better world and a sorrowful commitment to the one we've got.
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More “Love Calls Us to the Things of This World” Resources
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External Resources
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The Poem Out Loud — Listen to Richard Wilbur read his poem out loud.
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About the Poet — Read a short biography of Richard Wilbur.
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Wilbur's Legacy — Read Wilbur's 2017 obituary.
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Wilbur in WWII — Listen to Richard Wilbur discuss how his service in the war influenced his poetry.
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A Portrait of the Poet — Take a look at a portrait of Richard Wilbur in his study.
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