"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.

• Read the full text of “Love Calls Us to the Things of This World”

• “Love Calls Us to the Things of This World” Summary

• “Love Calls Us to the Things of This World” Themes

  • 

    The Beauty in Everyday Life

    Where this theme appears in the poem:

    • Lines 1-34
  • 

    The Ideal World vs. the Real World

    Where this theme appears in the poem:

    • Lines 1-34

• Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Love Calls Us to the Things of This World”

  • Lines 1-6

    The eyes open ...
    ... awash with angels.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 7-11

        Some are ...
    ... their impersonal breathing;

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 12-16

        Now they ...
    ... to be there.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 17-23

    The soul shrinks ...
    ... sight of heaven."

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 24-27

        Yet, as ...
    ... the waking body,

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 27-34

    saying now ...
    ... their difficult balance."

    

    

    

    

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• “Love Calls Us to the Things of This World” Symbols

  • 

    Laundry

    Where this symbol appears in the poem:

    • Line 1
    • Lines 5-6
    • Lines 7-8
    • Lines 9-16
    • Lines 21-23
    • Lines 29-34

• “Love Calls Us to the Things of This World” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

  • Personification

    

    

    

    

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    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,”

  • Pun

    

    

    

    

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    Where pun appears in the poem:

    • Line 6: “The morning air is all awash with angels.”
    • Lines 32-33: “the heaviest nuns walk in a pure floating / Of dark habits,”

  • Alliteration

    

    

    

    

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    Where alliteration appears in the poem:

    • Line 2: “spirited,” “sleep,” “soul”
    • Line 3: “simple”
    • Line 7: “bed,” “blouses”
    • Line 8: “Some,” “smocks”
    • Line 9: “swells”
    • Line 10: “feeling, filling,” “whatever,” “wear”
    • Line 13: “speed”
    • Line 14: “staying,” “white,” “water,” “sudden”
    • Line 15: “swoon”
    • Line 16: “seems”
    • Line 17: “soul,” “shrinks”
    • Line 18: “remember”
    • Line 19: “rape”
    • Line 22: “rosy,” “rising”
    • Line 23: “dances done”
    • Line 25: “warm,” “world's”
    • Line 30: “Let,” “linen”
    • Line 31: “Let lovers”
    • Line 32: “heaviest”
    • Line 33: “dark,” “habits”
    • Line 34: “difficult”

  • Imagery

    

    

    

    

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    Where imagery appears in the poem:

    • Line 1: “The eyes open to a cry of pulleys,”
    • Lines 5-6: “Outside the open window / The morning air is all awash with angels.”
    • Lines 9-10: “Now they are rising together in calm swells / Of halcyon feeling”
    • Lines 13-16: “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 22-23: “rosy hands in the rising steam / And clear dances done in the sight of heaven”
    • Lines 24-25: “the sun acknowledges / With a warm look the world's hunks and colors,”
    • Line 29: “    "Bring them down from their ruddy gallows;”
    • Lines 31-33: “Let lovers go fresh and sweet to be undone, / And the heaviest nuns walk in a pure floating / Of dark habits,”

• “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
  • (Location in poem: Line 2: “spirited from sleep”)

• Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Love Calls Us to the Things of This World”

  • Form

  • Meter

  • Rhyme Scheme

• “Love Calls Us to the Things of This World” Speaker

• “Love Calls Us to the Things of This World” Setting

• Literary and Historical Context of “Love Calls Us to the Things of This World”

• More “Love Calls Us to the Things of This World” Resources

  • External Resources

    • The Poem Out Loud — Listen to Richard Wilbur read his poem out loud. 

    • About the Poet — Read a short biography of Richard Wilbur. 

    • Wilbur's Legacy — Read Wilbur's 2017 obituary.

    • Wilbur in WWII — Listen to Richard Wilbur discuss how his service in the war influenced his poetry.

    • A Portrait of the Poet — Take a look at a portrait of Richard Wilbur in his study.

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