Anna Wickham’s speaker longs to be intoxicated by life itself—by wine, faith, love, or song—and to stay that way forever. She would rather ride the peaks of ecstasy and the troughs of pain than be “sober” or “sane.” The reason emerges as an old wound: she lived too long among cold, solemn men who demanded sameness. They were merciless, feeding on her spirit and draining her soul in the name of “holy Uniformity.” The title’s list of poets, workmen, women, and children in orphanages suggests she is speaking for all those who are told to be reasonable, quiet, or normal. The mood is defiant, wounded, and almost breathless. It feels like a protest against a world that crushes strong feeling and individuality, disguised as respectability. The short lines and blunt images—especially being devoured—make the speaker’s anger and hunger for freedom feel immediate and personal.
For Poets, Workmen, Women, and Children in Orphanages — Summary
With wine or with faith, with love or with song, Let me be drunken all my life long. On hills of ecstasy, in troughs of pain, Never more sober, never more sane. For I lived too long in a den Of sane and solemn men. Each merciless as a beast. And my spirit was their feast. They sucked my soul from me All for the sake of holy Uniformity.