A bright Mediterranean hillside seems to belong completely to the speaker and a companion. The white light, purple rose-bays, dark cypress clusters, and grey-green olive trees are not just scenery; they are “ours.” A valley fills with yellow citrus like snow sliding from the peaks. The speaker says delight waits until their spirits tire of so much growth and color, but no one does tire. Instead, each person feels joined to each bush and flower in a state of complete happiness. The poem creates a still, sun-soaked, ecstatic mood. It is not about admiring nature from a distance, but about possessing and merging with it—the noon wind, the bee’s soft belly, the blush of a lifted rose petal all become part of the speaker’s inner life. Desire and landscape become one.
The Whole White World — Summary
The whole white world is ours, and the world, purple with rose-bays, bays, bush on bush, group, thicket, hedge and tree, dark islands in a sea of grey-green olive or wild white-olive, cut with the sudden cypress shafts, in clusters, two or three, or with one slender, single cypress-tree. Slid from the hill, as crumbling snow-peaks slide, citron on citron fill the valley, and delight waits till our spirits tire of forest, grove and bush and purple flower of the laurel-tree. Yet not one wearies, joined is each to each in happiness complete with bush and flower: ours is the wind-breath at the hot noon-hour, ours is the bee's soft belly and the blush of the rose-petal, lifted, of the flower.