Cirrus@Austlit

Ackland argues that the poem transcends purely descriptive categories and should be read as prophetic, blank verse narrative in the tradition of Milton and Wordsworth. Harpur portrays the struggle between reason and instinct, reenacting man's fall in the light of Miltonic parallels. Beginning in pictorial terms, like much of Harpur's verse, the poem proceeds towards the greater issues of spirituality and salvation through an experience of the sublime.