Sabbaths, WI
Derek Walcott
“Those villages stricken with the melancholia of Sunday,
in all of whose ocher streets one dog is sleeping”
(Full poem unable to be reproduced due to copyright)
VOCABULARY
Sabbaths - Sundays, a holy day in Christian tradition
WI - an abbreviation for the ‘West Indies’
Stricken - struck by something, either physically or psychologically - often used in
the phrase ‘grief stricken’ - overcome by a sudden feeling of grief
Melancholia - a deep, penetrating feeling of sadness that is almost pleasurable or
comforting to experience
Ocher - a deep yellow-brown colour, spelled ‘ochre’ in the UK
Ashen - the colour of ash, a mid grey
Puckered - wrinkled or gathered in small folds
Sulphur stone - sulphur (US - sulfur) is a chemical element (S) that has a yellow
colour. Sulphurous rocks are yellowish in colour and can be found around volcanoes,
they often steam and give off a rotten smell.
Cocoa grove - a gathering of cocoa / cacao trees - these are used to produce
chocolate
Gommiers - Carribean trees that are a type of birch gum tree, the gum or sap that
they release gives off a smell like incense
Esplanade - a long promenade next to river or body of water, in this case Walcott is
referring to the flat, wide walkway next to the sea
Frigate birds - a type of black seabird that have white or red chests
Draughts - a board game that uses circular counters
Vespers - evening prayers
Epoch - a specific period of time in history that’s considered to be a complete unit
Spinsters - unmarried women, particularly those who have grown older and
remained unmarried
Inquiring - asking, usually in a professional or curious way
Nettles - weeds that have poisonous leaves and grow up in uncleared territory
, STORY/SUMMARY
Set in the Caribbean, the speaker tells us a story of what happens to villages on a
Sunday - they are ‘stricken with melancholia’, they suddenly become sad and sombre.
The streets are almost deserted, with ‘one dog’ sleeping on them. There are volcanoes,
where poor ‘thin’ boys gather to sell sulphurous rocks to make a bit of money. The
banana leaves are ‘burnt’ and the river bed is now ‘made of broken bottles’, showing
the destructive impact that humans have had on the environment. The bird that used
to sing in the cocoa grove has ‘forgotten its flute’ - it is no longer singing. Gommier
(gum) trees have bark scorched by the sun, and they are leaning towards the land,
looking as though they are trying to get away from the sea. There is a dead lizard, the
rivers become ‘spittle’ and the esplanade is dry - populated by dry almond trees and
dry (wrinkly) old men. The men watch a schooner at sea through the branches of the
trees, and it looks like it’s caught in a net. They play ‘draughts’ with the frigate birds -
perhaps the coloured red and white chests through the lattice of the trees look a little
like counters on a draughts board. The speaker observes that the hills look like ‘broken
pots’, an allusion to classical history, he also remembers the ferns and roads that pray
using their own name. The thought of the road makes him realise how it changed the
landscape, it stopped the presence of crabs and herons that may have been there
before, and even the nettles, which usually grow everywhere were no longer there -
although they ‘waited’, suggesting that one day they may come back even if the crabs
and herons don’t. The final few lines of the poem increasingly repeat the phrase ‘those
Sundays’, whilst presenting us with a few more images - the way that the light at the
end of the road is ‘an occasion’, an important event (this is likely referencing sunset);
memories of the speaker’s mother lying down, watching ‘sisters’ - nuns - congregate
around a streetlamp as the night. The final line switches to using the personal
collective pronoun ‘us’, as the speaker finally shifts to himself and his own family or
friends as they drive through the landscape: ‘cities passed us by on the horizon’.
SPEAKER/VOICE
We typically think of Sundays as a day of rest, and there is a kind of calmness to this
day - but it is more melancholic in tone, rather than peaceful and happy. The poem
starts in daylight and moves into night, as the speaker traverses the landscape and
provides us with details of images he used to experience particularly on Sundays in
childhood. He is perhaps feeling guilty, as for him (if we interpret the speaker to be
Walcott himself) his days would have been lazy, a contrast with the poverty-stricken
