Poetry Response 1

I read the poem I'll be presenting to the class, "Evening Concert, Saint-Chapelle." This poem has beautiful imagery and gave me a vivid picture of the scene John Updike wanted to create. I really like that it compares the sun coming through the stained glass to the sound of the violins and their songs. It seems like he's describing the music almost like a religious experience, saying that the violins were sort of a recreation of the stained glass in the chapel. Or he may have been comparing the music of the violins to the lead between the stained glass pieces, as if to say that music is a heavenly experience that "hold[s] the glowing fantasy together." Then, the imagery shifts and Updike describes the whole scene as being "cased in thin but solid sheets of lead," as if to say that the experience was immortalized as a religious experience that he will remember for a long time, especially since he writes this in past tense, seeming to look back at a beloved memory. The only part of the imagery that really doesn't make sense to me is where he says "the glow became a milk." I understand that he means to say that the "glow" of the music was fading, but I don't know why he chose to use the word "milk" to describe that. Overall I really like this poem though, I think it gives a great visualization of how it feels and sounds to listen to beautiful music.