all life; that once nature dies it leads to the rebirth of something equally beautiful. The cycle of change, the whirling wheel of ripening fruition and decay, is shown as necessary by the portrayal of stasis in the poem's sixth section. "Is there no change of death in paradise?" asks the voice. "Does ripe fruit never fall?" The image of "rivers like our own that seek for seas they never find, the same receding shores that never touch with inarticulate pang" (1249) presents death as a consummation devoutly to be wished, a return to the ultimate mother Death. This idea of death as a return, a reunion, is one of our most common religious/mystical ideas. Christianity gives us the figure of Lazarus in the bosom of Abraham, a clear symbol of the return of offspring to its source. The poem's eight and final section retreats somewhat from this sense of closure. Images of Palestine and Jesus return, though in a context that denies them any symbolic power. "The tomb in Palestine is not the porch of spirits lingering. It is the grave of Jesus, where he lay"(1249). The woman feels that it is just a grave. She feels that nature is more filling and religious than something based on a tomb. "Whistle about us their spontaneous cries; sweet berries ripen in the wilderness" (1250)The woman in "Sunday Morning" allows the reader to look at nature and the Christian religion in different ways. She concludes that she should not have to give up all the beautiful, worldly aspects of nature for a religion based on death. She throws out to the thought of do we have to actually believe in the Christian religion? Can we not receive the same life fulfillment with nature? ...
