Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

John Frederick Nims’ “A Scholar Wonders” is a compact but penetrating reflection on love, intimacy, and the limitations of intellectual understanding. In just four lines, the poem presents a scholar—presumably someone accustomed to analysis and intellectual inquiry—grappling with the seemingly paradoxical nature of romantic passion. The poem’s brevity mirrors the scholar’s struggle: he is left with more wonder than comprehension, his disciplined mind confounded by the primal and emotional aspects of human connection.

The poem opens with an exclamation: “Their human love confusing!” The phrase is direct, almost abrupt, as if the scholar is overwhelmed by the spectacle of love in action. The word “human” is particularly telling, as it suggests a distance between the scholar and the lovers he observes, as if he exists in a more abstract or cerebral realm. Love, as experienced by these lovers, is not an idea to be studied but a force that unfolds spontaneously, breaking free from any theoretical framework. The scholar’s response is not disdain but genuine bewilderment—he cannot fit their experience into the neat categories of rational inquiry.

The next two lines present a striking contrast between motion and stillness: “Off they fling / Flurry of skirt, shirt-heavens, everything!” The lovers, in their passion, shed their clothing in a whirlwind of movement, a flurry of fabric that rises like the heavens. The imagery here is exuberant and almost chaotic, capturing the uninhibited nature of physical love. The phrase “shirt-heavens” is particularly inventive, elevating discarded garments to something celestial, as if passion itself has a divine quality. This line brims with energy, suggesting that love is, at least in part, defined by abandon—by the willingness to let go of control, reason, and self-consciousness.

And yet, after this explosion of movement, the final two lines present a counterintuitive revelation: “And then, heaped dense and shining, mostly prize / The long long gazing in each other’s eyes.” Here, the poem slows down dramatically, shifting from frenzied disrobing to stillness, from the physical to the emotional. The phrase “heaped dense and shining” could refer to the discarded clothes, but it also suggests something more abstract—the accumulation of their passion, the way their love takes on weight and brilliance. Despite the intensity of their physical connection, what they “mostly prize” is not the act itself but the “long long gazing” into each other’s eyes. The repetition of “long” extends this moment, emphasizing its depth and significance. The lovers, having cast aside their external layers, seek something beyond the body—a connection that transcends the purely physical.

For the scholar, this realization is likely the most baffling part of all. He may have expected love to be defined by desire, by physical urgency, by the act itself. Instead, the lovers reveal that their greatest fulfillment comes from simply looking at each other, from recognition, from an intimacy that is as much about presence as it is about passion. In this sense, the poem suggests that love, for all its physicality, is ultimately about communion—about seeing and being seen, about the connection of souls as much as bodies.

Nims’ use of meter and rhyme enhances the poem’s impact. The AABB rhyme scheme creates a sense of symmetry and balance, reinforcing the contrast between action and contemplation. The rhythm is lively and dynamic in the first two lines, mimicking the lovers’ movement, but it slows in the final lines, mirroring the shift from motion to stillness. This structural choice subtly reinforces the poem’s theme: while passion is fleeting and explosive, true connection lingers and deepens.

In “A Scholar Wonders”, Nims distills an enormous idea into just four lines: love defies intellectual analysis. It is at once urgent and patient, physical and transcendent. The scholar, trained to seek knowledge through observation and logic, is left in a state of wonder, realizing that love is something that must be lived rather than understood.

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