Great Regulars: The speaker's first claim is startling

with its stark contrast: in a rather inauspicious place, he has experienced "visions of God." The unlikely location of this vision is in proximity to a stone-colored house with a wall. The house is only "painted" to look like stone, and the speaker does not reveal the material from which the house is actually constructed.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Amichai's Near the Wall of a House

~~~~~~~~~~~

The speaker hears the angels sing in her lover's voice, and as she loved his poems and music before, she has become even more enamored with them after a brief period of time has passed. His very name "moves right in what they say." As the angels sing and heavenly music delight her, she realizes that her beloved has brought about her pleasant state of mind.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Barrett Browning's Sonnet 7

~~~~~~~~~~~

The speaker in Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "Sonnet 8" from Sonnets from the Portuguese once again finds herself baffled with the attention she receives from one who is so much above her station in life. He has given her so much, being a "liberal/And princely giver." He has brought his valuable poetry to her along with his own upper-class qualities and manners.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Barrett Browning's Sonnet 8

~~~~~~~~~~~

But once the suffering begins, the consciousness becomes aware of itself and notes that the feeling causes stiffness, hardness, and coldness as the "Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs."

Time becomes a loose construction, and the sufferer feels that she might have been suffering for centuries.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Dickinson's After great pain

~~~~~~~~~~~

That chaos of "thoughts" suggests the image of birds or leaves that at the behest of the wind fly off in all directions, without a constructive goal or destination.

The thoughts may also behave as if they are scampering mice, moving probably for the same reasons of fear and discomfort. Those thoughts are begging to be tamed and brought in from the cold; they need desperately to be "settled," to be brought "home" where they may find repose and renewal.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Wordsworth's On The Banks Of A Rocky Stream

~~~~~~~~~~~

The speaker then insists that "amidst an uproarious crowd" he finds that he can, in fact, be lonely because the presence of the Divine Reality, so palpable in silence, is hard to realize in a noisy, boisterous group of people. Colorfully, the speaker says that in such a place the silence of the Divine "slips away/Like a startled, fast-footed large-eyed deer."

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Yogananda's I Am Lonely No More

~~~~~~~~~~~