Anti-Sodom Comments

The language of this poem is extremely tight, wound up like a spring threatening to unravel. But it doesn't because it ends in penance for whatever wrong has been committed. The speaker is being accused not just of a sin of the flesh but of hypocrisy. No defense is offered to dispel the guilt. Rather the speaker takes on the suffering of the Flying Dutchman until that painful wandering purges her soul of its guilt. This poem affirms the need to take responsibility for one's failings but it is imbued with trust in God's eventual forgiveness.