A Relevant Message for Today

Clay.

I awoke this morning feeling very grumpy. I started thinking about Iran and its attack on Israel, Russia's attack on Ukraine, and China's manufacture and shipment of fentanyl to Mexico, where the drug cartels smuggle into the United States, addicting and killing endless numbers of people. In a way that is atypical for me, I wished all Muslims death, along with the Chinese and Russians. Then, quite by accident, I came across this poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and I felt shame for the evil thoughts drifting through my head. Here is the poem:

The Song of the Potter

"Turn, turn, my wheel! The human race,

Of every tongue, of every place,

Caucasian, Coptic, or Malay,

All that inhabit this great earth,

Whatever be their rank or worth,

Are kindred and allied by birth,

And made of the same clay."

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The central theme of Longfellow's "The Song of the Potter" is the fundamental unity and equality of the human race, regardless of superficial differences in language, ethnicity, or social status. The poem uses the metaphor of a potter's wheel to convey this message of universal human kinship.

The opening line, "Turn, turn, my wheel!" establishes the potter's wheel as the central symbolic device of the poem. The wheel represents the cyclical, unending nature of human existence. Just as the potter endlessly turns the wheel to shape each new vessel, so too are all human lives part of an endless cycle of birth, life, and death.

The next lines make clear that this cycle encompasses "the human race, / Of every tongue, of every place." Longfellow deliberately names three distinct ethnic and linguistic groups: Caucasian, Coptic, or Malay, to emphasize humanity's diversity. Yet despite these surface differences, he declares that "all that inhabit this great earth, whatever be their rank or worth, are kindred and allied by birth,  "And made of the same clay."

The metaphor of the potter's clay is crucial here. All people are fundamentally equal in their shared humanity, their shared essence as "the same clay," just as each vessel emerges from the same raw material and is hand-shaped by the potter. Distinctions of "rank or worth" are illusory - beneath the surface, we are all kindred spirits united by our shared origins.

Longfellow's message is one of radical egalitarianism. The poem insists on the fundamental brotherhood of all peoples in a time of rising nationalism, imperialism, and social stratification. It is a call for human unity and mutual understanding in the face of conflicts caused by superficial differences. The potter's wheel, endlessly turning, reminds us that we are all part of the same eternal cycle, bound together by our common identity as children of the earth.

Overall, "The Song of the Potter" uses vivid, symbolic language to articulate a powerful humanist philosophy. Longfellow's poem encourages us to look beyond the superficial divisions that so often separate human beings and to recognize our fundamental kinship as fellow creatures "made of the same clay."