The Secret

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1964

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Themes

The Meaning of Life

The poem centers on two girls who “discover / the secret of life” (Lines 1-2), or its meaning—a secret that the speaker-poet doesn’t know despite having written the poem in which the girls found it. The meaning of life is elusive: It is unknown to the speaker-poet, who cannot even identify the poem in question, and —“more than a week / later” (Lines 14-15)—has presumably been forgotten by the girls. But this fleeting quality is beneficial because the search and rediscovery that will lead the girls to finding the secret over and over again throughout their lives is more important than the profound truth they see in a particular line of poetry. The object of life is to keep finding meaning by living in the world and reading other pieces of literature, drawing out the secrets of “other / lines” (Lines 27-28) and “other / happenings” (Lines 29-30). As existence is multitudinous and diverse, the meaning inherently transcends restriction, and so the poem refuses to dictate a one-size-fits-all philosophy about the meaning of life.

However, the poem also carries within in an alternative reading. The last stanza carries a volta, or a thematic turn in the poem that transforms the meaning of what came before. The speaker subverts their optimistic speculation into the girls’ future lives of discovery by question whether they are naïve for “assuming there is / such a secret” (Lines 33-34). The speaker loves the girls for believing there is an elusive meaning to life, but the word “assuming” suggests that the speaker-poet is too jaded to adopt a similar approach. Nevertheless, the speaker admires the girls for their assumption, indicating that believing in a secret meaning to life, whether there is one or not, can be positive and healthy.

Mystery

The poem’s version of the secret of life is a mystery. Many of the poem’s other elements are enigmatic as well. The poem that the girls read is never identified; the secret they find is not revealed. Moreover, the four characters in the poem—the two girls, the speaker-poet, and the third person—are unnamed; the girls’ sole identifiers are youth and female gender, while the speaker-poet is known only by occupation. However, this opacity doesn’t preclude powerful emotions. The speaker doesn’t know the girls but “love[s] them” (Line 18) anyway for discovering and forgetting the secret. The girls don’t know the speaker, but the speaker assumes they can’t help but admire the creator of the poem that contained the secret: The speaker praises them for, “Loving me / for the line I wrote” (Lines 21-22). Neither lack of knowledge nor distance is a barrier to love in “The Secret.”

While the speaker can speculate about the effects that finding the secret will have on the girls, imagining their lives filled with similar moments of discovery, the prediction is vague and mysterious. The secret of life will manifest in “other lines” (Lines 27-28) and “other happenings” (Lines 29-30)—phrases that underscore the hazy puzzle of the future. Mystery remains the key feature of uncovering life’s meaning—to specify runs counter the imperative to draw conclusions from living an individual life and reading broadly, a rich existence that the speaker decides guarantees reencountering the secret “a thousand times” (Line 25). Keeping the secret is not the point. Rather, the point is to find the mystery, lose it, and then find it again rediscovering the meaning of life anew in each new moment.

The Urgency of the Moment

The poem’s third major theme is the ephemeral nature of moments in time and the need to make the most of these powerful segments of life. The discovery of the secret occurs in an instant: The girls find it in a “sudden life of / poetry” (Lines 3-4). The word “sudden” emphasizes the blink-and-you-missed it nature of the event—epiphanies happen in a flash. Influential moments are difficult to anticipate as they can come at any time or occur in a plethora of places. For the girls, the moment they read a line of poetry becomes deeply important; although it didn’t happen for the previous lines they read, this one unexpectedly contained “the secret of life” (Line 2).

Yet reading the line of poetry is only one of many powerful moments in the girls’ lives. “The Secret” antedates the discovery of the secret, taking place “more than a week / later” (Lines 13-14). By now, the girls have collected additional moments from their lived experience—memories and sensations that have pushed aside the secret and rendering it effectively lost. While the secret remains important, the new moments are critical to its recovery and rediscovery: The speaker emphasizes this, predicting that the girls will forget and remember the secret “a thousand times” (Line 25). Each moment will overwrite and refresh the previous ones. Each moment's urgency is all-consuming, requiring the girls to abandon themselves to life's “happenings” (Line 30) or the poetic “lines” (Line 28). By allowing the moments to overtake them, they constantly lose and regain the secret.