The White Goddess

Graves includes both the forest and a specific tree reference in “The White Goddess.” He mentions the “Green sap” (Line 15) of the “young wood” (Line 15), describing an entire forest and the season of “Spring” (Line 15). Then, in the description of the Goddess’s features, he focuses on a specific type of tree: Graves says her lips are the color of a “rowan-berry” (Line 13). The rowan tree, Graves writes in his prose book The White Goddess, is known as “quickbeam (‘tree of life’), otherwise known as the quicken, [...] or mountain ash” (167). Even more specifically, the rowan-berries hold magical powers in many Arthurian romances, such as the “sustaining virtue of nine meals; they also healed the wounded” and were considered the “food of the gods” (167), Graves notes. Furthermore, Graves says, the rowan tree is “the tree most used in the British Isles as a prophylactic against lightning and witches’ charms of all sorts” (167). This connects to the “bright bolt” (Line 22) at the end of the poem.

The “bright bolt” (Line 22) of lightning is also symbolic in “The White Goddess.” Continuing the motif of Greek allusions starting with the “God Apollo” (Line 2), the lightning can be read as a symbol of Zeus. It can also, more generally, be read as divine power. The symbolic power of a “bright bolt” (Line 22) is usually sudden and catastrophic, like its literal counterpart can be. Graves uses this symbol to advance the theme of the actions of Goddess bringing about seasonal changes, as well as to highlight her threefold nature.