The Poem as Labyrinth: An Exploration of Hugh MacDiarmid's 'The Glass of Pure Water'

In the first part of 'The Glass of Pure Water' Hugh MacDiarmid introduces three unrelated themes which were close to his interests at the time of writing and represent perfection – the glass, God (or 'God' as a symbol), and the variety of manual signs. In the second half MacDiarmid invokes and combines these themes as precepts for the betterment of the lives of millions of men and women. He then asserts the anarchism which is his final ideal and of which communism is only 'a necessary and indispensable stage'. (Lucky Poet, Methuen, 1943, 67) In the last six lines MacDiarmid returns to the existing situation which has been the subject of his poem.