| " Summary of Ash Wednesday " | |
| The poem # takes the reader | |
| # through stages in a speaker's | |
| faith . At first , he is hopeless | |
| and overly concerned with his | |
| own human error and inability | |
| to accept God filly into his | |
| heart . As the poem progresses | |
| he goes through a series of | |
| metaphorical transformation in which | |
| he's eaten by white # | |
| leopards and made to climb | |
| up a staircase away from | |
| the past . These trials improve | |
| him and help him leave | |
| behind the sins of the | |
| past . | |